Dumbocrat tells the truth
Dumbocrat candidate JFK just slipped up and told the truth: I will double our special forces in order to conduct terrorist operations. Thats what he said. Shane Mage Thunderbolt steers all things...It consents and does not consent to be called Zeus. Herakleitos of Ephesos
Re: Dumbocrat tells the truth
Yup. I heard it too. He corrected himself. Fortunately for him, this is not the sort of gaffe the R's can use against him. -Original Message- From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Shane Mage Sent: Thursday, July 29, 2004 10:41 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Dumbocrat tells the truth Dumbocrat candidate JFK just slipped up and told the truth: I will double our special forces in order to conduct terrorist operations. Thats what he said. Shane Mage Thunderbolt steers all things...It consents and does not consent to be called Zeus. Herakleitos of Ephesos
Slate/Noah: Park Service terminates its truth-telling police chief
[An interesting addendum to the segment in F-9/11 about the paucity of patrols in the National Parks in Washington State] [It was only yesterday I heard a radio commentator wrongly holding this up as an example of a Moore-ish distortion because he thought it was a matter of state budgets that Bush didn't directly control.] http://slate.msn.com/id/2103739/ chatterboxGossip, speculation, and scuttlebutt about politics. Gagging the Fuzz, Part 6 The Park Service formally terminates its truth-telling police chief. By Timothy Noah Posted Monday, July 12, 2004, at 5:47 AM PT The National Park Service formally terminated Teresa Chambers on July 9. Chambers is the Park Police chief who was canned this past December for answering truthfully some questions posed to her by a Washington Post reporter about how budget constraints had forced a reduction in police patrols in parks and on parkways around Washington, D.C. For months prior to that interview, we now know from an affidavit Chambers filed June 28, Chambers had been harassed by her two superiors, National Park Service Director Fran Mainella and Deputy Director Don Murphy, over her refusal to disguise within the Park Service and its parent agency, the Interior Department, these patrol reductions. (The reductions were potentially embarrassing because the Bush White House doesn't want to admit, even to itself, that it's not putting its money where its mouth is on homeland defense.) The National Park Service put Chambers on administrative leave for her sins. The expectation was that it would fire her. Now it has. The timing is significant. Earlier that day, Chambers had filed a motion with the Merit Systems Protection Board, which adjudicates whistleblower complaints by federal workers, urging the MSPB to reinstate her in her job pending its final ruling and to prevent the Park Service from formally dismissing her. The Park Service responded within hours by firing Chambers before the MSPB could rule on her motion, thereby mooting it. The MSPB will still rule, however, on whether the Park Service's firing constitutes illegal retaliation against a whistleblower, which clearly it does. Chambers, alas, will have to proceed without the help of the Office of Special Counsel, a federal agency that argues whistleblower complaints before the MSPB. The OSC agreed to take Chambers' case in February, but for inexplicable reasons it failed to act within the customary 120 days. We just continued to give them extensions, Chambers told Chatterbox. After about three weeks, however, Chambers decided to file her own complaint, as the law allows. The June 28 affidavit and the July 9 motion were both part of that effort. As is usual under such circumstances, the OSC will now withdraw from the case. Chambers says she has no idea why the OSC moved so slowly on so simple a case: I know the investigator was very thorough. But Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, a private advocacy group that has been publicizing Chambers' case, notes pointedly that the special counsel, Scott Block, is a recent Bush appointee. Insinuation: Politics inspired foot-dragging. But Chatterbox has to believe that the net political effect of Chambers' case--particularly her abrupt firing last week, which leaves her without a salary--will be political embarrassment for the Bushies. Maybe it's time for candidate John Kerry to start talking up the Park Police chief's firing as an example of the Bush administration's willful blindness toward the consequences of its policies and its viciousness toward those who won't play along. Teresa Chambers Archive: April 14, 2004: Gagging the Fuzz, Part 5 March 25, 2004: Gagging the Fuzz, Part 4 Feb. 19, 2004: Gagging the Fuzz, Part 3 Jan. 12, 2004: Gagging the Fuzz, Part 2 Dec. 30, 2003: Gagging the Fuzz Timothy Noah writes Chatterbox for Slate.
my Guardian piece: Truth, justice and corporate sway
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,3604,1208340,00.html Truth, justice and corporate sway Nomi Prins Monday May 3, 2004 The Guardian Mark Twain once said: We have a criminal jury system which is superior to any in the world; and its efficiency is only marred by the difficulty of finding 12 men who don't know anything and can't read. More than 130 years later that is still true. But added to the stipulation is the requirement that the jurors live under a rock. In America, the more complicated the crime the less likely jurors will reach a conviction. If lawyers can bamboozle them sufficiently, a mistrial is as good as a victory. This works to the advantage of white collar criminals in intricate cases, usually those involving the most money extorted in the most convoluted ways. Take the second trial of Frank Quattrone, former CSFB investment banker, which began on April 13 and rested last Wednesday. His first trial resulted in a hung jury and a mistrial. In trial number two, prosecutors linked Quattrone's IPO churning activities to those of fellow brokers and stray emails. This increased the case's complexity and the likelihood of a similar outcome. Last month, another high profile corporate criminal case ended in mistrial. After six months, thousands of documents and hundreds of hours of court time, Tyco's former chief, Dennis Kozlowski, emerged with a smile and a presidential wave. The press was as much at fault for that mistrial call as the 79-year-old juror they vilified for her actions. It was the Wall Street Journal and New York Post which crossed conventional journalism lines by exposing her personal details. Trying criminal cases requires selecting 12 unbiased jurors. They have to reach a unanimous decision. They must also possess as little knowledge about the case as possible. Finding people who fit the bill is hard the first time; the second, it requires locating 12 cave dwellers. All but impossible for a Tyco retrial. Mistrial details were blasted across every big media outlet. Gossip about Kozlowski's $6,000 shower curtains, $2m parties and mistresses stoked many water cooler conversations. In a country fixated with reality shows, involvement in a highly publicised trial fulfills many people's desire for the spotlight. This is incongruous with juror impartiality. Indeed, after the Tyco mistrial, several jurors jumped on the bandwagon. One wrote an account for Time magazine; another awaits a book deal and others appeared on television. Meanwhile, the US press waxes oddly optimistic about corporate criminal justice. After Tyco's mistrial announcement, the New York Times ran two back-to-back stories extolling white collar victories. The reality is different. Because of the nature of the jury system, there have been precious few important convictions arising from actual proceedings. Mostly, closing complex high profile cases, such as that against Enron's former financial chief Andrew Fastow, has occurred via out of court deals. They were not litigated. Conversely, two of the biggest scandals to see courtrooms were declared mistrials. A third, Adelphia, tried to follow suit. The cases won in court were straightforward, involving simple actions such as obstruction of justice, not mountains of documents about how money was moved around a firm and out to offshore partnerships. That was as much Martha Stewart's problem as her poor choice in confidants. Change is possible, though few judges want to stretch boundaries. According to David Graeven and Mike Tiktinsky, jury selection consultants at Trial Consulting Behavior, the most important policy remedy is treating jurors like adults. This means prosecutors providing clearer information and judges imposing stricter time limitations. Jurors should be allowed to discuss material during the trial, take notes and ask questions. The most byzantine accounting cases should be handled like securities fraud - tried first by judges. Trying corporate crimes requires significant time for inadequately informed jurors. That's why big trials have ended as a result of technicalities, not decisions. This works in favor of white collar criminals and leaves intact the system that enables their crimes because the system is never on trial. It provides no-fault emergence from bankruptcy. That's the wrong side of justice. Nomi Prins is a former banker and the author of Other People's Money: The Corporate Mugging of America. Guardian Unlimited Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004
The Truth About the Reagan Deficits
The Truth About the Reagan Deficits Washington Post By Linda BilmesTuesday, February 10, 2004; Page A23 The Bush budget announced last week shows revenue falling some $500 billion short of projected spending. Is this a cause for alarm, or is it true that, as Vice President Cheney reportedly asserted, "Reagan proved that deficits don't matter"? Fans of Reaganomics note that former President Ronald Reagan's spending spree followed a formula similar to President Bush's: tax cuts combined with a major boost in defense spending. The current Bush deficit is equal to 4.5 percent of gross domestic product. The Reagan deficits grew beyond 5 percent. The aftermath in the 1990s was not a fiscal train wreck but rather a sustained economic boom that enabled President Bill Clinton to balance the budget and even to generate a surplus by 2000. Bush is hoping the nation will outgrow its recent deficits as we did last time around. Unfortunately, history is not about to repeat itself. The ability to recover from the 1980s deficits was the result of three historical "flukes" that happened at the same time: a huge demographic bulge, an extremely strong dollar and a sudden peace dividend. The first fluke was the baby boom. When Reagan took office, the boomer generation had already entered the workforce and was approaching peak earning years. Those peak earning years turned into peak spending years. Savings dropped, consumer credit rose and boomers snapped up new cars, cool appliances and second homes as if the good times would never end. While the affluent workforce swelled, the percentage of the population aged 65 and above stayed steady. By 2000 it had inched up to 12.4 percent of the population from 11.3 percent 20 years earlier. Consequently, there were more high-earning workers to support a fairly stable number of retirees. This enabled Congress to increase the amount of "entitlement" payments (Social Security and Medicare) and to leave eligibility criteria intact. The contrast with the upcoming 20 years is stark. By 2020 the over-65 percentage of the population will have grown to more than 16 percent while the working-age population will have declined. The fastest growth is among the very elderly (those over 85). Social Security, Medicare and other entitlement programs (such as veterans' benefits) already account for more than half of federal spending. On top of this, the Bush administration has added a hugely expensive prescription drug benefit for the elderly. If no changes are made to eligibility for the programs, they will, by 2020, gobble up virtually all federal tax revenue. The extremely strong dollar during the post-Reagan era also is unlikely to be repeated. Reagan's tax cuts in 1981 came at a time of double-digit interest rates and tight monetary policies. In the 1990s overseas investors had a voracious appetite for U.S. stocks and bonds that fueled demand for the dollar and made it easy to finance the deficit. The stock market soared, making boomers feel they could have it both ways -- swelling 401(k) plans and a new Mercedes in the driveway. Today the mood is more sober. Foreign investors' love affair with the United States is over. With short-term interest rates lower than they have been in a half-century, the dollar is weak and getting weaker. At the same time the Treasury will have to find buyers for an ever-increasing supply of bonds to fund the deficit. Finally, the nature of the military buildup under Reagan was very different from the current war on terrorism. There is one similarity in that, then as now, U.S. intelligence failed to predict events. In 1980 almost no one outside the Soviet Union foresaw the coming collapse of the "evil empire." But it happened -- presenting President Clinton with the opportunity to cut back the size of the military and to plow that "peace dividend" into balancing the budget. Looking ahead at the continuing war on terrorism, the amorphous nature of al Qaeda, the cost of rebuilding Iraq and the continued homeland security challenges confronting the United States, it would be foolhardy to count on this kind of peace dividend again. So the likelihood is of red ink spreading as far as the eye can see. And the knife twists even further. Conventional calculations of the budget deficit include the money being paid into Social Security today. Because there are currently more working-age contributors than claimants, the Social Security account is in "surplus." Strip that out and the true underlying deficit is more like $720 billion than the $521 billion quoted in this week's speeches. The policy options all are politically difficult: canceling the Bush tax cuts; cutting defense costs; exiting Iraq and Afghanistan quickly; increasing the eligibility age for Social Security and Medicare, and negotiating with the drug companies to require lower prices for Medicare drugs (as Europeans and Canadians have done f
Telling the truth gets him fired
NY Times, November 19, 2003 Mexico Dismisses Its U.N. Envoy for Critical Remark About U.S. By TIM WEINER MEXICO CITY, Nov. 18 Mexico's ambassador to the United Nations has been dismissed after saying the United States regards Mexico as a second-class country, government officials said Tuesday. The ambassador, Adolfo Aguilar Zinser, was forced out under pressure from his government and from Washington, the officials said, after refusing to retract his criticisms of the United States at a face-to-face confrontation Monday night with Mexico's foreign minister, Luis Ernesto Derbez. Mr. Derbez issued a terse statement overnight saying the ambassador will be relieved of his post on Jan. 1. He announced no replacement. Mr. Aguilar Zinser said by telephone that he had no public comment on his dismissal, which came a week after a speech he made at a Mexico City university. In the speech, Mr. Aguilar Zinser said Washington wanted a relationship of convenience and subordination with Mexico. It sees us as a backyard, the ambassador said. While those are widely held views in Mexico, they are rarely voiced in the discourse of diplomacy. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell strongly rejected them last week We never, ever, in any way would treat Mexico as some backyard or as a second-class nation, Mr. Powell said. We have too much of a history that we have gone through together. Then President Vicente Fox blasted his ambassador over the weekend while at a conference in Bolivia. I totally reject that statement, Mr. Fox said. It was the wrong thing to say. Relations between the two nations were exceptionally warm during the first months of President Bush's administration. Mr. Bush called the relationship as important as any the United States enjoyed. But it fell into a freeze after the Sept. 11 attacks, and has since barely thawed. The biggest issue dividing the countries is the question of according some form of legal status to the millions of Mexican migrants in the United States. But the governments also have unresolved differences on matters of trade, energy, water and the management of their 2,000-mile common border. Mexico has held a seat on the 15-nation Security Council this year and last, giving Mr. Aguilar Zinser a prominent podium in international affairs. But with the United States so strongly focused on issues of war and terrorism, Mexico has made little progress with its binational agenda. Mr. Zinser, a Harvard-educated liberal, was the last left-leaning figure of prominence in Mr. Fox's center-right government. He joined it three years ago as the national security adviser, supposedly overseeing all security agencies. After a year, his post was abolished, a decision perceived as a setback for efforts to establish civilian control over Mexico's military and police forces. -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
the Lynch truth is coming out...
Title: the Lynch truth is coming out... from MS SLATE's summary of top US newspapers: The Washington Post's top non-local story is a huge revisionist piece on Pfc. Jessica Lynch's saga and concludes that the story of her capture and rescue is far more complex and different than has been portrayed by the ocean of People-like coverage The Post's piece on Lynch is, to the paper's credit, largely a corrective on the Post's own anonymously sourced initial take on her capture and rescue. She wasn't stabbed or shot as first reported. And contrary to the original reporting, Lynch probably did not put up a big fight; she might not have even fired. Her M-16 jammed. Today's piece, unfortunately still citing anonymous sources, also says up high that Lynch was mistreated by her captors, then waits another 65 paragraphs (really) before mentioning that Iraqi doctors dispute that. The doctors also dispute an Iraqi lawyer's recollection that he saw Lynch slapped. That's some Hollywood crap you'd tell the Americans, said one. As for her rescue, the Post reiterates what the paper itself, in a little noticed dispatch, reported a few months ago: Iraqi troops had abandoned the hospital the day before and the special ops troops weren't fired upon, didn't fire themselves, and contrary to a mad suggestion in the British press, they weren't shooting blanks. One beef: Today's WP piece downplays the Post's own role in creating the Lynch Media Myth. The WP says initial news reports, including those in The Washington Post were misleading. The reality is that the WP was the prime mover of much of that bogus info. Consider the WP's scoop that landed on Page One two days after Lynch's rescue, 'SHE WAS FIGHTING TO THE DEATH'; Details Emerging of W. Va. Soldier's Capture and Rescue.' Most other media outlets just riffed off that report. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
The truth leaks out
Guardian, Wednesday June 4, 2003 Wolfowitz: Iraq war was about oil George Wright Oil was the main reason for military action against Iraq, a leading White House hawk has claimed, confirming the worst fears of those opposed to the US-led war. The US deputy defence secretary, Paul Wolfowitz - who has already undermined Tony Blair's position over weapons of mass destruction (WMD) by describing them as a bureaucratic excuse for war - has now gone further by claiming the real motive was that Iraq is swimming in oil. The latest comments were made by Mr Wolfowitz in an address to delegates at an Asian security summit in Singapore at the weekend, and reported today by German newspapers Der Tagesspiegel and Die Welt. Asked why a nuclear power such as North Korea was being treated differently from Iraq, where hardly any weapons of mass destruction had been found, the deputy defence minister said: Let's look at it simply. The most important difference between North Korea and Iraq is that economically, we just had no choice in Iraq. The country swims on a sea of oil. full: http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,970331,00.html -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
re: Palestine Truth Tour 2003 Michael Hoover
Dear Michael: How may one 'book' this tour - or elements of the tour - for Canadian venues? Hari
Palestine Truth Tour 2003
fight the hate, end the occupation PALESTINE TRUTH TOUR 2003 First-hand reports from Palestine. With speakers, video, photos, and more. Will feature new video from the filmmaking collective Big Noise Films (www.bignoisefilms.com) as well as speakers with eyewitness reports from Palestine. The goal of our tour is to counter media distortion with first-hand reports, and to give people a way to get active and involved on the issue. All speakers have been involved in building or supporting _non-violent_ resistance to the occupation. WED., JAN. 8, 2003, 7 P.M. @ THE RADICAL READING ROOM, 1520 EDGEWATER DRIVE, SUITE A, in the College Park neighborhood of ORLANDO. The Radical Room is Central Florida's new community space and alternative library; it is located toward the south end of Edgewater Drive between Long's Christian Music and the 7-Eleven. It's about a mile from Colonial Dr., and also about a mile from Princeton St., on the west side of the street. This event is sponsored by The Radical Reading Room, PeaceOrlando and the Green Party of Orange County. It is FREE, but donations to the Palestine Truth Tour and the Radical Reading Room will be gratefully accepted. Questions: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Here's some additional information on the video and speakers: Amandla Intfada is a new video from Palestine by Big Noise Tactical, the documentary filmmaking collective that made This is What Democracy Looks Like and Zapatista. The video features Palestinian leaders including Dr. Mustafa Barghouti and Hanan Ashrawi, and front-line scenes from Jenin, Hebron, and other cities. The video concludes with never-before seen footage of the Israeli invasion of Jenin from the summer of 2002. Speakers will include: George Qassis - Qassis is a resident of Bethlehem, a coordinator with the Palestinian Center for Rapprochement Between People, and one of the founders of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM). He is here in the U.S. to talk about his work organizing for peace and justice, through international and Palestinian nonviolent resistance to the Israeli occupation. Liv Dillon - Dillon has for years been an activist on local issues of economic and social justice, including union rights, police brutality, and workfare. On September 11th, she witnessed both planes hit the World Trade Center on the way to work, which launched her into U.S. Foreign policy and her place in it. She spent 3 weeks this April in a Palestinian Refugee camp in Bethlehem during the Israeli invasion. During this time, she lived with a refugee family under curfew for almost the entire time, and did volunteer work in Bethlehem during the siege of Manger Square, delivering food to besieged areas, riding with ambulances and walking people to the hospital during curfew. Ora Wise - The daughter of a rabbi, Wise was born in Jerusalem. Her political awakening came working in the West Bank with the Israeli peace group Rabbis for Human Rights. Here in the U.S., she has worked tirelessly for justice for the people of Palestine. She was one of the organizers of this year's National Student Conference in Solidarity with Palestine, and helped start the Committee for Justice in Palestine while a student at the University of Ohio in Columbus. Jordan Flaherty -- Flaherty is a union organizer and direct action activist. He has written for The Village Voice, New York Press, and a chapter in a Palestine anthology to be published by South End Press this spring. He spent three months this year in the West Bank and Gaza, living in homes in danger of demolition by the Israeli Military and participating in nonviolent direct action in support of Palestinian human rights. In March of 2002, he helped start Direct Action for Justice in Palestine, which has recruited, trained, and fundraised to send over 100 activists to Palestine to support nonviolent resistance against the Israeli occupation. Also part of the tour: Drawings by the children of the Jenin Refugee Camp, and educational info from activist groups including Jews Against the Occupation; the International Solidarity Movement; Al-Awda, the Palestinian right of return coalition; and Voices in the Wilderness. *The International Solidarity Movement is a Palestinian-led international coalition of concerned citizens participating in nonviolent resistance to the Israeli occupation. For More info, see www.palsolidarity.org
The truth slips out
From the newly published Bush at War by Bob Woodward: The president emerged wearing a New York Fire Department windbreaker. He raised his arm and gave a thumbs-up to the crowd on the third base side of the field. Probably 15,000 fans threw their arms in the air imitating the motion. He then threw a strike from the rubber, and the stadium erupted. Watching from owner George Steinbrenners box, Karl Rove thought, Its like being at a Nazi rally. (p. 277) -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Re: Re: RE: Re: Doug tells the truth..........................
At 17/05/02 00:28 -0400, you wrote: Where the fuck did this come from? And why is it dated Nov 24 2002? Doug The letter from Mark Jones quoted by Max was originally sent on Fri, 23 Nov 2001 16:04:31 + Although Max sent a number of posts on this thread on 26 Nov I can find no record of this post then, nor any post by him dated 24 November. Max clearly has a problem with his date line now as the recent post comes up also on my email list as 24 Nov 200*2* However on the web page it is posted as 17 May 2002 02:43 UTC Virus? Serendipity? Political Freudian slip? Gremlin's human or otherwise? I am sure Michael will want this thread closed for content, as he did in November, but perhaps Max can clarify where the technical problem is. Chris Burford
Re: Doug tells the truth
I am sure Michael will want this thread closed for content, as he did in November, but perhaps Max can clarify where the technical problem is. Chris Burford Such things happen every now and then. Virus is definitely one possibility, a very long and very slow trip with delays around the world is another, unintentionally saving a message as draft after deciding not to send and not deleting it is another, as it is possible to trigger it unintentionally later, you name it. There is too much about this virtual world that we don't know. No matter what, I think Chris is right: this is a technical issue. Best, Sabri
RE: Re: Doug tells the truth..........................
MJ: The truthabout Doug 'I'm no pacifist' Henwood is that he, too, is in favour of US policy, that is, Henwood favours the policy of bombing Afghan towns and cities, he favours the random and/or mass slaughter of Afghanis, he favours the destruction of whatever remains of the social infrastructure in Afghanistan, in short he favours the kind of war of exterminism which mbs: There is no evidence that 'bombing towns and cities', random and/or mass slaughter, or 'destruction of whatever . . . ' are policies of the USG, nor that they have been carried out. This is simple hysteria for the consumption of one-note anti-imperialists. One could imagine cogent critiques of the U.S. campaign, but not any beginning as above. One could even connect the Russian campaign to U.S. machinations, thanks to Zbig's zbig mouth. Why engage in this sort of b.s.? MJ: for example the Russian state has carried out in Chechya in recent years. The collapse of Afghan society as a result of the combined efforts of US bombing and the insertion of Russian ground forces, troops, tanks etc, under the Northern Alliance flag, is creating not just a humanitarian catastrophe but prime-time genocide in Afghanistan. Henwood does support mbs: there were more indications (false, as it turned out) of impending genocide in Kosova than thus far in Afgh. MB: this ongoing genocide. He is a 'voter for war credits', a person who has surely lost any shred of credibility as a spokesman of the left. You cannot be of the left while supporting US genocide in Afghanistan. Now, weasel words about supporting this or that bit of a policy can not help him slide out his moral complicity in the US genocidal assault on Afghanistan, and no self-serving caveats about being against bombing but in favour of oher kinds of administering death should blind us to the truth of his politics: it is a cowardice and an instinct for personal survival, nothing more, that motivates it. mbs: how DH's article advances his 'personal survival' is beyond me. The way to do that would be to follow Hitchens. Unless one reasons that supporting a campaign against terrorism might mitigate against further attacks on NYC that threaten DH directly. I guess this is what Huey Newton meant by revolutionary suicide. MJ: When assessing 'the truth' of Henwood's politics, let us begin with this obvious fact -- the man is simply a craven apologist for exterminism, for US imperialism in its newest and most lethal guise. Mark Jones mbs: one might be tempted to invoke the WWII analogy if one hadn't spent some time here on PEN-L and learned that the justice of WWII is a controversial matter. So let us invoke the October revolution and ask whether it is possible that innocents were not harmed, and whether in light of that, the revolution was rendered invalid. If not, then we have a kind of selective pacifism at work here (not a new thing, BTW). No violence by the U.S. state can be justified, and any violence by anything, and I do mean 'thing,' against the U.S. state is properly met, for all practical purposes, with indifference.
Re: Re: RE: Re: Doug tells the truth..........................
I wrote to Max an hour ago trying to find out the origin of this. Mark has not been here for some time. On Fri, May 17, 2002 at 12:28:18AM -0400, Doug Henwood wrote: Max Sawicky wrote: MJ: The truthabout Doug 'I'm no pacifist' Henwood is that he, too, is in favour of US policy, that is, Henwood favours the policy of bombing Afghan towns and cities, he favours the random and/or mass slaughter of Afghanis, he favours the destruction of whatever remains of the social infrastructure in Afghanistan, in short he favours the kind of war of exterminism which mbs: There is no evidence that 'bombing towns and cities', random and/or mass slaughter, or 'destruction of whatever . . . ' are policies of the USG, nor that they have been carried out. This is simple hysteria for the consumption of one-note anti-imperialists. One could imagine cogent critiques of the U.S. campaign, but not any beginning as above. One could even connect the Russian campaign to U.S. machinations, thanks to Zbig's zbig mouth. Why engage in this sort of b.s.? Where the fuck did this come from? And why is it dated Nov 24 2002? Doug -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
The Consequences of Telling the Truth About Palestine
Date: Tue, 09 Apr 2002 14:19:35 -0400 From: John Lacny [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [It's No Accident] The Consequences of Telling the Truth About Palestine To: It's No Accident [EMAIL PROTECTED] A Special Announcment from It's No Accident, April 9, 2002 Dear friends and comrades, Since January of this year my political column, It's No Accident, had been making regular appearances in the pages of The Pitt News, the student newspaper at the University of Pittsburgh. Well, no longer. Here's the story why. On April 5 I submitted a column which argued that Israel's current assault on the Palestinians has passed beyond the realm of even an ordinary colonial war and has come perilously close to what in any other context would be described as ethnic cleansing. The talk within Israel of a security separation and even of population transfer were signals that all people of conscience -- no matter how apolitical they fancied themselves -- had to speak up now, or risk making themselves accomplices to crimes against humanity because of their silence. I quoted the veteran anti-apartheid fighter Ronnie Kasrils, who said in Al-Ahram Weekly that Israel's repression had surpassed even that of the apartheid state; I celebrated the heroism of the Israeli reservists who were refusing to serve in the Occupied Territories; and I called on people to support the Palestinians in their fight to claim their human rights, a struggle that is every day becoming a struggle for their very survival as a people. Despite the ferocity of the repression, the intifada (uprising) continues. On April 7 I received a communication from my editor informing me that the paper was not going to print my column on the grounds that it was too rhetorical and constituted an endorsement of terrorism. In response, I made clear that I had no intention of toning down the moral urgency of my column, and that if they were choosing not to print it, it was time for me to quit. There were other issues in the dispute that I should mention for the sake of context. The (needless to say, groundless) accusation that I had endorsed terrorism was offensive, and I said so. Beyond that, though, my editor was unclear on what I meant by the term Occupation! This is a disturbing indication of the ignorance of basic information on this issue in the United States, where the simple fact of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem is somehow subject to debate. Further, the editor accused me of using my column to further the views of a student group of which I am a member. I wrote that this accusation was ridiculous, because an earlier column of mine (about Martin Luther King, Jr., on the occasion of the April 4 anniversary of his assassination) -- which they had printed without incident -- was much more directly related to an event my student group was organizing, while the column on the Palestinians was an expression of my own deep moral outrage at what was going on. Clearly something else was at work in the paper's decision not to print my column on the Palestinians. This is not the first time The Pitt News has done its readers a disservice in the matter of Israel/Palestine. Keep in mind that, as a student newspaper, The Pitt News prints all manner of self-indulgent and irrelevant fluff (about dating or oral sex, for example), but when anyone writes a substantive political column that challenges the status quo, all of a sudden the editors start flashing warning signals and intoning pieties about bourgeois-journalistic respectability. Earlier in the year I wrote a column about Israel/Palestine in which I called for a cessation of the $5 billion in US aid to Israel. The Pitt News printed a letter from a pro-Zionist student group in response. Not only did this letter trot out the tired (and totally spurious and disgusting) accusation of anti-Semitism, but it displayed a supreme contempt for facts. For example, it alleged that US aid to Israel was only about $2 billion a year. A routine resort to a fact-checker would have turned up the tidbit that Israel receives $2 billion in military aid, nearly $1 billion in direct economic assistance, and another $2 billion or so in other forms of aid like loan guarantees. In other words, then, my original figure of $5 billion was the correct one. However, I had no forum in which to respond to this underhanded and dishonest attempt to discredit the rest of my column, because one standard of truth (roughly, no standard at all) applies to people who support the conventional wisdom, while those of us who challenge it are expected to provide copious footnotes in support of rudimentary facts. If this kind of moral cowardice is the norm even at student newspapers, what does that say about the climate that prevails in mainstream dailies? For my part, I hold to the journalistic principles espoused by the great abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison
RE: The Consequences of Telling the Truth About Palestine
Subject: RE: [ASDnet] John Lacny Column Under Censorship Attack RE: US aid to Israel From: Max Sawicky ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Date: Mon Apr 08 2002 - 16:29:33 EDT Next message: Gar Lipow: Re: Why we will need lawyers anyway Previous message: Yoshie Furuhashi: Re: Oodles and oodles of life In reply to: Micheal Ellis: RE: US aid to Israel Next in thread: Doug Henwood: RE: US aid to Israel Reply: Doug Henwood: RE: US aid to Israel Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ] [ attachment ] . . . Since 1949 the U.S. has given Israel a total of $83.205 billion. The interest costs borne by U.S. tax payers on behalf of Israel are $49.937 billion, thus making the total amount of aid given to Israel since 1949 $133.132 billion. This may mean that U.S. government has given more federal aid to the average Israeli citizen in a given year than it has given to the average American citizen. well the 84 billion total does not include loan guarantees. which israel isn't required to pay back. there have been the approximately $10 billion in U.S. loan guarantees and perhaps $20 billion in tax-exempt contributions made to Israel by American Jews in the nearly half-century since Israel was created. i think this is the article that he got those figures from http://www.washington-report.org/backissues/1297/9712043.html This article has some fuzzy math in it. The main item is the bogus interest figure cited (accurately) above. The assumption underlying this number is that Israeli aid is uniquely financed by borrowing, unlike all other spending that is offset by revenues. If you applied this adjustment to *all* spending, you would get a total interest obligation vastly in excess of the actual amount. In other words, suppose total spending is $10, revenues are $8, and aid to Israel is $1. In truth, only $2 is added to debt, which at 5% interest is 10 cents a year. The article's claim is that a dollar of aid means 5 cents of interest. But if all spending is treated likewise, total interest is 50 cents, rather than 10 cents. It's also fuzzy to add loans to loan guarantees, as the author acknowledges in the article (but does anyway). The value of the loan guarantee is just the spread in interest rates, not the principal (as the author acknowledges). There is this funny sentence in the article, and I don't mean funny ha-ha, I mean creepy . . . Probably the only members of Congress who even suspect the full total of U.S. funds received by Israel each year are the privileged few committee members who actually mark it up. And almost all members of the concerned committees are Jewish, have taken huge campaign donations orchestrated by Israel's Washington, DC lobby, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), or both. I have to wonder why people waste their time with this stuff while the IDF is shooting Palestinians down like dogs in the street. mbs Next message: Gar Lipow: Re: Why we will need lawyers anyway Previous message: Yoshie Furuhashi: Re: Oodles and oodles of life In reply to: Micheal Ellis: RE: US aid to Israel Next in thread: Doug Henwood: RE: US aid to Israel Reply: Doug Henwood: RE: US aid to Israel Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ] [ attachment ] This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.3 : Tue Apr 09 2002 - 16:00:06 EDT --- Original Message --- From: Hunter Gray [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: RedBadBear [EMAIL PROTECTED], ASDNET [EMAIL PROTECTED], Socialist Lists [EMAIL PROTECTED], socunity [EMAIL PROTECTED], StopWarDiscussion [EMAIL PROTECTED], Red Youth [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 4/9/02 11:20:59 AM Note by Hunterbear: John Lacny, a grad student in his early twenties at University of Pittsburgh, is a sharp and committed young activist who has very ably managed the Marxist Discussion Group for more than two years and, since thi s mid-March, has also handled his new It's No Accident list which publishes his thoughtful and lively column by the same name which has -- has -- appeared with regularity and popularity in The UP's Pitt News. Now that column is under censorship attack by bigots and fearmongers at the University. John has climbed high enough for the Lightning to strike out at him -- but he is, of course, keeping right on keeping on and full ahead. Here is John Lacny's just issued statement on the matter: - A Special Announcement from It's No Accident, April 9, 2002 Dear friends and comrades, Since January of this year my political column, It's No Accident, had bee n making regular appearances in the pages of The Pitt News, the student newspaper at the University of Pittsburgh. Well, no longer. Here's the stor y why.
The Forbidden Truth
BIN LADEN: THE FORBIDDEN TRUTH ABOUT BUSH, OIL AND WASHINGTON'S SECRET NEGOTIATIONS WITH THE TALIBAN At Democracy Now! we have often called the Bush administration the Oiligarchy. Vice-President Dick Cheney of course was the president of Halliburton, a company that provides services for the oil industry. For nearly a decade, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice worked with Chevron, while secretaries of commerce and energy, Donald Evans and Spencer Abraham, worked for another oil giant. Many of the US officials now working on the administration's Afghanistan policy also have extensive backgrounds in the world of multinational oil giants. An explosive new book published originally in France is revealing some extraordinary details of the extent to which US oil corporations influenced the Bush administration's policies toward the Taliban regime prior to September 11th. The book is called Bin Laden: The Forbidden Truth. And it paints a detailed picture of the Bush administration's secret negotiations with the Taliban government in the months and weeks before the attacks on the World Trade Center. It charges that under the influence of US oil companies the Bush administration blocked U.S. secret service investigations on terrorism. It tells the story of how the administration conducted secret negotiations with the Taliban to hand-over Osama bin Laden in exchange for political recognition and economic aid. The book says that Washington's main aim in Afghanistan prior to September 11th was consolidating the Taliban regime, in order to obtain access to the oil and gas reserves in Central Asia. The authors claim that before the September 11th attacks, Christina Rocca, the head of Asian Affairs in the US State Department, met the Taliban Ambassador to Pakistan Abdul Salam Zaeef in Islamabad on August 2. Rocca is a veteran of US involvement in Afghanistan. She was previously in charge of contacts with Islamist guerrilla groups at the CIA, where she oversaw the delivery of Stinger missiles to Afghan mujahideen fighting the Soviet occupation forces in the 1980s. The book also reveals that the Taliban actually hired an American public relations' expert for an image-making campaign in the US. What's amazing is that the PR officer was a woman named Laila Helms, who is the niece of former CIA director Richard Helms. Helms is described as the Mata Hari of US-Taliban negotiations. The authors claim that she brought Sayed Rahmatullah Hashimi, an advisor to Mullah Omar, to Washington for five days in March 2001 - after the Taliban had destroyed the ancient Buddhas of Bamiyan. Hashimi met the Directorate of Central Intelligence at the CIA, and the Bureau of Intelligence and Research at the State Department. The book also says that the Deputy Director of the FBI, John O'Neill, resigned in July in protest of the Bush administration's obstruction of an investigation into alleged Taliban terrorist activities. O'Neill then became head of security at the World Trade Center. He died in the September 11th attacks. Jean-Charles Brisard, co-author of Bin Laden: The Forbidden Truth. He has worked for the French Secret Services and wrote a report for them in 1997 on Bin Laden's Al Qaeda network. Guillaume Dasquie, co-author of Bin Laden: The Forbidden Truth. He is an investigative journalist and publisher of Intelligence Online. Related link: _ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com
Max tells the truth
Max tells the truth by Max Sawicky 26 November 2001 Selective pacifism reflects confusion. Consistent pacifism is not confused; it's just wrong. % CB: If you are not a selective pacifist and not a consistent pacificist, does this mean you are in some sense against peace, don't have enthusiasm to struggle for peace in any situation , always tend to favor war , what ?
Max tells the truth
[was: RE:[PEN-L:19912] RE: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Doug tells thetruth..] Max Sawicki writes: Now let us all bow our heads in a moment of silence over the impending demise of several thousand fascist, anti-semitic, misogynist terrorists. (One suspects they are not down with the GBLTGTS [] thing either.) the Taliban can't be anti-semitic, since they are semites themselves. I would call them anti-Jewish bigots, though they are also anti-Christian and anti-Buddhist, to name a few antis. They _are_ fascist, if one uses the word loosely. The Taliban clearly consists of a bunch of bad guys. But I've never seen actual proof that the person they allegedly harbor -- Osama bin Laden -- or his alleged organization -- al Qaeda -- did the dirty deed. Nor is capital punishment (in the form of a US war and strategic bombing) justified for harboring alleged criminals. And as for the Taliban's admittedly disgusting policies, if it was good for the world for the US to indiscriminately attack countries that fail to pass the moral muster, why hasn't the US bombed civilians in Burma? in Saudi Arabia? and who made the US the world cop, judge, jury, and executioner? or is the word vigilante? Max complains that people on pen-l are selective pacifists, criticizing the US but not other countries when they commit atrocities like the war against Afghanistan. Well, I for one don't pay taxes to the Taliban. Nor does it speak in my name. So I have a _responsibility_ to criticize the US elite. Further, those people on pen-l who aren't US citizens find themselves increasingly under the US thumb, since the US government is clearly struggling to make itself into the world state. So they're in the same position that I'm in. _ The simple way to read all your emails at ThatWeb http://www.thatweb.com
Re: Max tells the truth
Sorry Max I have read a few of your statements and could not disagree more. Jim below makes one side of an argument I am generally in agreement with. I will make another which probably not many will agree with but nevertheless needs to be said. I am no pacifist, far from it, but I am no lover of massacre, torture and death. When the left in some part of world is in armed struggle I dispair at the inevitable crimes against humanity which erupt in any war but especially in civil war - I do not condone it, in a similar position I would hope that I had the courage to stop it (the crimes not the pursuance of a such war). War is bad enough at the best of times, war bereft of the rules of war is a nightmare I would wish inflicted on no class of person - however much I might hate them. When the most powerful nation on earth flouts the rules of war, does so without outcry we have collectively entered the valley of death and no-one walks beside us. That this is excused under any pretext of intellectual argument is simply not decent by any standards to which thinking human beings adhere. Star chamber executions of prisoners! A beligerant power not interested in negiotating a surrender, proclaiming that it was in no position to take prisoners is a return to the worst excesses of war. The US is sowing the wind and no one is doing any favours to it, or the world, by excusing it. The US has every chance of resolving this thing through civilisied means, it disregarded this. The US pursued a policy of war, unfortunately this remains the priviledge of nations. To do so and diregard the rules of war is a criminal act which makes S11 pallour into insignificance - terrorism is the whirlwind and there is much much more to fear in the valley of death than there was before. The Taliban are for the most part poor (incredibly poor by our standards) peasants who it must remember were for all its brutality a definite improvement on the forces now backed by the US. If they made Afganistan worse, then we must ask worse than what, certianly better than what immediately proceeded and just as certainly much worse than the regime the US set out to topple those many years ago. The great superpower is reeking revenge on what? A collection of poor peasants, however misled, who tried to put their little part of the world to rights in the light of their own poor understanding. The arrogance of passing judgement on them, especially such a god-like absolutism is not a pretty thing, nor a compassionate one. If the world had truly cared about Afghanistan it would have been a help to it long before this, it is a sorry business and a shameful episode that we now pass through and does no honour to those killed in S11 or anywhere else. News tonight was that US forces have finally made a ground appearance, they will be young people, ignorant and enmeshed in a machine not of their own making. I do not say it lightly but the best thing that could happen at this point of time is a small but significant US defeat, it may be unlikely but perhaps if it did happen in front of the cameras of the world we might dismount the beast and as a community find some better way out of this mess (if nothing else I hope this proves I am no pacifist) Sorry Max but I have found your attitude beyond the pale or reasonable discourse. Greg Schofield Perth Australia --- Message Received --- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2001 14:51:50 + Subject: [PEN-L:19923] Max tells the truth [was: RE:[PEN-L:19912] RE: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Doug tells thetruth..] Max Sawicki writes: Now let us all bow our heads in a moment of silence over the impending demise of several thousand fascist, anti-semitic, misogynist terrorists. (One suspects they are not down with the GBLTGTS [] thing either.) the Taliban can't be anti-semitic, since they are semites themselves. I would call them anti-Jewish bigots, though they are also anti-Christian and anti-Buddhist, to name a few antis. They _are_ fascist, if one uses the word loosely. The Taliban clearly consists of a bunch of bad guys. But I've never seen actual proof that the person they allegedly harbor -- Osama bin Laden -- or his alleged organization -- al Qaeda -- did the dirty deed. Nor is capital punishment (in the form of a US war and strategic bombing) justified for harboring alleged criminals. And as for the Taliban's admittedly disgusting policies, if it was good for the world for the US to indiscriminately attack countries that fail to pass the moral muster, why hasn't the US bombed civilians in Burma? in Saudi Arabia? and who made the US the world cop, judge, jury, and executioner? or is the word vigilante? Max complains that people on pen-l are selective pacifists, criticizing the US but not other countries when they commit atrocities like the war against Afghanistan. Well, I for one don't pay taxes
RE: Re: Max tells the truth
then why write to me? Sorry Max but I have found your attitude beyond the pale or reasonable discourse. Greg Schofield Perth Australia
RE: Max tells the truth
reply to jd: Max Sawicki writes: Now let us all bow our heads in a moment of silence over the impending demise of several thousand fascist, anti-semitic, misogynist terrorists. (One suspects they are not down with the GBLTGTS [] thing either.) the Taliban can't be anti-semitic, since they are semites themselves. I would call them anti-Jewish bigots, though they are also anti-Christian and anti-Buddhist, to name a few antis. They _are_ fascist, if one uses the word loosely. mbs: this is helpful. jd: The Taliban clearly consists of a bunch of bad guys. But I've never seen actual proof that the person they allegedly harbor -- Osama bin Laden -- or his alleged organization -- al Qaeda -- did the dirty deed. Nor is capital punishment (in the form of a US war and strategic bombing) justified for harboring alleged criminals. And as for the Taliban's admittedly disgusting policies, if it was good for the world for the US to indiscriminately attack countries that fail to pass the moral muster, why hasn't the US bombed civilians in Burma? in Saudi Arabia? and who made the US the world cop, judge, jury, and executioner? or is the word vigilante? mbs: for 'our' side the term of art is unilateral; the other guys are the aggressors. your problem is figuring out who is less wrong. Max complains that people on pen-l are selective pacifists, criticizing the US but not other countries when they commit atrocities like the war against Afghanistan. Well, I for one don't pay taxes to the Taliban. Nor does it speak in my name. So I have a _responsibility_ to criticize the US elite. Further, those people on pen-l who aren't US citizens find themselves increasingly under the US thumb, since the US government is clearly struggling to make itself into the world state. So they're in the same position that I'm in. mbs: Not my point. The selectivity derives from a variation of within the revolution everything/against the revolution, nothing. There is purportedly some threshold of righteousness that excuses uses of force resulting in non-trivial levels of atrocity (death of innocents, etc.), and below this threshold no use of force is valid. The U.S. Gov falls below this level by definition, hence no use of force by it can be excused. Suppose you thought well of Lenin the October Rev. My point could be rephrased as: suppose Lenin lived to be 95 and the Rev proceeded just fine, and OBL had his maniacs drive four planes into assorted public places in Moscow. If Lenin reacted as Bush has (since the UN is controlled by the imperialists) and you would have a different position, you are a selective pacifist. A good segment of the peace movement of the 60's was selective in their pacifism; they looked past the possibility of atrocities by the NLF. Revolutionaries, in our own juvenile way, understood that that goes with the territory. There isn't sufficient reason not to apply that logic to the U.S. v. taliban/al qaida. You are all morally confused and locked into pamphlet time warp (war credits!). But you are not vile. Perelman's mung bean casserole is vile. yrs in truth, mbs
Re: RE: Max tells the truth
Wierd, my wife told me the same thing last night. On Mon, Nov 26, 2001 at 12:14:42PM -0500, Max Sawicky wrote: You are all morally confused and locked into pamphlet time warp (war credits!). But you are not vile. Perelman's mung bean casserole is vile. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: RE: Re: Max tells the truth
First of all, this sort of exchange has no place here. Second, this particular debate seems to involve Max vs. the others. When we reach that stage, especially when it becomes repetitive, it is time to stop. On Mon, Nov 26, 2001 at 11:51:00AM -0500, Max Sawicky wrote: then why write to me? Sorry Max but I have found your attitude beyond the pale or reasonable discourse. Greg Schofield Perth Australia -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: RE: Max tells the truth
mbs: ... The selectivity [of pacifism] derives from a variation of within the revolution everything/against the revolution, nothing. There is purportedly some threshold of righteousness that excuses uses of force resulting in non-trivial levels of atrocity (death of innocents, etc.), and below this threshold no use of force is valid. The U.S. Gov falls below this level by definition, hence no use of force by it can be excused. I'm not into within the revolution everything/against the revolution, nothing-type thinking. It's down there with the enemy of my enemy is my friend or if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem in terms of silliness and/or viciousness. Suppose you thought well of Lenin the October Rev. [I don't.] My point could be rephrased as: suppose Lenin lived to be 95 and the Rev proceeded just fine, and OBL had his maniacs drive four planes into assorted public places in Moscow. If Lenin reacted as Bush has (since the UN is controlled by the imperialists) and you would have a different position, you are a selective pacifist. It depends on whether Lenin were leading a workers' democratic government or not and acted according to the principles of workers' democracy. If he were a dictator of the proletariat rather than being subject to the democratic will of the proletariat, he could easily be as bad as Bush. But of course this is all hypothetical. Further, self-defense may be justified (it depends on the particulars), but Bush is engaged in _vengeance_, in vigillantism. There are other ways to engage in self-defense besides what the Bushwackers have done (deliberately starving Afghanistan, strategic bombing, etc.) The folks who lambaste misrepresent Doug also don't see this: they think of the idea of trying ObL for his alleged crimes is the same as a criminal war against Afghanistan. But there _are_ proportionate and just responses short of Bush's terror-war. Moreover, Bush's vengeance agenda is subordinate to the more general program of his segment of the ruling class, imposing US hegemony -- and all it entails -- on the world, while feathering the nests of the specific sectors of business that backed his covert coup, and while promoting the traditional values that his backers are pushing. A good segment of the peace movement of the 60's was selective in their pacifism; they looked past the possibility of atrocities by the NLF. Revolutionaries, in our own juvenile way, understood that that goes with the territory. There isn't sufficient reason not to apply that logic to the U.S. v. taliban/al qaida. My thinking on the Vietnam war is that I supported Vietnamese independence from imperialism (led by the US). But that did not mean that I supported everything the NLF or North Vietnam did. You are all morally confused and locked into pamphlet time warp (war credits!). But you are not vile thanks, if you refers to moi. You (max) need to be more careful in your use of pronouns. It's also wrong to equate pen-l with such people as Mark Jones and Rakesh Bandari. In fact, the latter's not even on the list. BTW, in terms of strategy tactics, I'm a pacifist. I don't think that the left should engage in violence unless it's absolutely necessary. Further, it might be okay it's done in a way to promote grass-roots democracy and popular power. The latter is really hard -- if not impossible -- to live up to. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
RE: RE: RE: Max tells the truth
jd again: . . . It depends on whether Lenin were leading a workers' democratic government or not and acted according to the principles of workers' democracy. If he were a dictator of the proletariat rather than being subject to the democratic will of the proletariat, he could easily be as bad as Bush. But of course this is all hypothetical. mbs: but it goes to the point. Fine -- suppose the mythical, heavily muscled, democratic USSR of 2001 voted unanimously to counter- attack in more-or-less the way Bush did. Now you could say you take exception, which is fine, but my point is that people object to the war in ways that suggest they would not under my hypothetical. That's selective pacifism. jd: Further, self-defense may be justified (it depends on the particulars), but Bush is engaged in _vengeance_, in vigillantism. There are other ways to engage in self-defense besides what the Bushwackers have done (deliberately starving Afghanistan, strategic bombing, etc.) The folks who lambaste misrepresent Doug also don't see this: they think of the idea of trying ObL for his alleged crimes is the same as a criminal war against Afghanistan. But there _are_ proportionate and just responses short of Bush's terror-war. mbs: If you took the trouble to elaborate on exactly what U.S. responses were proportionate and just, you would be rechristened a laptop bombadier who has clambered onto the ladder of force. jd: Moreover, Bush's vengeance agenda is subordinate to the more general program of his segment of the ruling class, imposing US hegemony -- and all it entails -- on the world, while feathering the nests of the specific sectors of business that backed his covert coup, and while promoting the traditional values that his backers are pushing. mbs: so far there is no real evidence that what you call vengeance or moves towards hegemoney are anything more than the ruthless policy of minimizing U.S. casualties at the expense of Afghani ones, as I noted at the beginning of this whole affair. jd: My thinking on the Vietnam war is that I supported Vietnamese independence from imperialism (led by the US). But that did not mean that I supported everything the NLF or North Vietnam did. mbs: in net terms you supported the NLF, so your misgivings about some things they may have done were irrelevant. Protest and policy-- especially military--tend to be blunt instruments. That's why I see no point in waxing regretful over the slaughter of innocents, such as it is. It is a meaningless expression of disconnectedness. You are all morally confused and locked into pamphlet time warp (war credits!). But you are not vile jd: thanks, if you refers to moi. You (max) need to be more careful in your use of pronouns. It's also wrong to equate pen-l with such people as Mark Jones and Rakesh Bandari. In fact, the latter's not even on the list. mbs: whenever I hear the phrase war credits I think of dusty pamphlets that are 85 years out of date. jd: BTW, in terms of strategy tactics, I'm a pacifist. I don't think that the left should engage in violence unless it's absolutely necessary. Further, it might be okay it's done in a way to promote grass-roots democracy and popular power. The latter is really hard -- if not impossible -- to live up to. mbs: I would argue that is a contradiction in terms. Violence is the antithesis of promoting democracy. If there is one thing I agree with this List on, it is that. You are a consistent pacifist, which is better than being a selective one. So is jks. You can't be Leninist and pacifist. If you're a leninist -- if you advocate or expect forcible overthrow of the state -- you can't be wringing your hands about violence and the death of innocents. You can't sanction acts committed by the NLF and condemn those by the U.S. in re: the Taliban. I guess the real problem is that much rhetoric here offends my suppressed inner Trotsky. If you're going to be a bolshevik, be one for christ's sakes. It would liven things up. mbs
Re: RE: RE: Max tells the truth
Devine, James wrote: BTW, in terms of strategy tactics, I'm a pacifist. I don't think that the left should engage in violence unless it's absolutely necessary. Further, it might be okay it's done in a way to promote grass-roots democracy and popular power. The latter is really hard -- if not impossible -- to live up to. First a couple of minor points. (1) I think it best to keep the word pacifist to name those who oppose any and all war under all conditions. In this sense Max's term, selective pacifist, is simple bad writing. Is there anyone who has ever approved of all wars? Gee. Pacifism is a set of principles, not an empirical collection. (2) Actually the left (for two hundred years) has very seldom engaged in violence except in self-defense. Most revolutions are not really started by revolutionaries. So, most of the time, debate about engaging in violence is, in the bad sense of the word, merely academic. (3) Academically speaking, then, as soon as you say unless its absolutely necessary you have already granted almost everything that most revolutionaries have ever argued for. Hence rather than labelling yourself in any sense a pacifist you would do better to say that you are a non-pacifists who believes (quite sensibly) that the occasions for valid use of force are few and far between. More fundamentally. I tend to think in terms not of what is desirable or possible but of that which is necessary in the sense of unavoidable -- imposed by conditions beyond human control. Claims as to what is desirable tend to be either truisms or mere fancy and arguments as to the possible have the aroma of crystal-ball gazing about them. If revolutions occurred only when self-declared revolutionaries started one, there never would have been (nor ever would be) a single revolution. Revolutions are _forced_ on the populace. This is not to say that committed revolutionaries are not needed, for a number of reason. First, revolutionaries (freed from utopianism and crystal-ball ambitions) make better reformers than do reformists, who endlessly put their faith in such enemy institutions as the Democratic Party. This superiority of revolutoinaries to reformists _as_ reformists also flows from the close parallel of real reforms and revolutons: both flow from mass movements rather than from bureaucratic or legislative game-playing. And finally, if revolution is forced by the ruling class and its state on a population, it is well to have had a few people around seriously thinking about revolution. Those who have not been politically active at all or who have spent their lives entoiled in the mazes of the AFL-CIO or Democratic Party are apt to be at a loss under such circumstances. Carrol
RE: Re: RE: RE: Max tells the truth
CC: First a couple of minor points. (1) I think it best to keep the word pacifist to name those who oppose any and all war under all conditions. In this sense Max's term, selective pacifist, is simple bad writing. Is there anyone who has ever approved of all wars? Gee. . . . Now things are really getting nasty. Bad writing. Hmmmph. No, a selective pacifist is one who professes universal principles -- opposition to any use of organized violence -- but applies them to fewer than all wars. Selectively, in other words. One is tempted to say it reflects bad faith, but I will settle for simple confusion, borne of excessive exposure to bad propaganda. mbs
Doug tells the truth..........................
Doug tells the truth.. by Doug Henwood ((( CB: Doug, if imperialism/globalization is not the main cause of terrorism, what is the cause of terrorism ? ((( But are things really that simple? Latin America and East Asia, two of the regions most transformed by global economic forces over the last two decades, have produced no terrorists of note. (( CB; Do you think that President Bush will stipulate to this, and give Latin America and East Asia a pass on the current war on terrorism ? What is a terrorist ? In your opinion, are the causes of crime in the U.S. mainly economic ?
Re: RE: Re: RE: RE: Max tells the truth
- Original Message - From: Max Sawicky [EMAIL PROTECTED] Now things are really getting nasty. Bad writing. Hmmmph. No, a selective pacifist is one who professes universal principles -- opposition to any use of organized violence -- but applies them to fewer than all wars. Selectively, in other words. One is tempted to say it reflects bad faith, but I will settle for simple confusion, borne of excessive exposure to bad propaganda. mbs === Ghandi was confused? MLK?. Ian
RE: Re: RE: Re: RE: RE: Max tells the truth
Selective pacifism reflects confusion. Consistent pacifism is not confused; it's just wrong. mbs t I will settle for simple confusion, borne of excessive exposure to bad propaganda. mbs === Ghandi was confused? MLK?. Ian
Re: RE: Re: RE: Re: RE: RE: Max tells the truth
- Original Message - From: Max Sawicky [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, November 26, 2001 1:58 PM Subject: [PEN-L:19987] RE: Re: RE: Re: RE: RE: Max tells the truth Selective pacifism reflects confusion. Consistent pacifism is not confused; it's just wrong. mbs === So if everyone practiced non-violence the world would be a worse place to live? Ian
Re: RE: Re: RE: Re: RE: RE: Max tells the truth
Max Sawicky wrote: Selective pacifism reflects confusion. Consistent pacifism is not confused; it's just wrong. where is the confusion? if i state a theory and explicitly specify the outliers, would you call that confused? if i were to say i am a pacifist in the sense that i oppose all use of violence except when used in self-defense in situations where there is a direct threat to my life and limb, would you a) disagree with my use of the word pacifist? or b) call my position confused? --ravi man is said to be a rational animal. i do not know why he has not been defined as an affective or feeling animal. more often i have seen a cat reason than laugh or weep. perhaps it weeps or laughs inwardly - but then perhaps, also inwardly, the crab resolves equations of the 2nd degree. -- alasdair macintyre.
Re: Max tells the truth
From Michael Perelman: First of all, this sort of exchange has no place here. Second, this particular debate seems to involve Max vs. the others. When we reach that stage, especially when it becomes repetitive, it is time to stop. I agree and I wish I had not responded in the first place. In my own defense I would simply state that my final sentence: Sorry Max but I have found your attitude beyond the pale or reasonable discourse. Is in fact an apology for the dismmissive tone of my own reply. Greg Schofield Perth Australia --- Message Received --- From: Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2001 09:59:44 -0800 Subject: [PEN-L:19957] Re: RE: Re: Max tells the truth
RE: RE: Max tells the truth
to weigh in on the issue without commenting on anyone's food preparation, two issues need clarification. First, the taliban are a post modern formation being represented by media as a modern organization. In reality they are a fluid process of temporary alliances among small groups and individuals, in which ideology is less important than personality and access to resources. Many former Northern Alliance groups joined the Taliban when they were winning and could dispense resources, mainly money and arms, and these same groups are now shifting back to the NA, and as the media reporst, are being welcomed with open arms. Many NA groups were formerly part of the Russian backed Gov't troops and even fought with Russians against the resistance, but were welcomed back to the folds of tribal, clan, ethnic affinity group identities. Most to the taliban resistance to NA forces has to do with Pushtun Taliban vs. other non-Pushtun NA forces. For the past decade Afghan ethnic rivalries have exploded into genocide and ethnic cleansing by all sides, which now drives loyalties more than anything else other than small group self interest. Many experts have writen extensively on this issue, including Oliver Roy, Barnet Rubin, etc. The NA has been heavily backed by Russia, which has a number of its own ethnic Tajik Uzbek agents well placed in the NA, some former Afgan Gov't, others from the two stans so on. It is ironic that the US is now helping Russia's long term strategic objective of dominating Afghanistan, albeit playing a British card with forming a new Pushtun alliance rooted in both anti-taliban elements (mostly tribal chiefs, drug barons warlords) and Pakistani forces opposed to pro-taliban ISI and Army faction. Secondly, the idea that taliban represent extreme religious orthodoxy is both correct and incorrect. Yes the core leadership does, but not the ordinary soldiers workers for their rump state, as a job is s job in a country with 90% unemployment other than as soldier being paid by loot booty, which is why all the corpses and prisoners are stripped. Moreover, collective orthodoxy pervades all sides and factions equally, albeit all alliances are broad enough to include former communists, who may or may not be religious. It is like Italy where one can be both communist and aethist while catholic, vice versa, or Africa or Indonesia where all religions mix up in the melting pot most people pay some attention to all of them to none of them at the same time. I have met, for example, a few Marxist-Aethist Muslim Catholics in West Africa with four wives and at least as many mistresses. Binary thinking is a Western mental disorder. -Original Message- From: Max Sawicky [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, November 26, 2001 9:15 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:19949] RE: Max tells the truth
Re: Doug tells the truth, etc.
Perhaps we are talking at cross-purposes here. Doug, Steve, Joan Robinson, etc. are saying that under capitalism it's better to be employed than unemployed; Ali, Paul, etc. are saying that capitalism on the periphery is very much worse than other modes of production especially so when compared to formerly existing socialism. -- To be unemployed is to be within capital's orbit (ie it's a distinction that applies to populations constructed statistically by nation-states and super-national bodies.) Robinson is saying that being outside of that orbit is far worse than being in it. That is, even unemployment within the orbit of capital is better than whatever states of work life are available in other modes of production, given the encroachment of capital on those worlds. (As I recall, she is referring to Latin American development during the Cold War.) In that sense, I think Robinson would disagree with Ali, Paul etc., and probably argue that capital is a better mode of production even in its peripheral guises, given the misery entailed in being outside capitalist modernization when the forces supporting that modernization are at work. You might argue that Doug misapplied Robinson's idea, but he did so not to give sanction to capital, but to reinforce that the context in which one is outside of capital's circuits is one in which capital's existence next-door makes life worse than if there were no encroaching, competing social forces for capitalist modernization. You also might argue, pace Mark's comments, that Afghanistan and its shadow economies are perfectly good examples of Robinson's idea. Christian
RE:Re: Doug tells the truth, etc.
Christian writes:To be unemployed is to be within capital's orbit (ie it's a distinction that applies to populations constructed statistically by nation-states and super-national bodies.) Robinson is saying that being outside of that orbit is far worse than being in it. That is, even unemployment within the orbit of capital is better than whatever states of work life are available in other modes of production, given the encroachment of capital on those worlds. (As I recall, she is referring to Latin American development during the Cold War.) I searched for JR's famous quote once (it's in her ECONOMIC PHILOSOPHY or ECONOMIC HERESIES). It specifically refered to Southeast Asia. -- Jim Devine _ The simple way to read all your emails at ThatWeb http://www.thatweb.com
Re: Doug tells the truth, etc.
Perhaps we are talking at cross-purposes here. Doug, Steve, Joan Robinson, etc. are saying that under capitalism it's better to be employed than unemployed; Ali, Paul, etc. are saying that capitalism on the periphery is very much worse than other modes of production especially so when compared to formerly existing socialism. -- To be unemployed is to be within capital's orbit (ie it's a distinction that applies to populations constructed statistically by nation-states and super-national bodies.) Robinson is saying that being outside of that orbit is far worse than being in it. That is, even unemployment within the orbit of capital is better than whatever states of work life are available in other modes of production, given the encroachment of capital on those worlds. (As I recall, she is referring to Latin American development during the Cold War.) In that sense, I think Robinson would disagree with Ali, Paul etc., and probably argue that capital is a better mode of production even in its peripheral guises, given the misery entailed in being outside capitalist modernization when the forces supporting that modernization are at work. You might argue that Doug misapplied Robinson's idea, but he did so not to give sanction to capital, but to reinforce that the context in which one is outside of capital's circuits is one in which capital's existence next-door makes life worse than if there were no encroaching, competing social forces for capitalist modernization. You also might argue, pace Mark's comments, that Afghanistan and its shadow economies are perfectly good examples of Robinson's idea. Christian As I wrote in another post, I think that capitalism at present doesn't modernize the periphery; if anything, it tends to de-modernize, producing an increasing number of dissolved nations, failed/failing states, criminalized transnational networks of production/distribution/consumption, reactionary ideologies (including fundamentalist Islamism but far from limited to it) to go with them, all of which have been barely managed by the Empire's police actions, UN protectorates, the like. -- Yoshie * Calendar of Anti-War Events in Columbus: http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html * Anti-War Activist Resources: http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/activist.html * Anti-War Organizing in Columbus Covered by the Media: http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/media.html
Let's kill this thread: was Re: Doug tells the truth, etc.
I think that we can drop the title of this thread. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Doug tells the truth....
At 22/11/01 23:18 -0800, you wrote: http://www.thenation.com FEATURE STORY | Special Report Terrorism and Globalization by DOUG HENWOOD Doug's ability to doubt everything serves him well in this journalistic article which for the audience, may be more creative than coming up with pat correct answers. But to produce pat answers, which can only indicate one way that the momentum of the two discourses might unite - the transducer between poverty and terrorism is the murky role of the national bourgeoisie, that neither the left nor the right wish to analyse in any detail for their separate reasons. But it is clear the Al Qaida is a polymorphous organisation with an ideology and a structure that crucially in class terms can embrace members of the high intelligentsia, bourgeoisie dependent on the state capitalist sector of an oil economy, or more independent national bourgeois. The shifts in positions within these strata (almost too ill defined to be a class except in abstract terms) within Saudi Arabia, will be the crucial *indirect fall out of the war in Afghanistan. While there is massive poverty and inequality on a world scale, ideologies like the primitive communistic monotheism of islam, will advance themselves to represent the confused interests of the dissatisfied national bourgeoisie outside the metropolitan capitalist homelands. Its reactionary confused nature and the way it strangely combines with 21st century features are a product of the unstable class position of this national bourgeoisie. And on a global scale the thrust of Doug's article, IMHO, is that indeed the agenda has to shift to a global one of what juridical and representative forms of global governance have sufficient authenticity and acceptance to be viable. It is vital therefore that the present war is criticised not from a pacifist point of view but from the point of view of its failings as a just war. For example only last night on BBC Newsnight the Liberal Democratic Defence spokesperson and the Conservative Defence spokesperson, both card carrying members of the Coalition against Terror, were falling out over this crucial question: if the CAT derives its legitimacy from the dangers of terrorism to everyone, will it not fundamentally damage the authenticity of the war if the Northern Alliance massacre 5000 non Aghan defenders of Konduz? The argument between Campbell and Jenkins mirrors in another form the crucial difference of emphasis within the CAT between the British and US positions. The global political agenda requires rather than anti-US imperialism an acceleration of the dynamics of global civil society in which the contradiction between Empire and Multitude will be resolved in the coming decades through management of global capital. Chris Burford London
Doug tells the truth or equal retort
And Afghanistan, their current home, is almost entirely outside the circuits of global trade and capital flows--an exclusion that contributes greatly to its extreme poverty and social disintegration. (As the economist Joan Robinson once said, under capitalism, the misery of being exploited by capitalists is nothing compared to the misery of not being exploited at all.) These facts complicate the simple derivation of terrorism from globalization. Isn't this too economoizing, ie reductionist, and therefore economizing with the truth. Waht is this hang up with this J robinson quote. that is the wrongest thing she said man, yet it is flouted all over. Is there anyone outside of capitalism, go to Papua and the bag handler would want 15$ before he carries the bag. but the issue is more tricky: it is about the non existence of previous modes of production under capitalism. But there was little serious acknowledgment that we were attacked, and that some US response was inevitable and even justified. Recognizing that doesn't mean assent to Bush's version of a response, though lots of people in the peace movement seem to fear it does. But anyone who wants to speak to an audience beyond the small circle of believers has to consider these questions seriously. Is this lax talionis or equal retort. i presume this is one american tooth for 7 million people. for a whole set of teeth then what is next: 70 million. __ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! GeoCities - quick and easy web site hosting, just $8.95/month. http://geocities.yahoo.com/ps/info1
Re: Doug tells the truth..........................
The truthabout Doug 'I'm no pacifist' Henwood is that he, too, is in favour of US policy, that is, Henwood favours the policy of bombing Afghan towns and cities, he favours the random and/or mass slaughter of Afghanis, he favours the destruction of whatever remains of the social infrastructure in Afghanistan, in short he favours the kind of war of exterminism which for example the Russian state has carried out in Chechya in recent years. The collapse of Afghan society as a result of the combined efforts of US bombing and the insertion of Russian ground forces, troops, tanks etc, under the Northern Alliance flag, is creating not just a humanitarian catastrophe but prime-time genocide in Afghanistan. Henwood does support this ongoing genocide. He is a 'voter for war credits', a person who has surely lost any shred of credibility as a spokesman of the left. You cannot be of the left while supporting US genocide in Afghanistan. Now, weasel words about supporting this or that bit of a policy can not help him slide out his moral complicity in the US genocidal assault on Afghanistan, and no self-serving caveats about being against bombing but in favour of oher kinds of administering death should blind us to the truth of his politics: it is a cowardice and an instinct for personal survival, nothing more, that motivates it. When assessing 'the truth' of Henwood's politics, let us begin with this obvious fact -- the man is simply a craven apologist for exterminism, for US imperialism in its newest and most lethal guise. Mark Jones At 23/11/2001 07:18, you wrote: http://www.thenation.com FEATURE STORY | Special Report Terrorism and Globalization by DOUG HENWOOD
Re: Doug tells the truth..........................
Doug seems to suggest that since Afghan. has been relatively untouched by globalization, the link between terror and globalization has yet to be proved. Of course, I have not heard of any Afghani terrorists; supposedly many of the hijackers on S 11 were from Saudi Arabia. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: Doug tells the truth..........................
When assessing 'the truth' of Henwood's politics, let us begin with this obvious fact -- the man is simply a craven apologist for exterminism, for US imperialism in its newest and most lethal guise. Oh, he's worse than that. He's a running dog of the imperialist bourgeoisie, a flak for genocide; he has volunteered to personally eviscerate Afghan babies with his teeth, provided that they can be shipped to NYC. He is the personaification of evil, a renagade, a traitor, and enemy of the people. He throws Marx in the face of the people like ground glass, and should be shot like a mad dog! Vyshinsky _ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp
Re: Re: Doug tells the truth..........................
Mark in the apoplectic mode contends: The truthabout Doug 'I'm no pacifist' Henwood is that he, too, is in favour of US policy, that is, Henwood favours the policy of bombing Afghan towns and cities, he favours the random and/or mass slaughter of Afghanis, he favours the destruction of whatever remains of the social infrastructure in Afghanistan, in short he favours the kind of war of exterminism which for example the Russian state has carried out in Chechya in recent years. The collapse of Afghan society as a result of the combined efforts of US bombing and the insertion of Russian ground forces, troops, tanks etc, under the Northern Alliance flag, is creating not just a humanitarian catastrophe but prime-time genocide in Afghanistan. Henwood does support this ongoing genocide. --Wierd, on other lists I've not seen any evidence of this. He's challenged the likes of Leo Casey on LBO and Soc. Register List, disagreed with Max Sawicky on the LBO list on the current bombing campaign. Any evidence that Doug supports the current bombing campaign or is this just one more of a series of smears? Steve Stephen Philion Lecturer/PhD Candidate Department of Sociology 2424 Maile Way Social Sciences Bldg. # 247 Honolulu, HI 96822
Re: Re: Re: Doug tells the truth..........................
Doug went into more detail in LBO, but Stephen, you should not pile onto the flames by attacking Mark. On Fri, Nov 23, 2001 at 07:12:22AM -1000, Stephen E Philion wrote: --Wierd, on other lists I've not seen any evidence of this. He's challenged the likes of Leo Casey on LBO and Soc. Register List, disagreed with Max Sawicky on the LBO list on the current bombing campaign. Any evidence that Doug supports the current bombing campaign or is this just one more of a series of smears? -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Doug tells the truth..........................
http://www.thenation.com FEATURE STORY | Special Report Terrorism and Globalization by DOUG HENWOOD The organizers of the Globalization and Resistance Conference, held at the City University of New York's Graduate Center on November 16 and 17, had a very bad stroke of luck. They started planning the conference over the summer, with an agenda focusing on the origins and impacts of globalization, and the protest movements that have organized against it. Then came the September 11 terrorist attacks and the subsequent US response. Neither the conference speakers nor the attendees did a great job of assimilating those facts to the agenda at hand. Not, of course, that that's easy. But much of the talk, whether from the stage or in the hallways, was either about globalization (and the so-called antiglobalization movement) or the war (and the antiwar movement). They were like two parallel discourses that never quite met. Susan George, the writer and activist on development and global poverty, led off the conference by confessing that the bombing of Afghanistan hadn't turned out to be the disaster she'd feared, leaving her a bit confused about what to think. George then laid out a planetary contract for hope and renewal--an end to our foolish dependency on oil, cancellation of poor countries' debts, a program to meet the basic needs of the world's poorest (which would cost $50 billion to $90 billion a year) and new global taxes on financial transactions and multinational corporations. George offered this as worthy of doing in itself, but also as a way of lowering the levels of despair in which terrorists thrive (though she added, it wouldn't change the terrorists themselves, who have a fascist ideology, though she didn't explain where this ideology came from.) Though George presented her agenda as if no reasonable person could object, her arguments go against nearly everything the United States and its European junior partners stand for, and would amount to the first steps in overturning the global economic and political hierarchy. A fine idea, but it would mean taking on the most powerful interest groups in the world, something George must know, but which she barely acknowledged. Agenda-setters and activists also seem to inhabit parallel worlds that never quite meet. But what is the relationship between globalization and terrorism (even loosely and imprecisely defined)? The conference buzz was that terrorism is the product of marginalization and poverty, and marginalization and poverty the products of globalization. But are things really that simple? Latin America and East Asia, two of the regions most transformed by global economic forces over the last two decades, have produced no terrorists of note. Saudi Arabia, home of Osama bin Laden himself and many of his funders, has been embedded in the global oil economy since well before most Al Qaeda members were born. And Afghanistan, their current home, is almost entirely outside the circuits of global trade and capital flows--an exclusion that contributes greatly to its extreme poverty and social disintegration. (As the economist Joan Robinson once said, under capitalism, the misery of being exploited by capitalists is nothing compared to the misery of not being exploited at all.) These facts complicate the simple derivation of terrorism from globalization. But the biggest absence of all was the recognition that there's something different about this war as compared to recent military interventions over Kosovo and Kuwait. Speakers and attendees frequently cited longstanding US geopolitical goals as lurking behind the war. This is undeniably true. Washington's war strategy is not motivated by tenderness for the people of Afghanistan. For all the professions of concern about the abuse of women under the Taliban, George W. Bush and his cronies haven't been born-again as feminists. But there was little serious acknowledgment that we were attacked, and that some US response was inevitable and even justified. Recognizing that doesn't mean assent to Bush's version of a response, though lots of people in the peace movement seem to fear it does. But anyone who wants to speak to an audience beyond the small circle of believers has to consider these questions seriously. This has an importance far beyond the fate of one conference. Many antiglobalization activists (not a fair name, since many of them are quite global in their thinking and organization) have been hoping that after the dust settles, the movement could go back to what it had been doing before September 11. Speakers repeatedly invoked the list of place names that have come to signify the movement's breadth and growth--Seattle, Quebec City, Porto Alegre, Genoa...--as if the series will be shortly resumed. But it may not. War, fear, and repression have thrown sand in the gears. Linking the themes of peace and justice can be done, but it requires hard thinking, and there's not enough of that going on
Re: True Hegelian Truth Eonic Effect, + adios (almost)
Thanks a lot for the gesture, and to Michael also. I will be on my way soon, hounded off the list--nope, I am never hounded, I am done for the nonce. Doesn't matter. This kind of hostility wears off. I must remember just how hard it is to really deal with issues of ideology and evolution. I hope you will be able to see the point of the argument, which is fairly complex, but the basic structure is elegant and beautiful although Darwinists prefer their hogswill history, like Darwin himself. This 'eonic analysis' of the 'eonic effect' voids all claims of sociobiological analysis applied ot history. Nota Bene. That's my claim. And I know the bigwigs are afraid of this book. The work deserves to be properly studied and reviewed, and the public informed of the orginal version behind R. Wright's pathetic effort of preemption, not so pathetic high roller propaganda game. Brace yourself, don't flunk ideology 101 at the last moment. What the work deserves it obviously won't get, so I will continue to butt in my statements on these matters, where possible. Keep at it, and I can answer any questions. But if you find it overwhelming, patience, unless it is not for you. But there are very few ways evolution can operate on the surface of a planet, and Darwininism didn't get it straight. I think the eonic effect clarifies the picture considerably. Thanks alot. John In a message dated 6/3/2001 5:07:45 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I'll take the free download. Where do I go? Andrew --Original Message Text--- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Sat, 2 Jun 2001 19:54:18 EDT In a message dated 6/2/2001 1:57:56 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Hegel is definitely a believer in conflict. He dared to undertake a consummation of Philosophy, Western and Eastern. He embraced the resulting conflict despite finding it disturbing. Maybe his search for the Absolute was a process of reconciliation, a bereavement over the ideals lost by the contemptible philosophes. The acorn becomes the oak, but the oak must die. And so Tennyson wrote, almost as a true Hegelian: Someone just offered you a free download of a study of asocial sociability and an approach to history that might resolve it. You refuse even a free copy, strange. But I get the message. You seem to prefer conflict, the nutty core of modern ideology. John Landon [EMAIL PROTECTED] Website on eonic effect http://eonix.8m.com http://www.eonica.net
Re: The Truth Will Set You Free
Max: Opposing U.S. intervention does not depend on solidarity with the FARC or anyone else. Presumably most people here who opposed NATO in the Balkans were not practising solidarity w/Milo. Actually, the same divide that existed with respect to US intervention in Yugoslavia exists with respect to the impending war in Colombia. Nation Magazine liberals, Z Magazine and the like opposed Nato's military actions but accepted the State Department's demonization of Milosevic. Ramsey Clark, the WWP, Jared Israel, yours truly opposed the war and rejected the demonization. In Colombia you have two nationwide coalitions. One is called the Colombia Support Network. Don't get confused by the name. (http://www.colombiasupport.net/) They are not in solidarity with the FARC and wish it would disappear. It is led by figures from NACLA and orients to the civil society groups. In calling for peace, they seem to forget that the FARC was nearly exterminated when it came in from the mountains ten years ago to run in elections. No wonder they seem gunshy today. The other coalition, which includes CISPES, is called the Colombia Action Network. (http://free.freespeech.org/actioncolombia/) It does not demonize the FARC and ELN but neither does it seem to have the same kind of bonds that CISPES had with the FMLN/FDR. Neither group includes each other's URL in their links section. Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/ So, what's to be done, practically speaking? Work within the Colombia Action Network or get a FARC solidarity group going if you can? Yoshie
Re: Re: The Truth Will Set You Free
So, what's to be done, practically speaking? Work within the Colombia Action Network or get a FARC solidarity group going if you can? Yoshie Little confused by your question. The CAN, while not exactly a FARC solidarity group (this might land you in jail), is about as close as you can come. I have a feeling that I might join them myself within the next few months as the USA gets involved with the counter-insurgency effort down there. Anybody who wants to keep track of Colombia should check the Marxism list archives for anything with the subject heading Forwarded from Anthony, who is in Bogota and very knowledgeable. Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org
Re: The Truth Will Set You Free
So, what's to be done, practically speaking? Work within the Colombia Action Network or get a FARC solidarity group going if you can? Yoshie Little confused by your question. The CAN, while not exactly a FARC solidarity group (this might land you in jail), is about as close as you can come. I have a feeling that I might join them myself within the next few months as the USA gets involved with the counter-insurgency effort down there. Anybody who wants to keep track of Colombia should check the Marxism list archives for anything with the subject heading Forwarded from Anthony, who is in Bogota and very knowledgeable. Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org I asked because you sounded a bit disappointed with the absence of the same kind of bonds that CISPES had with the FMLN/FDR. I hope you'll join the CAN. Yoshie
Re: Re: Re: True Hegelian Truth
If truth is whole, Hegelian truth would do well to be studied in the context of the whole of German philosophy, if not world philosophy. The sudden re-start, in medias res, in the wake of Kant and the mysterious decade of the 1790's as Kant's system is a) transcended b) plundered of the mummy starting with Fichte (take your pick a la carte) by the Hegelian system, followed by the Marxist transposition, generates a subset of a subset in the name of the whole, and is insidious. Tom Rockmore's Before and After Hegel gives a good account, though slanted toward Hegel (cf. also the recent Cambridge German Idealism on all the less known figures here). The left has suffered grievously from this process, and any future left needs to recast its foundations in a better disposition than the materialism-idealism duality, which serves only to drive theory into crypto-metaphysical positivist lowball, after the original Kantian balanced challenge and double whammy as to empricism and metaphysical rationalism. I was looking at Janeway's book on Schopenhauer where he opens by noting the similarity with the early Marx (?!) as the mystery self induces the struggle with the Kantian legacy here. Remarkable, but all is soon lost and the confusing reversal of Hegel makes the latter almost seem a mirror image reversal as 'materialism'. If there really is a Geist he must have been quite a devil and had a lot of fun making fun of the victims of this over-complexified legedermain. John Landon [EMAIL PROTECTED] Website on eonic effect http://eonix.8m.com http://www.eonica.net
The Truth Will Set You Free
You can dress up atrocity reports w/a lot of marxist blather but the implied moral exhortation and political motive are no less obvious. I eschew bourgeois morality, but see how brutal capitalism is. Check out these testicles. Anyone who employs atrocity reports can hardly hope to delegitimize reports consistent with a contrary political view. There is also the small matter of the truth of what is happening. Efforts to obscure this do not uphold the credibility of the speaker, assuming they have any credibility to begin with. Acknowledgement of whatever crimes the FARC et al. are guilty of would strengthen any good class analysis. One principle that holds up under any left ideology is that one gains by persuading the unpersuaded, not by maximizing the power of self-delusion. Of course, everybody on this list has the right to be uninterested in politics. Most people here can figure out the parallels between Colombia and Vietnam and oppose U.S. intervention, regardless of what FARC or anyone else is up to. This matters because efforts to police the boundaries of discussion exert an awful effect on the way people in the left relate to each other, and to the way organizations work internally. They also drive peripheral people away (politics). Michael, your double standard is showing again. MBS I don't think that I have to put my foot down with Michael. I think that he understands now. On Sun, Jun 03, 2001 at 12:40:12PM -0400, Louis Proyect wrote: Michael wrote: I agree with Lou that we are likely to be innundated with Tonkin Gulf . . . Then why don't you put your foot down? . . . Louis Proyect
Re: The Truth Will Set You Free
Max wrote: There is also the small matter of the truth of what is happening. Efforts to obscure this do not uphold the credibility of the speaker, assuming they have any credibility to begin with. Acknowledgement of whatever crimes the FARC et al. are guilty of would strengthen any good class analysis. The FARC is much less criminal than the Vietcong, by any standards. When the NLF went into a village, it killed anybody who was collaborating with Saigon. But either outfit was running a sunday school compared to George Washington: The third component of Washington's Sullivan-Clinton-Brodhead strategy involved a successful diversion. Colonel Daniel Brodhead, Commander of the Western Department and Fourth Pennsylvania Continental Regiment at Fort Pitt led 605 men up the Allegheny River Valley on 11 August. There were minor skirmishes with Seneca and Muncy Delaware, and the force proceeded unopposed to Bucktooth (Salamanca, New York). The force returned to Fort Pitt on 14 September, having destroyed more than 500 acres of crops and 130 houses in three Seneca villages in the Kinzua area (Warren, Pennsylvania). None of Brodhead's men were killed or taken prisoner. Graymont (pp. 214-215) and Starkey (pp. 123-127) write briefly on this expedition. Sullivan leveled 32 Indian villages and destroyed 160,000 bushels of corn, but his overly cautious nature, demands for overwhelming numbers of troops and extraordinary amounts of supplies, lack of field reports, and his braggadocio did not sit well with Washington, who sent Sullivan a one sentence congratulatory letter. Mintz contends that if Sullivan's assignment was to eradicate the villages and sustenance of the Iroquois, he had succeeded. But if his mission was to eliminate the Iroquois threat to the European occupation of the Six Nations heartland, he had achieved only a momentary respite (p. 154). Surprised by the government's cool reception, Sullivan retired from military service on 9 November 1779. Washington thought that Sullivan had allowed the enemy to escape at Newtown and failed to attack Fort Niagara. In the autumn of 1779, Niagara had only a garrison of 400 and was overwhelmed by 5,000 refugees from Iroquoia by January 1780. The winter of 1779-1780 proved to be one of the harshest on record, but from February to September 1780 Butler sent out 59 war parties to attack American settlements in the Mohawk, Delaware, Susquehanna, and Juniata River valleys. New York's Governor Clinton estimated 200 dwellings were burned and 150,000 bushels of grain were destroyed (p. 168), but other Tory attacks were ineffective. With the surrender of British General Cornwalis at Yorktown in November 1781, the reconquest of the Iroquois homeland was not possible, and the Indians were caught between British retrenchment and American annihilation. These Iroquois felt betrayed by the British and were a subdued people dependent upon Canada. A reaffirmation of the 1768 Treaty of Fort Stanwix occurred in October 1784. In the book's Epilogue, Mintz writes the Iroquois found themselves powerless to resist the post-Revolutionary takeover and peopling of their heartland by the new American nation (p. 183). He then catalogues the attempts by New York State to systematically dispossess the Loyalist Indians of their lands by threat, deception, and guile. The Six Nations Reserve near Brantford, Ontario and Seneca land retention and sales are touched upon as Mintz brings the reader quickly up to February 1999 in a few paragraphs. (From H_Net review of Max M. Mintz. _Seeds of Empire: The American Revolutionary Conquest of the Iroquois_.) Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/
Re: The Truth Will Set You Free
I hope that my double standard is clear. I know that the US has the capacity to manufacture atrocities as well as to cover them up. Raymond Bonner got punished for trying to describe inconvenient atrocities; others get rewarded for passing on untruths. On Sun, Jun 03, 2001 at 01:12:53PM -0400, Max Sawicky wrote: You can dress up atrocity reports w/a lot of marxist blather but the implied moral exhortation and political motive are no less obvious. I eschew bourgeois morality, but see how brutal capitalism is. Check out these testicles. Anyone who employs atrocity reports can hardly hope to delegitimize reports consistent with a contrary political view. There is also the small matter of the truth of what is happening. Efforts to obscure this do not uphold the credibility of the speaker, assuming they have any credibility to begin with. Acknowledgement of whatever crimes the FARC et al. are guilty of would strengthen any good class analysis. One principle that holds up under any left ideology is that one gains by persuading the unpersuaded, not by maximizing the power of self-delusion. Of course, everybody on this list has the right to be uninterested in politics. Most people here can figure out the parallels between Colombia and Vietnam and oppose U.S. intervention, regardless of what FARC or anyone else is up to. This matters because efforts to police the boundaries of discussion exert an awful effect on the way people in the left relate to each other, and to the way organizations work internally. They also drive peripheral people away (politics). Michael, your double standard is showing again. MBS I don't think that I have to put my foot down with Michael. I think that he understands now. On Sun, Jun 03, 2001 at 12:40:12PM -0400, Louis Proyect wrote: Michael wrote: I agree with Lou that we are likely to be innundated with Tonkin Gulf . . . Then why don't you put your foot down? . . . Louis Proyect -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: The Truth Will Set You Free
Michael wrote: I hope that my double standard is clear. I know that the US has the capacity to manufacture atrocities as well as to cover them up. Raymond Bonner got punished for trying to describe inconvenient atrocities; others get rewarded for passing on untruths. I think that while the need to transcend yellow journalism is important, there is still an urgent question facing the left, namely how to assess the FARC, which occupies a territory larger than Switzerland and is on a collision course with the USA. From Pugliese, you'd get the impression that the FARC is little different from some of the armed groups plaguing West Africa that enrich themselves with diamond contraband when they aren't hacking off innocent people's limbs. Obviously there is little point in offering solidarity to such groups that are just common criminals. But what is the FARC? Is it just an armed group trying to get rich by kidnapping and drug smuggling? In reality it is actually quite mild ideologically. What makes it an enemy of the USA is not its politics, but the fact that it is armed and has emerged as a effective defender of peasants in Colombia. Without the FARC, Colombia would be even more of a graveyard for peasants than it is now. Between the death squads and the cops and army, the only protection a peasant has is a FARC combatant. That is what is so disgusting about the Washington Post article. It ellides this important truth. Without the FARC, Colombia would be a mountain of skulls just like Guatemala was in the 1980s. While the James Petras article on Plan Colombia in the May 2001 MR suffers from some predictably ultraleft formulations with respect to Venezuela's Chavez, it at least makes the case that the FARC and ELN cause is worth supporting: Plan Colombia is about maintaining the mystique of the invincibility of empire and the irreversibility of neo-liberal policies. The power elite in Washington knows that the beliefs held by oppressed peoples and their leaders are as effective in retaining U.S. power as the actual exercise of force. As long as Latin American regimes and their opposition continue to believe that there is no alternative to U.S. hegemony they will conform to the major demands emanating from Washington and its representatives in the international financial institutions. The belief that U.S. power is untouchable and that its dictates are beyond the reach of the nation-state (which the rhetoric of globalization reinforces) has been a prime factor in reinforcing U.S. material rule (i.e. economic exploitation, military base construction, etc.). Once U.S. dominance is tested and successfully resisted by popular struggle in one region, the mystique is eroded as people and even regimes elsewhere begin to question the U.S. defined parameters of political action. A new impetus is thus given to opposition forces in challenging the neo-liberal rules and regulations facilitating the pillage of their economies. Where such destabilization occurs, capital, threatened with a revival of nationalist and socialist reforms and redistributive structural adjustments, will flow out. The reversion to more restricted markets and the constraints of risk and declining profit margins within the U.S. empire will threaten the position of the dollar. A flight from the dollar will in turn make it difficult for the U.S. economy to finance its huge current account imbalances. The fear of this chain reaction is at the root of Washingtons hostility to any challenge anywhere that could set in motion large scale and extended political opposition. Colombia is a case in point. In itself the economic and political stake of the U.S. within Colombia is not overly substantial. Yet the possibility of a successful emancipatory struggle led by the FARC, ELN, and their popular allies could undermine the mystique, and set in motion movements in other countries and perhaps put some backbone in some Latin leaders. Plan Colombia is about preventing Colombia from becoming an example that demonstrates that alternatives are possible and that Washington is vincible. More significantly, a Cuba-Venezuela-Colombia alliance would provide a powerful political and economic bloc: Cuban social and security know-how, Venezuelas energy clout, and Colombian oil, labor power, agriculture and industry. The complementary political-economies could become an alternative pole to the U.S. centered empire. Plan Colombia is organized to destroy the potential centerpiece of that political alliance: the Colombian insurgency. Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/
Double Standards: was: Re: The Truth Will Set You Free
On Sun, 3 Jun 2001, Louis Proyect wrote: Michael wrote: I hope that my double standard is clear. I know that the US has the capacity to manufacture atrocities as well as to cover them up. Raymond Bonner got punished for trying to describe inconvenient atrocities; others get rewarded for passing on untruths. I think that while the need to transcend yellow journalism is important, there is still an urgent question facing the left, namely how to assess the FARC, which occupies a territory larger than Switzerland and is on a collision course with the USA. From Pugliese, you'd get the impression that the FARC is little different from some of the armed groups plaguing West Africa that enrich themselves with diamond contraband when they aren't hacking off innocent people's limbs. Obviously there is little point in offering solidarity to such groups that are just common criminals. Well yeah, but in that sense Pugliese just follows your example. Mischaracterizations abound in your critical posts on Wood, Brenner, etc. Even today on your Marxism list you are claiming once again, with utterly no evidence, that Doug Henwood's arguments against the narrow anti-corporatist pro-competition agenda found in certain elements of the anti-globalization crowd are somehow pro-capitalism. Any reading of Doug's article in LBO that is the source of this mischaracterization shows how utterly bizarre your charges are. On your Marxism list, James Devine is a 'desparate liberal' to quote your lead epigone Mine. Why should we only be critical of Pugliese for engaging in mischaraterizations? While the James Petras article on Plan Colombia in the May 2001 MR suffers from some predictably ultraleft formulations with respect to Venezuela's Chavez, it at least makes the case that the FARC and ELN cause is worth supporting: The 'ultra-left' charge against Petras comes out now as a leitmotif of yours with no evidence. Is this because Petras is a supporter of Brenner's criticisms of Wallerstein? I mean you've already told us that Petras is 'Eurocentric' and we see how pathetic a charge that is to make once we consider Petras's active commitment to Latin American revolutions throughout his career...So, if Petras is Eurocentric because he supports Brenner over Wallerstein, if he is 'ultra left' for the same silly reason, then so what. So Petras is 'ultra-left', big deal. Many people who don't like your arguments would say that about you too, although it wouldn't help us get any closer to evaluating whether or not your arguments are valid ones.
Re: Double Standards: was: Re: The Truth Will Set You Free
I just added you to the Marxism list. If you want to start a flame war, you can do it over there instead of provoking me on PEN-L. At 11:34 AM 6/3/01 -1000, you wrote: On Sun, 3 Jun 2001, Louis Proyect wrote: Michael wrote: I hope that my double standard is clear. I know that the US has the capacity to manufacture atrocities as well as to cover them up. Raymond Bonner got punished for trying to describe inconvenient atrocities; others get rewarded for passing on untruths. I think that while the need to transcend yellow journalism is important, there is still an urgent question facing the left, namely how to assess the FARC, which occupies a territory larger than Switzerland and is on a collision course with the USA. From Pugliese, you'd get the impression that the FARC is little different from some of the armed groups plaguing West Africa that enrich themselves with diamond contraband when they aren't hacking off innocent people's limbs. Obviously there is little point in offering solidarity to such groups that are just common criminals. Well yeah, but in that sense Pugliese just follows your example. Mischaracterizations abound in your critical posts on Wood, Brenner, etc. Even today on your Marxism list you are claiming once again, with utterly no evidence, that Doug Henwood's arguments against the narrow anti-corporatist pro-competition agenda found in certain elements of the anti-globalization crowd are somehow pro-capitalism. Any reading of Doug's article in LBO that is the source of this mischaracterization shows how utterly bizarre your charges are. On your Marxism list, James Devine is a 'desparate liberal' to quote your lead epigone Mine. Why should we only be critical of Pugliese for engaging in mischaraterizations? While the James Petras article on Plan Colombia in the May 2001 MR suffers from some predictably ultraleft formulations with respect to Venezuela's Chavez, it at least makes the case that the FARC and ELN cause is worth supporting: The 'ultra-left' charge against Petras comes out now as a leitmotif of yours with no evidence. Is this because Petras is a supporter of Brenner's criticisms of Wallerstein? I mean you've already told us that Petras is 'Eurocentric' and we see how pathetic a charge that is to make once we consider Petras's active commitment to Latin American revolutions throughout his career...So, if Petras is Eurocentric because he supports Brenner over Wallerstein, if he is 'ultra left' for the same silly reason, then so what. So Petras is 'ultra-left', big deal. Many people who don't like your arguments would say that about you too, although it wouldn't help us get any closer to evaluating whether or not your arguments are valid ones. Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/
Re: Double Standards: was: Re: The Truth Will Set You Free
Please Steve, cool it. On Sun, Jun 03, 2001 at 11:34:59AM -1000, Stephen E Philion wrote: On Sun, 3 Jun 2001, Louis Proyect wrote: Michael wrote: I hope that my double standard is clear. I know that the US has the capacity to manufacture atrocities as well as to cover them up. Raymond Bonner got punished for trying to describe inconvenient atrocities; others get rewarded for passing on untruths. I think that while the need to transcend yellow journalism is important, there is still an urgent question facing the left, namely how to assess the FARC, which occupies a territory larger than Switzerland and is on a collision course with the USA. From Pugliese, you'd get the impression that the FARC is little different from some of the armed groups plaguing West Africa that enrich themselves with diamond contraband when they aren't hacking off innocent people's limbs. Obviously there is little point in offering solidarity to such groups that are just common criminals. Well yeah, but in that sense Pugliese just follows your example. Mischaracterizations abound in your critical posts on Wood, Brenner, etc. Even today on your Marxism list you are claiming once again, with utterly no evidence, that Doug Henwood's arguments against the narrow anti-corporatist pro-competition agenda found in certain elements of the anti-globalization crowd are somehow pro-capitalism. Any reading of Doug's article in LBO that is the source of this mischaracterization shows how utterly bizarre your charges are. On your Marxism list, James Devine is a 'desparate liberal' to quote your lead epigone Mine. Why should we only be critical of Pugliese for engaging in mischaraterizations? While the James Petras article on Plan Colombia in the May 2001 MR suffers from some predictably ultraleft formulations with respect to Venezuela's Chavez, it at least makes the case that the FARC and ELN cause is worth supporting: The 'ultra-left' charge against Petras comes out now as a leitmotif of yours with no evidence. Is this because Petras is a supporter of Brenner's criticisms of Wallerstein? I mean you've already told us that Petras is 'Eurocentric' and we see how pathetic a charge that is to make once we consider Petras's active commitment to Latin American revolutions throughout his career...So, if Petras is Eurocentric because he supports Brenner over Wallerstein, if he is 'ultra left' for the same silly reason, then so what. So Petras is 'ultra-left', big deal. Many people who don't like your arguments would say that about you too, although it wouldn't help us get any closer to evaluating whether or not your arguments are valid ones. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: The Truth Will Set You Free
I am sorry if I gave you the impression that I want to paper over problems with the FARC. I only said that I thought that we don't have to bother with anti-FARC stuff here. On Sun, Jun 03, 2001 at 08:00:28PM -0400, Max Sawicky wrote: Max wrote: There is also the small matter of the truth of what is happening. Efforts to obscure this do not uphold the credibility of the speaker, assuming they have any credibility to begin with. Acknowledgement of whatever crimes the FARC et al. are guilty of would strengthen any good class analysis. The FARC is much less criminal than the Vietcong, by any standards. When the NLF went into a village, it killed anybody who was collaborating with Saigon. But either outfit was running a sunday school compared to George Washington: mbs: As should be obvious, I did not say the FARC was criminal at all, much less more or less so than the NLF or old Wooden-gums. In Colombia shit is gonna happen. Good guys don't make progress through saintliness. But averting our eyes is stupid and ill equips us for political struggle. Pugliese didn't do anything wrong. Opposing U.S. intervention does not depend on solidarity with the FARC or anyone else. Presumably most people here who opposed NATO in the Balkans were not practising solidarity w/Milo. In The Battle of Algiers the use of terror by the insurgents against innocent people is frankly acknowledged. It does not detract from the revolutionary message of the film, IMO. Our situation is much easier. We don't have to paper over whatever we don't like about those who oppose the U.S. to oppose intervention for our own reasons. For some reason, honesty gets you a long way in politics, even though many people are not honest themselves and do not pretend to be. Go figure. mbs -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: RE: Re: The Truth Will Set You Free
Max: Opposing U.S. intervention does not depend on solidarity with the FARC or anyone else. Presumably most people here who opposed NATO in the Balkans were not practising solidarity w/Milo. Actually, the same divide that existed with respect to US intervention in Yugoslavia exists with respect to the impending war in Colombia. Nation Magazine liberals, Z Magazine and the like opposed Nato's military actions but accepted the State Department's demonization of Milosevic. Ramsey Clark, the WWP, Jared Israel, yours truly opposed the war and rejected the demonization. In Colombia you have two nationwide coalitions. One is called the Colombia Support Network. Don't get confused by the name. (http://www.colombiasupport.net/) They are not in solidarity with the FARC and wish it would disappear. It is led by figures from NACLA and orients to the civil society groups. In calling for peace, they seem to forget that the FARC was nearly exterminated when it came in from the mountains ten years ago to run in elections. No wonder they seem gunshy today. The other coalition, which includes CISPES, is called the Colombia Action Network. (http://free.freespeech.org/actioncolombia/) It does not demonize the FARC and ELN but neither does it seem to have the same kind of bonds that CISPES had with the FMLN/FDR. Neither group includes each other's URL in their links section. Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/
RE: Re: The Truth Will Set You Free
Max wrote: There is also the small matter of the truth of what is happening. Efforts to obscure this do not uphold the credibility of the speaker, assuming they have any credibility to begin with. Acknowledgement of whatever crimes the FARC et al. are guilty of would strengthen any good class analysis. The FARC is much less criminal than the Vietcong, by any standards. When the NLF went into a village, it killed anybody who was collaborating with Saigon. But either outfit was running a sunday school compared to George Washington: mbs: As should be obvious, I did not say the FARC was criminal at all, much less more or less so than the NLF or old Wooden-gums. In Colombia shit is gonna happen. Good guys don't make progress through saintliness. But averting our eyes is stupid and ill equips us for political struggle. Pugliese didn't do anything wrong. Opposing U.S. intervention does not depend on solidarity with the FARC or anyone else. Presumably most people here who opposed NATO in the Balkans were not practising solidarity w/Milo. In The Battle of Algiers the use of terror by the insurgents against innocent people is frankly acknowledged. It does not detract from the revolutionary message of the film, IMO. Our situation is much easier. We don't have to paper over whatever we don't like about those who oppose the U.S. to oppose intervention for our own reasons. For some reason, honesty gets you a long way in politics, even though many people are not honest themselves and do not pretend to be. Go figure. mbs
Re: The Truth Will Set You Free
- Original Message - From: Louis Proyect [EMAIL PROTECTED] Actually, the same divide that existed with respect to US intervention in Yugoslavia exists with respect to the impending war in Colombia. Nation Magazine liberals, Z Magazine and the like opposed Nato's military actions but accepted the State Department's demonization of Milosevic. Ramsey Clark, the WWP, Jared Israel, yours truly opposed the war and rejected the demonization. The comparison to Kosovo is a bit off, since while various groups may have warmer or cooler attitudes towards the FARC itself, the more interesting comparison is to attitudes towards the KLA, which like the FARC was the rebel movement involved there. Many folks (including Lou) happily demonized the KLA, accusing them of everything from murder to drug running, exactly the kinds of compromising actions almost any rebel movement makes. In the case of Columbia, the US is on the side of the central government in putting down rebels, while in Kosovo it was on the side of the rebels. Now, it is perfectly valid intellectually to support the central government in Serbia and oppose it in Columbia, but the fact is that Milosevic had the full resources of a state and committed full throated human rights violations when it had other alternatives. It is hard to compare the demonization of such actions against the choices faced by rebel groups. Frankly, the Columbian government (as opposed to the whole apparatus of parmilitaries that undergird it, a fine distinction but somewhat real, and likely to become more real if the Right takes full power in elections as looks more likely) is a more attractive government than Belgrade's, but I would bet that almost all groups and individuals who had critical support for NATO intervention against Milosevic are opposing Plan Columbia. Strict anti-imperialism politics and simple comparisons between situations just don't work very well in a world of multiple alliances and complicated class tensions. It would be interesting to try to integrate narco-capitalism into a simple class analysis of individual countries and of how that then plays out in conflict between nations. I am sure Lou can deliver such a simple analysis where all the good guys end up on one side and bad guys on the other, but it seems clearer that narcocapitalism has played an incredibly complicated role in both upholding the worst death squads of Latin America AND funded some of its biggest resistance. And it is clear that at points the US's anti-communism and anti-drug policy have been in direct conflict, the whole point that the exposes of CIA conflict with the DEA has shown. This micro agency conflict has played out more broadly across the expanse of Latin America conflicts both within US policy and within many of those nation;s politics as well. And trying to map those divisions onto simple divisions among the US left is even less easy to make Nathan Newman ps. BTW most folks probably missed the Tailor of Panama, but it has some of the nastier anti-US policy politics of any recent movie, focusing on the fraud of US involvement in Panama and the mass murder and repression done there under US auspices.
Re: Re: RE: Re: The Truth Will Set You Free
- Original Message - From: Louis Proyect [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, June 03, 2001 8:11 PM Subject: [PEN-L:12681] Re: RE: Re: The Truth Will Set You Free Max: Opposing U.S. intervention does not depend on solidarity with the FARC or anyone else. Presumably most people here who opposed NATO in the Balkans were not practising solidarity w/Milo. Actually, the same divide that existed with respect to US intervention in Yugoslavia exists with respect to the impending war in Colombia. Nation Magazine liberals, Z Magazine and the like opposed Nato's military actions but accepted the State Department's demonization of Milosevic. Ramsey Clark, the WWP, Jared Israel, yours truly opposed the war and rejected the demonization. In Colombia you have two nationwide coalitions. One is called the Colombia Support Network. Don't get confused by the name. (http://www.colombiasupport.net/) They are not in solidarity with the FARC and wish it would disappear. It is led by figures from NACLA and orients to the civil society groups. In calling for peace, they seem to forget that the FARC was nearly exterminated when it came in from the mountains ten years ago to run in elections. No wonder they seem gunshy today. The other coalition, which includes CISPES, is called the Colombia Action Network. (http://free.freespeech.org/actioncolombia/) It does not demonize the FARC and ELN but neither does it seem to have the same kind of bonds that CISPES had with the FMLN/FDR. Neither group includes each other's URL in their links section. Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/
Re: Re: The Truth Will Set You Free
Nathan, the KLA were like the FARC only if you see the Serbians as the bad guys. We went over that fight already. On Sun, Jun 03, 2001 at 09:09:45PM -0400, Nathan Newman wrote: - Original Message - From: Louis Proyect [EMAIL PROTECTED] Actually, the same divide that existed with respect to US intervention in Yugoslavia exists with respect to the impending war in Colombia. Nation Magazine liberals, Z Magazine and the like opposed Nato's military actions but accepted the State Department's demonization of Milosevic. Ramsey Clark, the WWP, Jared Israel, yours truly opposed the war and rejected the demonization. The comparison to Kosovo is a bit off, since while various groups may have warmer or cooler attitudes towards the FARC itself, the more interesting comparison is to attitudes towards the KLA, which like the FARC was the rebel movement involved there. Many folks (including Lou) happily demonized the KLA, accusing them of everything from murder to drug running, exactly the kinds of compromising actions almost any rebel movement makes. In the case of Columbia, the US is on the side of the central government in putting down rebels, while in Kosovo it was on the side of the rebels. Now, it is perfectly valid intellectually to support the central government in Serbia and oppose it in Columbia, but the fact is that Milosevic had the full resources of a state and committed full throated human rights violations when it had other alternatives. It is hard to compare the demonization of such actions against the choices faced by rebel groups. Frankly, the Columbian government (as opposed to the whole apparatus of parmilitaries that undergird it, a fine distinction but somewhat real, and likely to become more real if the Right takes full power in elections as looks more likely) is a more attractive government than Belgrade's, but I would bet that almost all groups and individuals who had critical support for NATO intervention against Milosevic are opposing Plan Columbia. Strict anti-imperialism politics and simple comparisons between situations just don't work very well in a world of multiple alliances and complicated class tensions. It would be interesting to try to integrate narco-capitalism into a simple class analysis of individual countries and of how that then plays out in conflict between nations. I am sure Lou can deliver such a simple analysis where all the good guys end up on one side and bad guys on the other, but it seems clearer that narcocapitalism has played an incredibly complicated role in both upholding the worst death squads of Latin America AND funded some of its biggest resistance. And it is clear that at points the US's anti-communism and anti-drug policy have been in direct conflict, the whole point that the exposes of CIA conflict with the DEA has shown. This micro agency conflict has played out more broadly across the expanse of Latin America conflicts both within US policy and within many of those nation;s politics as well. And trying to map those divisions onto simple divisions among the US left is even less easy to make Nathan Newman ps. BTW most folks probably missed the Tailor of Panama, but it has some of the nastier anti-US policy politics of any recent movie, focusing on the fraud of US involvement in Panama and the mass murder and repression done there under US auspices. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: Re: The Truth Will Set You Free
- Original Message - From: Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] Nathan, the KLA were like the FARC only if you see the Serbians as the bad guys. We went over that fight already. I wasn't the one making the original comparison between Columbia and Kosovo, but even most of those who opposed NATO thought the Serbians were the bad guys, just that NATO were even worse guys. But if that is a command to end the discussion mentioning Kosovo, fine, but suggest you apply it evenhandedly. -- Nathan Newman
Re: Re: The Truth Will Set You Free
Nathan: The comparison to Kosovo is a bit off, since while various groups may have warmer or cooler attitudes towards the FARC itself, the more interesting comparison is to attitudes towards the KLA, which like the FARC was the rebel movement involved there. Many folks (including Lou) happily demonized the KLA, accusing them of everything from murder to drug running, exactly the kinds of compromising actions almost any rebel movement makes. Actually I wrote about the FARC and drugs here already, but I suppose it is worth reposting: Revolution in Colombia, part three: guerrillas and cocaine The New York Times reported on Saturday August 7th, 1999 that the wife of the American officer in charge of anti-drug operations in Colombia was not only a cocaine addict, but had shipped nearly a quarter of a million dollars worth of the drug using diplomatic mailing privileges. Given the symbiotic relationship between the USA as a major customer of nervous system intoxicants and Colombia as its number one supplier for the past century, this should have come as no surprise. That the Times failed to explore these connections or point out the hypocrisy of a looming armed intervention in Colombia based on the excuse of eradicating drugs should also come as no surprise. This post shall try to make sense out of what the bourgeois press mystifies. In my first post, I pointed out how America's coffee habit served to both fuel the expansion of the Colombian economy and distort it from the late 1800s through the mid-20th century. The same thing has happened more recently with respect to cocaine, even though one drug is illegal and the other is not. This was not always the case. When cocaine was first introduced, it was considered some kind of wonder drug and available with a doctor's prescription and over-the-counter in patent medicines. Dr. David F. Musto, a psychiatric clinician and medical historian at Yale University, and author of ''The American Disease,'' points out that among the most prominent early promoters of cocaine for medicinal purposes was Sigmund Freud, who used it and prescribed it to try to cure his friend and colleague Ernst von Fleischl-Marxow of opium addiction. In his famous essay ''On Coca'' in 1884, Freud wrote that cocaine ''wards off hunger, sleep and fatigue and steels one to intellectual effort.'' Freud wrote that in dozens of tests on himself, he had experienced no adverse side effects and that even with repeated doses cocaine was not habit-forming. In Why Freud Was Wrong, author and physician Richard Webster speculates that many of Freud's key discoveries were made when he was loaded on cocaine since they demonstrate the typical grandiosity of someone who has had one blow too many. Other cocaine devotees included Pope Leo XIII, Thomas Edison, Sarah Bernhardt, Emile Zola, Henrik Ibsen and the Prince of Wales, later to become Edward VII. Cocaine became popular as the methadone of its day: a supposedly harmless, non-addictive drug that could be substituted to satisfy the cravings for the opium derivatives such as morphine. One of the most notable attempts to use cocaine in this way led directly to the formation of the Coca-Cola company, which to this day uses non-intoxicating residues of the coca leaf for flavor. John Smith Pemberton, the Civil War veteran and morphine addict who invented the drink in Atlanta in 1886, thought that the soft drink was the answer for old-fashioned American malaise, as well as being a good substitute for opium addiction, including his own. It was also intended to be a substitute for alcohol, which was under attack from the temperance movement. As his home town Atlanta was threatening to soon go dry, he saw the need for a soft drink which might prove as a substitute for beer, wine and whiskey. His solution, a fruit-flavored sugar syrup which combined the caffeine kick of the kola nut and the narcotic buzz of the coca leaf, was initially designed to be mixed with plain water. Only when it was diluted with seltzer did it become the monstrously successful drink that eventually dominated world markets. It can also be used to remove rust from automobile radiators reputedly. Later on, when cocaine became popular in black and working-class communities, it became stigmatized and forced off the pharmacy shelves. This was analogous to the shift in attitudes when cocaine, especially crack cocaine, began to be seen as déclassé in the 1990s. Middle-class white people stopped sharing cocaine at discos since it was now perceived as a drug for losers. A new drug took its place, namely Prozac. Once again in the zigzag patterns that typify American white Anglo-Saxon Protestant attitudes toward intoxicants, as long as a drug is sanctioned by the medical profession, it is considered okay even if it is habit-forming. Elvis Presley used to keep a copy of the Physician's Handbook of Pharmaceuticals next to his bed and order painkillers from his doctor. Because they were prescribed, he
Re: Re: Re: Re: The Truth Will Set You Free
I was never an enthusiastic supporter of Milosevic, but the U.S. never opposed anybody because of human rights violations -- they only run into trouble if they inconvenience the U.S. On Sun, Jun 03, 2001 at 09:45:26PM -0400, Nathan Newman wrote: - Original Message - From: Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] Nathan, the KLA were like the FARC only if you see the Serbians as the bad guys. We went over that fight already. I wasn't the one making the original comparison between Columbia and Kosovo, but even most of those who opposed NATO thought the Serbians were the bad guys, just that NATO were even worse guys. But if that is a command to end the discussion mentioning Kosovo, fine, but suggest you apply it evenhandedly. -- Nathan Newman -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
The Truth Will Set You Free
Nathan, I should have added that I know that you were not the first to mention Kosovo, but I would hate to see us go over that again unless someone had something new to add. On Sun, Jun 03, 2001 at 09:45:26PM -0400, Nathan Newman wrote: - Original Message - From: Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] Nathan, the KLA were like the FARC only if you see the Serbians as the bad guys. We went over that fight already. I wasn't the one making the original comparison between Columbia and Kosovo, but even most of those who opposed NATO thought the Serbians were the bad guys, just that NATO were even worse guys. But if that is a command to end the discussion mentioning Kosovo, fine, but suggest you apply it evenhandedly. -- Nathan Newman -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: RE: Re: The Truth Will Set You Free
At 08:00 PM 06/03/2001 -0400, you wrote: Opposing U.S. intervention does not depend on solidarity with the FARC or anyone else. Presumably most people here who opposed NATO in the Balkans were not practising solidarity w/Milo. damn straight. It's important to avoid the enemy of my enemy is my friend fallacy. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~JDevine
Re: RE: Re: RE: Re: The Truth Will Set You Free
I fail to see a need for any position on this more finely articulated than U.S. out of Colombia, hands off, get the fuck out, period. Anyone left on the ground in Colombia obviously has more a more complicated life. It's not clear they need our advice. Onya, Max! Sledgehammer-simple and absolutely right. Good to see the inevitably ongoing tragedy in the Balkans has changed an open mind (?). Haven't a clue what got Lou so het up, really. It was a properly attributed news story, which we could have discussed on criteria of context, slant, selectivity or fact. And it's not as if Lou is above deploying mainstream news stories when it suits, either. I value Lou's often well-researched and always well-written essays, but it'd be nice to get the benefit of 'em without having to read megabytes of posters getting flayed and moderators getting put on the spot on a weekly basis ... Cheers, Rob.
RE: Re: RE: Re: The Truth Will Set You Free
Max: Opposing U.S. intervention does not depend on solidarity with the FARC or anyone else. Presumably most people here who opposed NATO in the Balkans were not practising solidarity w/Milo. Actually, the same divide that existed with respect to US intervention in Yugoslavia exists with respect to the impending war in Colombia. Nation Magazine liberals, Z Magazine and the like opposed Nato's military actions but accepted the State Department's demonization of Milosevic. Ramsey Clark, the WWP, Jared Israel, yours truly opposed the war and rejected the demonization. . . . mbs: From the standpoint of opposing intervention, this 'divide,' same or somewhat similar or whatever, is mostly irrelevant. I don't anticipate an Upper West Side FARC, or a Hackensack FARC. A good anti-interventionist who thought the FARC ate babies for breakfast would not let that belief, true or no, obstruct his/her opposition to U.S. involvement. With respect to mass public opinion, reports such as what MP posted are obviously prone to misuse, but a left list is the last place where such a thing would be a problem. I fail to see a need for any position on this more finely articulated than U.S. out of Colombia, hands off, get the fuck out, period. Anyone left on the ground in Colombia obviously has more a more complicated life. It's not clear they need our advice. mbs
Re: Re: Re: Re: True Hegelian Truth
Hi Ian, Ken and Andrew, What is the whole? How could we possibly test/verify/falsify Hegel's assertion? It was Protagoras who said man is the measure... Ian True enough, Protagoras said it. Aristotle just wrote it down. Kinda like Socrates and Plato, I would've thought. Ken, I take no responsibility for the interpretation I quoted! By neo-eleusinian I meant (what the guy I quoted said): borrowed from Parmenides of Elea. Andrew, I believe Hegel is as much of a Herakleitos fan (everything comes about by battling with its opposite) as he is a friend of the idealist Parmenides (being is one and indivisible). From the forward to the Phenom. of the Spirit: http://www.gutenberg.aol.de/hegel/phaenom/phavorr2.htm Das Wahre ist das Ganze. Das Ganze aber ist nur das durch seine Entwicklung sich vollendende Wesen. Es ist von dem Absoluten zu sagen, daß es wesentlich Resultat, daß es erst am Ende das ist, was es in Wahrheit ist; und hierin eben besteht seine Natur, Wirkliches, Subjekt, oder Sich-selbst-werden, zu sein. So widersprechend es scheinen mag, daß das Absolute wesentlich als Resultat zu begreifen sei, so stellt doch eine geringe Überlegung diesen Schein von Widerspruch zurecht. Der Anfang, das Prinzip, oder das Absolute, wie es zuerst und unmittelbar ausgesprochen wird, ist nur das Allgemeine. My rough xlation: The True is the whole. But the whole is only the [being / creature / nature / essence] fulfilling itself through its development. It should be said of the Absolute that it is essentially result, that it is not what it is in truth until the end; and this is precisely what its nature to be [actual / real (thing)], subject, or [self-realisation / self-becoming] consists in. However contradictory it may seem, that the Absolute should be understood essentially as result, a little pondering will make sense of this apparent contradiction [lit: put it right]. The beginning, the principle, or the Absolute, as it is first and immediately expressed, is only the [general / universal / common]. Aristotle probably contributes the idea of entelechy (purpose and realisation of purpose), here, with his acorn-to-oak example. In any case it looks as though, in this paragraph, the whole-true is something like the entelechy of the thing-that-is (*das Wesen*): the oak to the acorn. And that the same thing can be said of the general and the absolute. But I don't know where that gets us, politically speaking. Unless perhaps we can use it to remind ourselves that the end is not independent of the means, that abstractions are after the facts that they're derived from, and that therefore absolutes (if we want to posit them) are no more important than the elements we put into their conception. cheers, Joanna - my site www.overlookhouse.com news from down under www.smh.com.au
Re: True Hegelian Truth
Ian Murray wrote: LARGE CLIP] What is the whole? How could we possibly test/verify/falsify Hegel's assertion? It was Protagoras who said man is the measure... There are multiple answers to this. One is that you can't not believe it. You see the line you are now reading as a part of a monitor, and you have to know (in some sense) that whole, the monitor, to see the line in front of you. It is partly that larger context that allows you to see these little black squiggles as letters rather than as little black squiggles. A second answer possibly will emerge from neuroscience (learning theory). That is, we _do_ see / 'see' (know) things as wholes not as Hume's All things are entirely loose and separate, and that is how we know parts whether we think that is how we know or not, and the real question is the neurological one of _how_ it happens that we learn that way, not whether we learn that way. (Almost all 'problems' labelled as epistemology are fake questions: that is in order to ask them we have to deny that we know what in fact we can't help knowing. That is why Timpanaro can suggest that epistemological questions properly belong to neurology rather than philosophy and/or logic.) And here is one of the explanations Ollman gives. (On the whole /-: Ollman does not offer 'proofs' that something is but explanations of how it is that it is, that it is being taken for granted.) In abstracting capital, for example, as a process, Marx is simply including primitive accumulation, accumulation, and the concentration of capital, in sum its real history, as part of what capital is. While abstracting it as a relation brings its actual ties with labor, commodity, value, capitalists, and workers -- or whatever contributes to its appearance and functioning -- under the same rubric as its constituting aspects. All the units in which Marx thinks about and studies capitalism are abstracted as both processes and relations. Based on this dialectical conception, Marx's quest -- unlike that of his commonsense opponents -- is never for why something starts to change but for the various forms this change assumes and why it selected may appear to have stopped. Likewise, it is never for how a relation gets established, but again for the different forms it takes and why aspects of an already existing relation may appear to be independent. Marx's critique of the ideology that results from an exclusive focus on appearances, on the footprints of events separated from their real history and the larger system in which they are found, is also of this order. Besides a way of viewing the world, Marx's dialectical method includes how he studied it, how he organized what he found, and how he presented these findings to his chosen audience. But how does one inquire into a world that has been abstracted into mutually dependent processes? Where does one start and what does one look for? Unlike non-dialectical research, where one starts with some small part and through establishing its connections tries to reconstruct the larger whole, dialectical research begins with the whole, the system, or as much of it as one understands, and then proceeds to an examination of the part to see where it fits and how it functions, leading eventually to a fuller understanding of the whole from which one has begun. Capitalism serves Marx as his jumping-off point for an examination of anything that takes place within it. As a beginning, capitalism is already contained, in principle, within the interacting processes he sets out to investigate as the sum total of their necessary conditions and results. Conversely, to begin with the supposedly independent part or parts is to assume a separation with its corresponding distortion of meaning that no amount of later relating can overcome. Something will be missing, something will be out of place, and, without any standard by which to judge, neither will be recognized. What are called interdisciplinary studies simply treat the sum of such defects coming from different fields. As with Humpty Dumpty, who after the fall could never be put together again, a system whose functioning parts have been treated as independent of one another at the start can never be reestablished in its integrity. The investigation itself seeks to concretize what is going on in capitalism, to trace the means and forms through which it works and has developed, and to project where it seems to be tending. As a general rule, the interactions that constitute any problem in its present state are examined before studying their progress over time. The order of inquiry, in other words, is system before history, so that history is never the development of one or two isolated elements with its suggestion, explicit or implicit, that change results from causes located inside that particular sphere (histories of religion, or of culture, or even of economics alone are decidedly
Re: Re: True Hegelian Truth
What is the whole? How could we possibly test/verify/falsify Hegel's assertion [that the truth -- or the true -- is the whole]? I liked Carrol's answer, but I have my own. Hegel's assertion is more a way of testing/verifying/falsifying theories than it is an assertion of truth. If someone proposes a theory, there are at least three major ways of criticizing it (in terms of truth or falsity): (1) is it internally consistent, logically speaking, following classic Aristotelian logic? (2) does it fit the known facts, so that it's consistent with perceived empirical reality? and (3) is it complete, or does it leave important things out? The last is what people refer to when they quote Hegel. For example, consider neoclassical economics. That economics often passes test #1 (since that's their emphasis) and sometimes passes test #2, but usually fails test #3. The emphasis of NC economics is on how individuals choose, creating the social world, given various natural constraints. But they ignore the way in which the social world shapes individual preferences, so that the world creates the individuals. They typically ignore the relations among individuals except for purely market relations, while considering only small pieces of the whole (the totality of social relations). They also ignore historical time (the dynamic and disequilibrium interaction between the individuals and the whole) and focus on merely logical time. Etc. Thus, we see pen-l's resident neoclassical superstar putting forth the proposition that the leaders of those countries that get IMF loans really want them, so that all else constant it's better to have the IMF there to make the loans. This is true (as far as I can tell), since it makes logical sense (those who go to loan-sharks really need the loans) and fits with empirical data that I've seen. However, it is untrue in the sense that it leaves a lot of stuff out, specifically the fact that the IMF is a crucial part of the imperialist system of power that creates the situations that make the leaders want the loans in the first place. It also leaves out the way in which the IMF exploits the leaders' desperation in order to impose its one-size-fits-all neoliberal solution. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~JDevine
Re: Re: Re: True Hegelian Truth
Jim Devine wrote: What is the whole? How could we possibly test/verify/falsify Hegel's assertion [that the truth -- or the true -- is the whole]? I liked Carrol's answer, but I have my own. Hegel's assertion is more a way of testing/verifying/falsifying theories than it is an assertion of truth. I also like Jim's answer. In fact, I think one could rewrite my 'answers' as exemplifications of this perspective. I would add further that Ian's question What is the whole? is not exactly germane. The researcher has to select the whole which initially interests her, and a critique of that whole would not be in a denial that it _is_ a whole but in making a contrasting abstraction. The results would differ but not necessarily contradict (in a logical sense) each other. To some extent I think the recent debate over the origins of capitalism might have been more useful had all parties agreed that different abstractions (wholes) were being used, and the problem was not to prove one or another wrong but to find ways of relating them. Different vantage points give different but not mutually incompatible pictures. Carrol
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: True Hegelian Truth
Hegel is definitely a believer in conflict. He dared to undertake a consummation of Philosophy, Western and Eastern. He embraced the resulting conflict despite finding it disturbing. Maybe his search for the Absolute was a process of reconciliation, a bereavement over the ideals lost by the contemptible philosophes. The acorn becomes the oak, but the oak must die. And so Tennyson wrote, almost as a true Hegelian: Flower in the crannied wall, I pluck you out of the crannies, I hold you here, root and all, in my hand, Little flower -- but *if* I could understand What you are, root and all, and all in all, I should know what God and man is. The flower dies in the hand of its admirer just as if God struck it down. If there is some supreme purpose, however, it is bearable. Thus, the grandest conception is needed to cope with the world's evil, for we must subsume the suffering of humanity into something beneficent. The fork in the road Hegel faced is one common to the memory of the oppressed, but also one that must be faced alone. Should I turn inward, to seek the spirit, in mythopoesis? Or should I hold my breath in the vast, dark cave with nothing to grasp, turn, and reach for an unseen hand, to seek the grasp of another, perhaps one who shares my predicament, in an act of courageous realism? Hegel chooses the former over the latter. He foments the fear of the not known and the uncanny, and resigns such to the unknowable. For all the grandeur of his Wissenschaft, he could never suffer a foray into externality. Andrew Hagen [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://clam.rutgers.edu/~ahagen/ On Sat, 02 Jun 2001 18:20:25 +1000, Joanna Sheldon wrote: Andrew, I believe Hegel is as much of a Herakleitos fan (everything comes about by battling with its opposite) as he is a friend of the idealist Parmenides (being is one and indivisible). From the forward to the Phenom. of the Spirit: http://www.gutenberg.aol.de/hegel/phaenom/phavorr2.htm Das Wahre ist das Ganze. Das Ganze aber ist nur das durch seine Entwicklung sich vollendende Wesen. Es ist von dem Absoluten zu sagen, daá es wesentlich Resultat, daá es erst am Ende das ist, was es in Wahrheit ist; und hierin eben besteht seine Natur, Wirkliches, Subjekt, oder Sich-selbst-werden, zu sein. So widersprechend es scheinen mag, daá das Absolute wesentlich als Resultat zu begreifen sei, so stellt doch eine geringe berlegung diesen Schein von Widerspruch zurecht. Der Anfang, das Prinzip, oder das Absolute, wie es zuerst und unmittelbar ausgesprochen wird, ist nur das Allgemeine. My rough xlation: The True is the whole. But the whole is only the [being / creature / nature / essence] fulfilling itself through its development. It should be said of the Absolute that it is essentially result, that it is not what it is in truth until the end; and this is precisely what its nature to be [actual / real (thing)], subject, or [self-realisation / self-becoming] consists in. However contradictory it may seem, that the Absolute should be understood essentially as result, a little pondering will make sense of this apparent contradiction [lit: put it right]. The beginning, the principle, or the Absolute, as it is first and immediately expressed, is only the [general / universal / common]. Aristotle probably contributes the idea of entelechy (purpose and realisation of purpose), here, with his acorn-to-oak example. In any case it looks as though, in this paragraph, the whole-true is something like the entelechy of the thing-that-is (*das Wesen*): the oak to the acorn. And that the same thing can be said of the general and the absolute. But I don't know where that gets us, politically speaking. Unless perhaps we can use it to remind ourselves that the end is not independent of the means, that abstractions are after the facts that they're derived from, and that therefore absolutes (if we want to posit them) are no more important than the elements we put into their conception. cheers, Joanna - my site www.overlookhouse.com news from down under www.smh.com.au
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: True Hegelian Truth
In a message dated 6/2/2001 1:57:56 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Hegel is definitely a believer in conflict. He dared to undertake a consummation of Philosophy, Western and Eastern. He embraced the resulting conflict despite finding it disturbing. Maybe his search for the Absolute was a process of reconciliation, a bereavement over the ideals lost by the contemptible philosophes. The acorn becomes the oak, but the oak must die. And so Tennyson wrote, almost as a true Hegelian: Since everyone hates me (my fault), let me be the one to try, once again, to sink Hegel and be done with hegelian pomposities. Want conflict? here it is. (??? I quite like Hegel, but it is not easy to understand him, and fatal not to. You will, as Schopenhauer warned, lose your power to think if you muck about Marxist upside down hegelianism) By the way, this conflict starts with Kant, and his asocial sociability, as brought to fore in his "Idea for a Universal History". You might be interested in the firestorm of attack and counterattack at me at Kant-l over this and Robert Wright's Non Zero in which our classical liberal Kantians closed in silence around the issue. You might compare the two versions of this in Non Zero and World History and the Eonic Effect (cf. http://eonix.8m.com/introduc2.htm#Kant's Challenge). The dates of publication are strange, if not suspicious. I have to conclude that everyone likes conflict, seems to be good for business, and a guilt-stopper for drones in Plato's Cave. The eonic effect shows the resolution of Kant's Challenge, and the way history bypasses conflict as the process of evolution. The point, if asocial sociability or generally conflict is seen as the mechanism, then how derive the opposite, etc... The concordance of Darwinism and economic thinking is of course close. Here Marxism fails to be able to debrief the question, it would seem. There is no doubt that conflict is crucial in history. But a close look at Kant's version shows his reluctance to close on this answer, and for good reason. My pattern of the eonic effect shows independent value macroevolution as the dynamic, rendering asocial sociability secondary. Fatal counterevidence. Take a close look at the timing of history. Finally, natural selection in this form is being promoted as a socially necessary process in the mystique of theories reapplied as action (The Oedipus Effect). That was, and should be, what Marx meant by the critique of political economy. As to Hegel, his gesture is just that, but to claim the resolution of philosophy east and west with the dialectic is a bit much. This started with the refusal to accept the noumenal, phenomenal categories of Kant. The 'solution' is an idealism, now a Marxism materialism. All I could say it's not surprising Schopenhauer spent his whole life upset at Hegel. Conflict anyone? Good for the economy. The winners will have more babies. It's Non Zero sum. puke. Is the left with it? John Landon [EMAIL PROTECTED] Website on eonic effect http://eonix.8m.com http://www.eonica.net
Re: Re: True Hegelian Truth
As I recall, Thrasymachus says that justiice is the interest of the stronger not the right of the stronger. Why would you read it as a statement about the right of the peasantry and artisans to participate in politics. Surely Thrasymachus did not take them as the stronger. Thrasymachus and Protagoras are quite divergent in their political views though both are Sophists. Thrasymachus's argument is that the the powerful determine the rules and define justice and Plato's arguments against him appear to me as sophistic idealistic twaddle...successful only because Thrasymachus lacks the skills to combat Socrates critical questioning. This is not surprising since Thrasymachus is more or less a creature of Plato's making in the Republic. CHeers, Ken Hanly. Incidentally, Protagoras was probably making a political rather than metaphysical or epistemological point in that remark. It was a defense of democracy vs. oligarchy. This is really what Thrasymachus is saying (or rather should be saying if Plato was honest in writing dialogue for the opposition) in the first book of the _Republic_. Wood comments that In this dialogue [_Protagoras_, perhaps foir the last time in his work, Plato gives the opposition a reasonably fair hearing, presenting the sophist Protagoras in a more or less sympathetic light as he constructs a defence of the democracy, the only systematic argument for democracy to have survived from antiquity (_Democracy against Capitalism_, p. 192). If you read justice is the right of the stronger as a statement about the right of the peasantry and artisans to participate in politics, Thrasymachus's argument rises from the ashes Plato consigned it to. Carrol Carrol
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: True Hegelian Truth
In a message dated 6/2/2001 1:57:56 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Hegel is definitely a believer in conflict. He dared to undertake a consummation of Philosophy, Western and Eastern. He embraced the resulting conflict despite finding it disturbing. Maybe his search for the Absolute was a process of reconciliation, a bereavement over the ideals lost by the contemptible philosophes. The acorn becomes the oak, but the oak must die. And so Tennyson wrote, almost as a true Hegelian: Someone just offered you a free download of a study of asocial sociability and an approach to history that might resolve it. You refuse even a free copy, strange. But I get the message. You seem to prefer conflict, the nutty core of modern ideology. Goodbye then. John Landon [EMAIL PROTECTED] Website on eonic effect http://eonix.8m.com http://www.eonica.net
Re: Re: True Hegelian Truth
(Coming in on this thread late, here, sorry, just got back on the list this morning) Die Wahrheit ist die Ganze will translate as The truth is the whole. I am pretty sure that is how Miller does it. --jks Actually, Hegel's phrase is Das Wahre ist das Ganze, meaning the true is the whole. Which is one of those Pythian aphorisms that you can figure just about any way you want, furs I can tell, but I see ( http://sti1.uni-duisburg.de/Luhmann/msg02502.html ) that it has been interpreted as Hegel's (neo-eleusinian -- see Parmenides) counter to Aristotle's Man is the measure of all things -- the banner of humanism; Hegel's phrase lending itself to a Marxian interpretation of man as the expression of the whole of social relations. I gather Adorno's Das Ganze ist das Falsche (the whole is the false), is supposed to represent the synthesis of the whole and the particular, but I don't get it. cheers, Joanna - my site www.overlookhouse.com news from down under www.smh.com.au
Re: Re: Re: True Hegelian Truth
(Coming in on this thread late, here, sorry, just got back on the list this morning) Die Wahrheit ist die Ganze will translate as The truth is the whole. I am pretty sure that is how Miller does it. --jks Actually, Hegel's phrase is Das Wahre ist das Ganze, meaning the true is the whole. Which is one of those Pythian aphorisms that you can figure just about any way you want, furs I can tell, but I see ( http://sti1.uni-duisburg.de/Luhmann/msg02502.html ) that it has been interpreted as Hegel's (neo-eleusinian -- see Parmenides) counter to Aristotle's Man is the measure of all things -- the banner of humanism; Hegel's phrase lending itself to a Marxian interpretation of man as the expression of the whole of social relations. I gather Adorno's Das Ganze ist das Falsche (the whole is the false), is supposed to represent the synthesis of the whole and the particular, but I don't get it. cheers, Joanna What is the whole? How could we possibly test/verify/falsify Hegel's assertion? It was Protagoras who said man is the measure... Ian
Re: Re: Re: True Hegelian Truth
As I recall, it is Protagoras who claims that man is the measure of all things rather than Aristotle. What is neo-eleusinian?Concepts of change and progress are crucial to Hegel's views as far as I can make any sense of them whereas Parmenides denies the reality of change. Although a rationalist Parmenides seems to be a materialist even though reality is in some sense identical with what is thought or thinkable. Non-being cannot be thought or insofar as it is thinkable it must be and hence is being. Parmenides rejects the atomists' concept of space as it would be non-being. Reality is a whole, or plenum, probably spherical. The truth is the whole or the One but there are no holes in it! It is certainly not the Absolute Mind or Whatever...it just is or BE's .to say anything else gets you into the realm of opinion... Cheers, Ken Hanly Actually, Hegel's phrase is Das Wahre ist das Ganze, meaning the true is the whole. Which is one of those Pythian aphorisms that you can figure just about any way you want, furs I can tell, but I see http://sti1.uni-duisburg.de/Luhmann/msg02502.html ) that it has been interpreted as Hegel's (neo-eleusinian -- see Parmenides) counter to Aristotle's Man is the measure of all things -- the banner of humanism; Hegel's phrase lending itself to a Marxian interpretation of man as the expression of the whole of social relations. I gather Adorno's Das Ganze ist das Falsche (the whole is the false), is supposed to represent the synthesis of the whole and the particular, but I don't get it. cheers, Joanna - my site www.overlookhouse.com news from down under www.smh.com.au
Re: Re: Re: True Hegelian Truth
Actually, Hegel's phrase is Das Wahre ist das Ganze, meaning the true is the whole. There is no beginning in Hegel's philosophy. To grasp one part is to grasp, by necessity, all of it. My German is too patchy to make sense of the article without Babelfish. I'd have to agree, though, on the Parmenidean influence in Hegel. Take this passage for example: And what need would have impelled it, later or earlier, to grow--if it began from nothing? Thus, it must either altogether be or not be. . . . For that reason Justice has not relaxed her fetters and let it come into being or perish, but she holds it. Decision in these matters lies in this: it is or it is not. But it *has* been decided, as is necessary, to leave the one road unthought and unnamed (for it is not a true road), and to take the other as being and being genuine. . . . Hence, it is all continuous. . . . The writing style gives it away as the ancient Greek, but otherwise it would pass for the crusty Teuton. (At least his precursor.) We're sent on a journey from questions of existence to those of ethics, choice, change, and ultimately, we return to the truth, or the whole, from where we started. Between these moments, the human sciences spring up only to splice together explanations for our conflicted world, manufactured to soothe aching feet and sedate travelers. The wend of the road forsook us. They never considered the battles fought along the way, or that their physic was incompetent to redress the crimes perpetrated upon the countless generations. Ironically, all in the pursuit of wholeness. Andrew Hagen [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://clam.rutgers.edu/~ahagen/ On Sat, 02 Jun 2001 13:09:03 +1000, Joanna Sheldon wrote: Which is one of those Pythian aphorisms that you can figure just about any way you want, furs I can tell, but I see ( http://sti1.uni-duisburg.de/Luhmann/msg02502.html ) that it has been interpreted as Hegel's (neo-eleusinian -- see Parmenides) counter to Aristotle's Man is the measure of all things -- the banner of humanism; Hegel's phrase lending itself to a Marxian interpretation of man as the expression of the whole of social relations. I gather Adorno's Das Ganze ist das Falsche (the whole is the false), is supposed to represent the synthesis of the whole and the particular, but I don't get it. cheers, Joanna - my site www.overlookhouse.com news from down under www.smh.com.au
Re: Re: True Hegelian Truth
- Original Message - From: Carrol Cox [EMAIL PROTECTED] How do you interpret this distinction? A guess: Diesing's translation emphasizes that the truth as a static entity does not exist but is rather a constantly changing process, with which it is possible (more or less) to align the mind, but that alignment will be more or less untrued just as it occurs. Or is it nonsense to try for an interpretation of the difference? it's nonsense.
True Hegelian Truth
Jim Devine writes: As Baran Sweezy quote Hegel to say, the truth is the whole. = According to Paul Diesing, this should actually read the true is the whole. Michael K.
Re: True Hegelian Truth
How do you interpret this distinction? A guess: Diesing's translation emphasizes that the truth as a static entity does not exist but is rather a constantly changing process, with which it is possible (more or less) to align the mind, but that alignment will be more or less untrued just as it occurs. Or is it nonsense to try for an interpretation of the difference? Carrol Keaney Michael wrote: Jim Devine writes: As Baran Sweezy quote Hegel to say, the truth is the whole. = According to Paul Diesing, this should actually read the true is the whole. Michael K.
True Hegelian Truth
Carrol asks: How do you interpret this distinction? A guess: Diesing's translation emphasizes that the truth as a static entity does not exist but is rather a constantly changing process, with which it is possible (more or less) to align the mind, but that alignment will be more or less untrued just as it occurs. Or is it nonsense to try for an interpretation of the difference? = That's pretty much the sense I've got from Diesing so far, whose clarity is exemplary. The book in question is Hegel's Dialectical Political Economy (Westview Press, 1999) which, so far, looks like a very good, accessible introduction to dialectical reasoning in social research. Diesing rejects the caricature of Hegel as a determinist, and he makes use of David MacGregor's interesting work which highlights the commonalities between Hegel and Marx in their respective methods and treatments of economic development. Michael K.
Re: True Hegelian Truth
At 11:19 AM 05/30/2001 +0300, you wrote: Jim Devine writes: As Baran Sweezy quote Hegel to say, the truth is the whole. = According to Paul Diesing, this should actually read the true is the whole. Michael K. does it truly matter? Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~JDevine
Re: Re: True Hegelian Truth
Die Wahrheit ist die Ganze will translate as The truth is the whole. I am pretty sure that is how Miller does it. --jks At 11:19 AM 05/30/2001 +0300, you wrote: Jim Devine writes: As Baran Sweezy quote Hegel to say, the truth is the whole. = According to Paul Diesing, this should actually read the true is the whole. Michael K. does it truly matter? Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~JDevine _ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com
Re: True Hegelian Truth
Well, according to Tim Horton's the hole is the Timbit. Jim Devine writes: As Baran Sweezy quote Hegel to say, the truth is the whole. = According to Paul Diesing, this should actually read the true is the whole. Michael K. Tom Walker Bowen Island, BC 604 947 2213
Re: True Hegelian Truth
Keaney Michael wrote: Jim Devine writes: As Baran Sweezy quote Hegel to say, the truth is the whole. = According to Paul Diesing, this should actually read the true is the whole. And of course Adorno said the whole is the false. Doug
Re: Re: True Hegelian Truth
At 12:46 PM 5/30/01 -0400, you wrote: Keaney Michael wrote: Jim Devine writes: As Baran Sweezy quote Hegel to say, the truth is the whole. = According to Paul Diesing, this should actually read the true is the whole. And of course Adorno said the whole is the false. I thought he said this bagel has a hole. But I could be wrong. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: Re: True Hegelian Truth
Jim Devine wrote: At 11:19 AM 05/30/2001 +0300, you wrote: Jim Devine writes: As Baran Sweezy quote Hegel to say, the truth is the whole. = According to Paul Diesing, this should actually read the true is the whole. Michael K. does it truly matter? And if the whole (the complex of micro and macro relations that make up existence) is all that's true, we must either put all in the care of God, gods, or the Hidden Hand, or make sure we're able to act on what we do know, act accordingly, conceive of those actions as learning, and act such that we can quickly change what we do if evidence arises that something's wrong with what we're doing. We've gone the Hidden Hand route, and the signals this particular deity is sending us ain't matching those the physical and social environment are sending us. Alas, our priests are able to see only the price signal, and conceive of time as only a mathematical abstraction. If they're wrong, and there actually is a reality outside their neat little airfix models, and there actually is a temporality above and beyond their dileated little abstractions, then we shall never know more of the whole, never be able to act differently (because we can't really *act* at all), never discern fundamental dynamics, and hence never respond to them. So Hegels Absolute would be calling us, but we wouldn't be able to hear it, and we wouldn't be coming. Mebbe the cockroaches will get it right next time 'round ... Cheers, Rob.
Truth, Not Caricature (was Re: Slobo)
Justin: In a message dated 10/8/00 4:52:45 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I have never said that Milosevic is a proponent of socialism I am relieved; I thought you were losing it. One could have got that impression. Why so? I don't think anyone who has read my posts on Yugoslavia carefully could imagine such a thing. Your impression probably is based on the fact that I have refused to denounce Milosevic as "the Butcher of the Balkans" or something like that every other line of my posts. In my opinion, most Western leftists failed to challenge the _caricature_ presented in the mass media. Leftists should offer _an accurate assessment based upon facts_, which I have tried to do. In many of my posts (not just on Yugoslavia but on any other topic), I have tried to present my argument based upon available facts, complete with documentation from books and articles on the subject of the moment. That's my style of e-list communication. Another reason that I have avoided name-calling, besides the necessity of accurate assessment, is that undue focus on individuals leads to a view of history as a series of doings by heads of states, which is antithetical to historical materialism. What we need is a causal analysis that takes into account history of economic political conditions, balance of social forces, imperial geopolitics, ideological conditions, etc. -- an analysis that cannot be confined to a look at Serbia, much less Milosevic alone. Also, as you know, I do not think that the present disaster has its origin in the rise of Milosevic or 1989. If the cause of the disaster were Milosevic, it would be easy to find a solution: remove Milosevic, by any means necessary. However, that is not the case, as I am sure you understand. An incorrect analysis of causes of the dissolution of Yugoslavia widespread in the West, even among leftists, has led to incorrect political responses. (he is thought of as such in the Western mass media by the Serbian oppositions, Can't speak for the former opposition there. It's nit my impressuion that is the picture in the western media. Socialism is rather off the map. He's just portrayed a "dictator," as the Chicago Tribune called him this morning, which is actually a bit strong compared to some real dictators. When the media say "socialism," they mean such things as state-owned enterprises, social programs, price controls, pensions, and stuff like that. When the media say "crony capitalism," they mean that the state in question is too dirigiste or some such thing. In other words, elements that have been under attack in the neoliberal offensive. Besides this, labels like "socialist" "communist" function in the capitalist media as terms of opprobrium. In the media parlance, it is interchangeable with "dictator." Of course, in the media Milosevic is a "dictator" -- you can never go wrong with this label when it comes to the official enemy of the evil empire. however, which explains their demonization of this figurehead), A figurehead he wasn't. He was the Boss. Tito was more of the Boss than Milosevic has ever been. In my opinion, Milosevic never possessed enough (moral or political) power authority to wield the kind of discipline that Tito had exercised -- hence his toleration of the oppositions to the extent that would have been unthinkable under Tito. Yugoslavia _has_ changed since the days of Tito. Or perhaps by the Boss you mean the kind of executive powers possessed by the U.S. president, unlike European presidents premiers in multi-party democracies? Milosevic as an individual politician is not the point for the West in any case. Milosevic could have been a reliable Western asset if he had been allowed to sell out; Like Saddam Hussein, and like S.H., it's still something of a puzzle why the West decided to make a target of him. No ever said S.H. was a "socialist." When Hussein was in Western favor, mainly during the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988), I recall he was often called a "moderate." * THE UNITED STATES AND THE IRAN-IRAQ WAR STEPHEN R. SHALOM ...When the war first broke out, the Soviet Union turned back its arms ships en route to Iraq, and for the next year and a half, while Iraq was on the offensive, Moscow did not provide weapons to Baghdad.30 In March 1981, the Iraqi Communist Party, repressed by Saddam Hussein, beamed broadcasts from the Soviet Union calling for an end to the war and the withdrawal of Iraqi troops.31 That same month U.S. Secretary of State Alexander Haig told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that he saw the possibility of improved ties with Baghdad and approvingly noted that Iraq was concerned by "the behavior of Soviet imperialism in the Middle Eastern area." The U.S. then approved the sale to Iraq of five Boeing jetliners, and sent a deputy assistant secretary of state to Baghdad for talks.32 The U.S. removed Iraq from its
LM's Truth (was Re: Pro-ITN Libel Suit Post)
Michael K. wrote: Before rushing headlong into a heroic defence of the "oppressed", it would be worth investigating further what it is we are being asked to support. Because of the verdict on the ITN libel suit, LM can't post the article in question -- Thomas Deichmann's "The Picture That Fooled the World" -- any longer: * http://www.informinc.co.uk/LM/LM97/LM97_Bosnia.html 17/3/00 10:47 am GMT The page you requested was not available. If you have been trying to visit the ITN-vs-LM site: As a result of the ITN vs LM verdict the contents of this website are currently not available. Please see Mick Hume's statement. * ITN the British government succeeded in silencing one of the most vocal British critics of imperialist propaganda for NATO. Here's the LM press release on the verdict: http://www.informinc.co.uk/LM/press-releases/Bosnia-press-2.html. Thomas Deichmann's article (reproduced from LM issue 97, February 1997) is available at http://www.emperors-clothes.com/images/bosnia/camp.htm. The article is also reprinted in _NATO in the Balkans: Voices of Opposition_, published by the International Action Center in 1998. Some have likened LM's activities to those of revisionist historian David Irving. I think Pat Buchanan might be a better comparison. LM's coverage of the Yugoslav affairs the role of imperialism in it is absolutely truer than ITN's. The ruling idea that there was genocide going on in the Yugo civil wars has been used to justify NATO interventions its enlargement. It is the dominant ideology that compels you to engage in "holocaust-denial" baiting. In reality, supporters of Western imperialism its instruments like NATO are as guilty of denial of history truth as David Irving Pat Buchanan. Yoshie
Re: LM's Truth (was Re: Pro-ITN Libel Suit Post)
K Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit on 17/3/00 11:14 am, Yoshie Furuhashi at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: LM's coverage of the Yugoslav affairs the role of imperialism in it is absolutely truer than ITN's. Possibly. Over the piece I would not look to ITN for a reliable analysis of the Balkan wars or any other international incident. Its coverage of East Timor -- at least that by Mark Austin -- was disgraceful. But ITN employs many journalists of differing viewpoints, and the same news service that brought the world the ghastly likes of Alistair Burnet and Sandy Gall (MI6 agent employed to ply the CIA line on Afghanistan during the 1980s) has also been home to fine journalists like Jon Snow (who refused point blank his "invitation" to join MI5), David Smith and Robert Kee. The ruling idea that there was genocide going on in the Yugo civil wars has been used to justify NATO interventions its enlargement. Of course it has. But its use does not negate its veracity. It is the dominant ideology that compels you to engage in "holocaust-denial" baiting. Had I been so "compelled" I would have been as enthusiastic a supporter of the NATO bombing campaign -- something I was most certainly not. And questioning the motives behind LM, its raison d'etre, is a valid pursuit. In reality, supporters of Western imperialism its instruments like NATO are as guilty of denial of history truth as David Irving Pat Buchanan. Agreed. But an enemy of my enemy does not a friend make. And speaking of questionable friends, among those rallying to the support of LM, or at the very least taking Guardian journalist Ed Vulliamy to task for attacking LM's defence of actions committed in the name of the Serbs, is no less than Alfred Sherman, as a perusal of this page will confirm: http://www.newsunlimited.co.uk/letters/story/0,3604,147706,00.html On this same page you will read a letter from a former member of the Living Marxism group which details the sad decline of an already suspect group. Michael K.
Re: Re: LM's Truth (was Re: Pro-ITN Libel Suit Post)
Michael Keaney wrote: And speaking of questionable friends, among those rallying to the support of LM, or at the very least taking Guardian journalist Ed Vulliamy to task for attacking LM's defence of actions committed in the name of the Serbs, is no less than Alfred Sherman, Who? as a perusal of this page will confirm: http://www.newsunlimited.co.uk/letters/story/0,3604,147706,00.html On this same page you will read a letter from a former member of the Living Marxism group which details the sad decline of an already suspect group. So what? The political trajectory of LM/RCP is irrelevant to whether a possibly fatal libel judgment is an appropriate way to conduct a dispute over facts and interpretation. Doug
Re: LM's Truth (was Re: Pro-ITN Libel Suit Post)
K Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit on 17/3/00 2:14 pm, Doug Henwood at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Michael Keaney wrote: And speaking of questionable friends, among those rallying to the support of LM, or at the very least taking Guardian journalist Ed Vulliamy to task for attacking LM's defence of actions committed in the name of the Serbs, is no less than Alfred Sherman, Who? Sherman was a very early backer of the British New Right ascendancy surrounding Keith Joseph, Arthur Seldon, the Institute of Economic Affairs, and, eventually, Margaret Thatcher. The kind of company he keeps these days can be found at the home page of another dubious publication, Right Now!: http://www.right-now.org/index.asp So what? The political trajectory of LM/RCP is irrelevant to whether a possibly fatal libel judgment is an appropriate way to conduct a dispute over facts and interpretation. David Irving is using the same English libel laws to take Deborah Lipstadt and Penguin Books to court. The onus is on the defence to "prove" that the Holocaust happened, therefore, on the basis of Irving's equivocations and dissembling, he is a Nazi-sympathising revisionist. Irving, although in ITN's position as the apparently libelled, is using exactly the same David vs. Goliath propaganda to justify his action as did LM in its battle with ITN. The point about the appropriateness of the libel laws in these respects is well taken, but there is an entirely separate matter concerning the politics of the participants and the political consequences of the verdicts. And disguising it as an unfair battle of small versus mighty serves only to distract from the greater issues at stake. Michael K.
