LBO Talk

[lbo-talk] Austerity In The Face Of Weakness

Patrick Bond — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 06:32:02 GMT

Doug Henwood wrote: > I've known Patrick for over 20 years, and he's been predicting it the entire time. Stopped clock, etc. Ok, here's my last post on this tiresome theme, lads. Yes, my crisis clock stops and starts lots more than yours, Doug. If you've lived in NYC, you didn't notice too much 'crisis', did you, just in the mid-1970s, early 1980s, early 1990s, early 2000s and 2007-09. In the last two cases, NYC's paper factories burned up $7-$14 trillion each (ok, it was other people's money so probably you still didn't notice). For the rest of living elsewhere, the crisis has been coming in much deeper and longer waves (the first article below has a list of extreme devaluations). Here in Southern Africa where I've spent the last 20 years, crisis has been rather persistent. Just supposing I'm correct and there's been a world crisis since the 1970s, and that crisis management from NY/Washington/London/Berlin/Paris/Brussels/Tokyo/Beijing means the effects have been displaced (shifting-s

[lbo-talk] Michael Heinrich on Capitalism and the State

Angelus Novus — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 05:13:16 GMT

Shane Mage: > What does "performance" of entrepreneurial capital mean? Investing in > improved means of production. The "performance" of industrial capital. My god, you sound like a management consultant, or a television commercial. "Let your money work for you", huh?

[lbo-talk] Austerity In The Face Of Weakness

Patrick Bond — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 04:17:56 GMT

Doug Henwood wrote: > Gross world product increased by about 250% between 1980 and 2007. Is that all a sham? > Now we're getting somewhere. If you want a simple yes/no, then 'yes', a sham! Of course it's very complicated, sorting out genuine valorization of capital from overaccumulation+financialisation. (Gar has referred to some of these problems.) But as just one (albeit crude) indicator of how badly GDP measures what's really going on, check the stagnant Genuine Progress Indicator graph at rethinkingprogress.org - for some evidence that when you start adjusting for what Harvey terms accumulation by dispossession, some big declines in actual 'genuine savings' start piling up. I'm in the midst of debating some World Bank idiots on exactly this point: http://blogs.worldbank.org/africacan/node/1876 ... because they can't quite believe the information about extraction that comes through their own book, Where is the Wealth of Nations. Cheers, Patrick Marv Gandall wrote: > Forgive my ignor

[lbo-talk] question for those who remember the 70s

Alan Rudy — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 03:45:45 GMT

I remember the 70s, but from the perspective of someone who turned 9 in the fall of 1970. What I remember was not regimentation or bureaucratization. In the language of the day, retrospectively, I clearly recall stagflation, fiscal crisis, legitimation crisis and motivation crisis and shit hitting the fan left and right - from Stonewall to Kent State to Watergate to Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia and on to Oil Shocks, CIA hearings, Nicaragua and Iran. I remember rock operas, arena rock, and soul collapsing in the face of reggae, disco, punk and early hip hop. It all felt like chaos rather than regimentation and bureaucratization - perhaps because I was too young to see the ramifications of Carter's Trilateralism. At the same time, Reaganism struck me as an explosion of regimentation and bureaucratization. The Reagan recession really seemed to be the death knell of getting a hand shake or a nod from a town to use their park for a picnic, softball or ultimate, the litigiousness of the er

[lbo-talk] Rahm: "fuck the UAW"

Doug Henwood — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 01:59:44 GMT

Rahm Emanuel: "Fuck the UAW" Rahm Emanuel, former Democratic congressman and President Obama's chief of staff, gave the UAW the Gettelfinger during the GM and Chrysler rescue debate, according to former auto czar Steve Rattner's new book. This could get messy. Especially because there's more. Huffington Post says Rattner's book "The Overhaul" will offer some unstinting takes on Obama's inner circle during the time of the bailouts. Of course, this isn't the first time Emanuel's found himself in hot water over dropping an F-bomb on his political bedmates. But it's also not the only startling quote we've found in Rattner's book. In addition to Emanuel's expression of the usually never-stated, but readily-shared opinion by many Democratic politicians of the usually Democratic-leaning union, the other early highlights include: - Emanuel's spout about the UAW came during early debate on whether the administration should even try to resc

[lbo-talk] Austerity In The Face Of Weakness

Carrol Cox — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 01:57:08 GMT

Doug Henwood wrote: > > On Sep 2, 2010, at 9:18 PM, Mike Beggs wrote: > > > Arguing against an obsession > > with crisis and stagnation is not the same as denying the possibility > > or even inevitability of downturns. And it's still good advice. > > I've known Patrick for over 20 years, and he's been predicting it the entire time. Stopped clock, etc. But, more importantly than who's right or wrong about predicting crisis, what does it mean now that we've experienced a serious one? (Not you folks Down Under, yet.) It's not like the masses are flocking to the crisis-mongers saying "How right you were! Let's abandon this crazy capitalism thing an embrace socialism!" The politics of all this have not shaken out in our favor, have they? > I agree that slumps don't tend to have political results favorable to the left, at least at first. Moreover, I don't know most of the detailed history here, so this is sort of speculative. The slumps of '74, of '82, the 'third-world' debt crisis. MAFTA &

[lbo-talk] question for those who remember the 70s

Carrol Cox — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 01:42:07 GMT

I'm glad my construal was wrong. Carrol SA wrote: > > On 9/2/2010 5:56 PM, Carrol Cox wrote: > > > > > I'm not certain of this, but her post, right or wrong, hardly deserves a > > Huh? And your next remark is merely empty. > > That was a "Huh" - not a "Huh?" > > "Huh" - as in hey, that made an impression on me. > > SA > ___________________________________ > http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk

[lbo-talk] Austerity In The Face Of Weakness

Doug Henwood — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 01:31:26 GMT

On Sep 2, 2010, at 9:18 PM, Mike Beggs wrote: > Arguing against an obsession > with crisis and stagnation is not the same as denying the possibility > or even inevitability of downturns. And it's still good advice. I've known Patrick for over 20 years, and he's been predicting it the entire time. Stopped clock, etc. But, more importantly than who's right or wrong about predicting crisis, what does it mean now that we've experienced a serious one? (Not you folks Down Under, yet.) It's not like the masses are flocking to the crisis-mongers saying "How right you were! Let's abandon this crazy capitalism thing an embrace socialism!" The politics of all this have not shaken out in our favor, have they? Doug

[lbo-talk] Austerity In The Face Of Weakness

Mike Beggs — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 01:18:52 GMT

On Thu, Sep 2, 2010 at 7:50 AM, Patrick Bond wrote: > Some, like yourself and a > couple of wonderful Toronto comrades, seem to think that the recent crisis > had nothing to do with the 1970s crisis, because that crisis was 'resolved' > - through higher profits drawn from higher rates of exploitation. I thought that was who you were talking about. But Panitch and Gindin's arguments of the 2000s stand up a lot better than those of most people who 'predicted the crisis', especially people who 'predicted it' for the wrong reasons. Arguing against an obsession with crisis and stagnation is not the same as denying the possibility or even inevitability of downturns. And it's still good advice. Mike Beggs

[lbo-talk] The tax deductibility of debt

Mike Beggs — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 00:49:42 GMT

On Thu, Sep 2, 2010 at 1:15 AM, Jordan Hayes wrote: > That's true from an originalist standpoint; the question is: when they got > rid of the interest deduction (principly because that sector had grown, and > it became clear that it was wrong), why did they leave mortgage interest? > �That's when the policy decision was made. I don't know about in the States, but in Australia tax deductability of interest started changing at a very specific point in time, around 1960, when the growth of non-bank financial institutions was threatening central banking based on management of bank liquidity. It was part of a deliberate attempt to push deposits back to the banks by stuffing up the business model of finance companies. But back then the authorities tried to isolate housing finance from the effects of monetary policy in general, so the divergence began. I'd say in general mortgage interest is just more politically sensitive. Mike Beggs

[lbo-talk] Michael Heinrich on Capitalism and the State

Doug Henwood — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 00:19:08 GMT

On Sep 2, 2010, at 4:41 PM, Eric Beck wrote: > On Thu, Sep 2, 2010 at 2:55 PM, SA wrote: >> On 9/2/2010 3:37 PM, Eric Beck wrote: > >> Here's another binary: From your posts it really does seem that > > Maybe you should learn to read. > > Asshole. SA can read very well and he's the furthest thing from an asshole. And the point he made is the same I was trying to make. You really do come off that way sometimes. Doug

[lbo-talk] [Marxism] Michael Heinrich on Capitalism and the State

Shane Mage — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 00:04:21 GMT

On Sep 2, 2010, at 3:11 PM, Angelus Novus wrote: > > Shane Mage: > >> And how could anyone, after Marx devoted so much exposition to the >> category of "relative surplus value," the main source of profit, >> claim >> that that profits (as distinct from ground and monopoly rents and >> ?interest) "have little to do with performance?" > > Here on Earth-Prime, relative surplus value usually refers to > lowering commodity value by decreasing socially necessary labour time. > > Maybe you can elucidate a bit upon this daring new Mage-ian notion > of relative surplus value tied to "performance". How is the "decreasing" of socially necessary labour time (the increasing of the productivity of social labor) brought about? By investment in improved means of production. Duh. What does "performance" of entrepreneurial capital mean? Investing in improved means of production. Double Duh. Shane Mage This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it always was and is and shall be: an everlasting f

[lbo-talk] question for those who remember the 70s

Chuck Grimes — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 23:26:58 GMT

CB: In general, in the 70's, we used to talk about "the movement" still, agreeing that one existed. That's long gone. There was ongoing struggle for advances as you sketch above. Agreed. I want to give a materal reason for the difference between City Hall and University administration battles and outcomes. Remember the Black Panthers in Oakland were waging a war against Oakland City Hall and public schools, and to a much lesser extent in Berkeley. They didn't carry the same weight in the state UC Regent system. So the difference in battles and outcomes. CG

[lbo-talk] Tea Party Numbers (and Chomsky's citation of polls)

Chuck Munson — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 22:40:55 GMT

On Thu, Sep 2, 2010 at 3:20 PM, c b wrote: > The mention of the large group with anti-welfare state mentality > reminds me that part of the rightwing anti-O demogogy has claimed that > he was �favoring Black people as President ( a basic KKK position > these days: Black people are advantaged over whites in America). �This > has probably contributed to his drop in popularity polls. According to the right wing media, President Obama is a Muslim who favors the interests of Muslims. That doesn't play well in racist Peoria. Can't believe that Obama doesn't have the cojones to come out swinging against this crap. Are his advisers telling him just to rise above this crap? Chuck

[lbo-talk] question for those who remember the 70s

SA — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 22:31:33 GMT

On 9/2/2010 5:56 PM, Carrol Cox wrote: > > I'm not certain of this, but her post, right or wrong, hardly deserves a > Huh? And your next remark is merely empty. That was a "Huh" - not a "Huh?" "Huh" - as in hey, that made an impression on me. SA

[lbo-talk] question for those who remember the 70s

Carrol Cox — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 22:09:05 GMT

Jordan Hayes wrote: > > Chuck Grimes writes: [clip] > > > Compared to today, that sounds dreamy :-) I think Chuck's account is accurate, but I also thin he (quite naturally) overemphasized the positive inheritance from the '60s -- i.e. negative reaction to cops. But the _emphasis_ needs to be put on the more or less successful rejection of the '60s by most. Chuck himself has several times described eloquently his own losing battle to maintain the gains of the '60s. What SA wants, I think, is an account of how the current conservative reighn developed: i.e. we need to focus on the events which gave us the libertarian creed: love cops but hate welfare. Carrol

[lbo-talk] question for those who remember the 70s

Myles Sussman — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 22:08:51 GMT

On Thu, Sep 2, 2010 at 2:18 PM, c b wrote: > Chuck Grimes > > > > Yes and no. The forces of reaction to the previous decade were > everywhere. > One more I think you left out was school busing and the big reaction to it. School busing was deeply unpopular in a lot of places. It became a wedge issue and one of the fronts along which public schools came under attack.

[lbo-talk] question for those who remember the 70s

Carrol Cox — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 21:56:41 GMT

SA wrote: > > On 9/2/2010 4:37 PM, 123hop at comcast.net wrote: > >[clip] > > Huh. > > Man, the sixties sound pretty nice. Joanna speaks of what was _fought_ for rather than necessarily achieved -- not an uncommon condition. And she describes fairly accurately what was, in various forms, fought for. And it doesn't matter that many of those goals were badly formulated or contradictory -- the activity left its imprint on expectations -- though by the mid-decade those expectatins were being reformulated in practice to conservative ends. E.g., negative reaction to _corporate_ bureaucracy shifted to varius state bureaucracies. I'm not certain of this, but her post, right or wrong, hardly deserves a Huh? And your next remark is merely empty. Carrol

[lbo-talk] question for those who remember the 70s

c b — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 21:18:00 GMT

Chuck Grimes Yes and no. The forces of reaction to the previous decade were everywhere. There was the constant drone of Law and Order. A wave of anti-drug laws, heavier sentences, longer time. Inside public institutions like UCB there was wave of managerial reforms, intended to `clean-up' waste and abuse. If you provided a service, you had to justify it in some need based accountability. In other words your statistics had to look right, conform to the guildlines and prove your narrative---on grants. Other elements were a big increase in the penetration of computer systems on bueacracies. These required a highly proceedure oriented series of internal changes to conform to what computers could and couldn't do. What was essentially going on was the installation of the neoliberal regime in everday institutional detail. The general institutional mind set was The People were criminal, so you had to be a cop-like entity to manage them. It was the era of the welfare queen, drug dealer on workm

[lbo-talk] question for those who remember the 70s

SA — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 21:13:11 GMT

On 9/2/2010 5:02 PM, Chuck Grimes wrote: > Hope this helps. Very much so. Thanks. SA

[lbo-talk] question for those who remember the 70s

Jordan Hayes — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 21:09:06 GMT

Chuck Grimes writes: >> Did actual American life seem so much more regimented >> or bureaucratized in the 70's? > > Yes and no. The forces of reaction to the previous decade > were everywhere. There was the constant drone of Law and > Order. A wave of anti-drug laws, heavier sentences, longer > time. Inside public institutions like UCB there was wave > of managerial reforms, intended to `clean-up' waste and > abuse. If you provided a service, you had to justify it > in some need based accountability. Compared to today, that sounds dreamy :-) /jordan

[lbo-talk] question for those who remember the 70s

Chuck Grimes — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 21:02:22 GMT

In reading historical sources from the mid-70's, I find a huge amount of talk expressing the idea that Americans were feeling oppressed by an overload of bureaucracy... Did actual American life seem so much more regimented or bureaucratized in the 70's? SA ----------------- Yes and no. The forces of reaction to the previous decade were everywhere. There was the constant drone of Law and Order. A wave of anti-drug laws, heavier sentences, longer time. Inside public institutions like UCB there was wave of managerial reforms, intended to `clean-up' waste and abuse. If you provided a service, you had to justify it in some need based accountability. In other words your statistics had to look right, conform to the guildlines and prove your narrative---on grants. Other elements were a big increase in the penetration of computer systems on bueacracies. These required a highly proceedure oriented series of internal changes to conform to what computers could and couldn't do. What was essentially

[lbo-talk] question for those who remember the 70s

SA — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 20:53:13 GMT

On 9/2/2010 4:37 PM, 123hop at comcast.net wrote: > "Did actual American life seem so much more regimented or > bureaucratized in the 70's?" > > It was more a question of expectations. The countercultural movement of the sixties had raised expectations and fed the desire for real connections between people, for the actual satisfaction of desire, and for freedom. > > Bureaucracy served as the counter-practice to all that. Huh. Man, the sixties sound pretty nice. SA

[lbo-talk] Michael Heinrich on Capitalism and the State

Eric Beck — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 20:41:04 GMT

On Thu, Sep 2, 2010 at 2:55 PM, SA wrote: > �On 9/2/2010 3:37 PM, Eric Beck wrote: > Here's another binary: From your posts it really does seem that Maybe you should learn to read. Asshole.

[lbo-talk] question for those who remember the 70s

123hop at comcast.net — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 20:37:11 GMT

"Did actual American life seem so much more regimented or bureaucratized in the 70's?" It was more a question of expectations. The countercultural movement of the sixties had raised expectations and fed the desire for real connections between people, for the actual satisfaction of desire, and for freedom. Bureaucracy served as the counter-practice to all that. Joanna

[lbo-talk] question for those who remember the 70s

c b — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 20:30:26 GMT

Did actual American life seem so much more regimented or bureaucratized in the 70's? SA ^^^^^^^^ CB: No. It felt like we had "won" the counter-cultural rev.

[lbo-talk] Tea Party Numbers (and Chomsky's citation of polls)

c b — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 20:20:31 GMT

> I agree with your conclusion that Chomsky - like Chuck, Carrol, and others on the left eager to outflank the Democratic party from the outside - read a little too much into these polls. While the polls show that Americans have liberal rather than conservative views on these issues when the questions are posed fairly "Posed fairly" = answers are very sensitive to how the questions are worded. Anyone who thinks that there isn't deep hostility to a welfare state in American popular opinion just isn't looking. Yeah, there are contradictions, but it's not hard for right-wing politicians to bring out the hostility. Doug ^^^^^^^^^ CB: Yeah. I just can't figure out why Obama doesn't just charge into the face of this and pull off a miracle big left move. Ironically, those who were concerned during the campaign about Obamaniacs having illusions about Obama as superman now are "dillusioned" with him for not doing superman. The mention of the large group with anti-welfare state mentality reminds

[lbo-talk] Michael Heinrich on Capitalism and the State

SA — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 19:55:46 GMT

On 9/2/2010 3:37 PM, Eric Beck wrote: > On Thu, Sep 2, 2010 at 2:24 PM, Doug Henwood wrote: > >> Whereas, what, anti-Keynesian neoliberalization has been a paradise for workers? > No false binaries! Here's another binary: From your posts it really does seem that - if forced to choose between two imperfect systems - you'd find a lot more appeal in Murray Rothbard's anarcho-capitalism than in Swedish social democracy. Scratch an autonomist, find an anti-big gummint Texas libertarian? SA

[lbo-talk] Michael Heinrich on Capitalism and the State

Dennis Claxton — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 19:52:25 GMT

At 12:37 PM 9/2/2010, Eric Beck wrote: >No false binaries! You got a macro for that?

[lbo-talk] Michael Heinrich on Capitalism and the State

Eric Beck — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 19:37:53 GMT

On Thu, Sep 2, 2010 at 2:24 PM, Doug Henwood wrote: > Whereas, what, anti-Keynesian neoliberalization has been a paradise for workers? No false binaries!

[lbo-talk] Michael Heinrich on Capitalism and the State

SA — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 19:34:33 GMT

On 9/2/2010 3:24 PM, Eric Beck wrote: > On Thu, Sep 2, 2010 at 12:31 PM, Shane Mage wrote: > >> The Heinrich article is a good example of abstract impossibilism. Nowhere >> does it offer a critique of the draft program as a whole, nowhere a >> formulation of concrete improvements to it. > Which is exactly the say to proceed. Like Marx did with the Gotha > program. There's no sense into delving in to particulars when the > whole framework is rotten. > Marx did this with the Gotha program? There were no particulars? Is there some other version of the Critique of the Gotha Program that I haven't read? SA

[lbo-talk] Michael Heinrich on Capitalism and the State

Eric Beck — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 19:24:44 GMT

On Thu, Sep 2, 2010 at 12:31 PM, Shane Mage wrote: > The Heinrich article is a good example of abstract impossibilism. �Nowhere > does it offer a critique of the draft program as a whole, nowhere a > formulation �of concrete improvements to it. Which is exactly the say to proceed. Like Marx did with the Gotha program. There's no sense into delving in to particulars when the whole framework is rotten.

[lbo-talk] Michael Heinrich on Capitalism and the State

Doug Henwood — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 19:24:29 GMT

On Sep 2, 2010, at 3:15 PM, Eric Beck wrote: > I haven't read the article yet, but I wonder if this also relates back > to the Vercellone article and to what others, mostly Europeans, have > noted about the last 30 years: capital's decreasing *direct* command > over labor. One of the many horrible things about the Keynesian > solutions to the crisis loved by the Anglo-American left is that they > would all mean an increasing direct control over labor. Regulation and > nationalization of finance or the economy also means the regulation > and nationalization (likely via centralization and something like > labor union mediation) of the workforce. A decisive step backwards. Whereas, what, anti-Keynesian neoliberalization has been a paradise for workers?

[lbo-talk] Michael Heinrich on Capitalism and the State

Eric Beck — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 19:15:02 GMT

On Thu, Sep 2, 2010 at 11:24 AM, Angelus Novus wrote: > > > DIE LINKE's draft party program reads like a Keynesian wish list addressed to Santa Claus: as if by means of regulation and a nationalized financial sector (under "democratic control") a capitalism can be created that reconciles all contradictions. I haven't read the article yet, but I wonder if this also relates back to the Vercellone article and to what others, mostly Europeans, have noted about the last 30 years: capital's decreasing *direct* command over labor. One of the many horrible things about the Keynesian solutions to the crisis loved by the Anglo-American left is that they would all mean an increasing direct control over labor. Regulation and nationalization of finance or the economy also means the regulation and nationalization (likely via centralization and something like labor union mediation) of the workforce. A decisive step backwards.

[lbo-talk] Michael Heinrich on Capitalism and the State

Angelus Novus — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 19:11:14 GMT

Shane Mage: > And how could anyone, after Marx devoted so much exposition to the > category of "relative surplus value," the main source of profit, claim > that that profits (as distinct from ground and monopoly rents and > ?interest) "have little to do with performance?" Here on Earth-Prime, relative surplus value usually refers to lowering commodity value by decreasing socially necessary labour time. Maybe you can elucidate a bit upon this daring new Mage-ian notion of relative surplus value tied to "performance".

[lbo-talk] question for those who remember the 70s

SA — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 18:53:47 GMT

In reading historical sources from the mid-70's, I find a huge amount of talk expressing the idea that Americans were feeling oppressed by an overload of bureaucracy. This talk wasn't just coming from anti-government conservatives; often liberals would say it in a sort of "I hate to admit it, but..." kind of way. Nowadays, at least among people my age, this sort of feeling doesn't exist (in my experience) except in scripted right-wing boilerplate. Did actual American life seem so much more regimented or bureaucratized in the 70's? SA

[lbo-talk] ciao, Dems

Ricky Page — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 18:43:38 GMT

This is because of the symbiotic relationship between both parties- they will join together if their power relationship in endangered, ie, if their monopoly of power is threatened.As during the "Cold"War. ________________________________ From: Carrol Cox To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Sent: Thu, September 2, 2010 2:16:12 PM Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] ciao, Dems SA wrote: > >� I think it would be better if Republicans won both the Senate and the > House, rather than just the House. > I tend to agree, but I would be interested in your reasons. Of course the subject line, "ciao, Dems," needs, for the sake of accuracy, to add something like "for the next few years." Over the last 50 years there have been several predicti9ons of the permanent disappearance of one or the other of the parties after some landslide election, but of course the loser always ended up the winner in 4 to12 years. Carrol ___________________________________ http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/

[lbo-talk] Tea Party Numbers (and Chomsky's citation of polls)

Miles Jackson — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 18:23:22 GMT

On 09/02/2010 07:08 AM, Doug Henwood wrote: > > "Posed fairly" = answers are very sensitive to how the questions are worded. Anyone who thinks that there isn't deep hostility to a welfare state in American popular opinion just isn't looking. Yeah, there are contradictions, but it's not hard for right-wing politicians to bring out the hostility. > > Doug > One of the essential tensions in U. S. culture: "helping out" vs. "personal responsibility". On one hand, we have a long and I think commendable tradition of mutual aid (e.g., barn raisings, co-ops, volunteer organizations). On the other, we have the "welfare moms are lazy" trope. Repubs are adept at stoking resentment about people "not pulling their weight", but it's important to remember that mutual aid is a core U. S. value as well. To put it crudely, that's the real culture war in the U. S. today: "Let's work together for our mutual benefit" vs. "Every man for himself". --And not to be too gloomy, but every day in thousands o

[lbo-talk] reviews from the right

123hop at comcast.net — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 18:22:30 GMT

Obama is a horse's ass. Joanna ----- Original Message ----- From: "c b" To: "lbo-talk" Sent: Thursday, September 2, 2010 11:17:53 AM Subject: [lbo-talk] reviews from the right One of the few right-wingers on my Yale Class of '75 listserv writes: > I thought Pres Obama gave a great speech last nite. > > Hawkish, right-leaning, right on. > > A far cry from the candidate Obama > > Surprising. And I loved it. > > Which means I suspect that "true believers" were quite disappointed. Over to you, Charles. Doug ^^^^^ CB: Sounds like s/he baited you good and you took the bait. Sort of reminds me of left schendfreude at Obama dropping in the polls when he dropped in the polls because of rightwing activism. ___________________________________ http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk

[lbo-talk] reviews from the right

c b — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 18:17:53 GMT

One of the few right-wingers on my Yale Class of '75 listserv writes: > I thought Pres Obama gave a great speech last nite. > > Hawkish, right-leaning, right on. > > A far cry from the candidate Obama > > Surprising. And I loved it. > > Which means I suspect that "true believers" were quite disappointed. Over to you, Charles. Doug ^^^^^ CB: Sounds like s/he baited you good and you took the bait. Sort of reminds me of left schendfreude at Obama dropping in the polls when he dropped in the polls because of rightwing activism.

[lbo-talk] ciao, Dems

Carrol Cox — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 18:16:12 GMT

SA wrote: > > I think it would be better if Republicans won both the Senate and the > House, rather than just the House. > I tend to agree, but I would be interested in your reasons. Of course the subject line, "ciao, Dems," needs, for the sake of accuracy, to add something like "for the next few years." Over the last 50 years there have been several predicti9ons of the permanent disappearance of one or the other of the parties after some landslide election, but of course the loser always ended up the winner in 4 to12 years. Carrol

[lbo-talk] Tea Party Numbers (and Chomsky's citation of polls)

Carrol Cox — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 18:10:44 GMT

Doug Henwood wrote: > > On Sep 2, 2010, at 10:52 AM, SA wrote: > [clip]The right's ability to mobilize ideology[clip] > But I think the "ideology" taps into "common sense" - received wisdom, imprinted patterns, cultural/political instincts. That's why it's so easy for the right to make it work for them. Absolutely. Ideology is not mobilized; rather, it is the _terrain_ of political struggle. And common sense can NOT be refuted by arguments or other sorts of peresuasion. For a useful distinction beetween ideology and propaganda or other explicit positions see See Barbara Fields, "Slavery, Race and Ideology in the United States of America," NLR 181 (May/June 1990), pp.95-118. Carrol

[lbo-talk] ciao, Dems

SA — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 18:03:17 GMT

On 9/2/2010 1:52 PM, Doug Henwood wrote: >> I think it would be better if Republicans won both the Senate and the House, rather than just the House. > Better how? Funnier? (There will undoubtedly be some real doozies in a sweep.) Or more likely that the Dems would recover in 2012? Or some other way? Well, practically speaking what's the difference? Nothing good will come out of Washington either way. At least if Republicans win both houses, (1) they're more likely to be seen as the incumbents along with Obama through the next years of grinding economic misery; (2) it might make it slightly harder for Obama to cut a deal with the Republicans to gut Social Security, because all the blame would fall to him alone for the "sell-out." SA

[lbo-talk] ciao, Dems

Doug Henwood — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 17:52:35 GMT

On Sep 2, 2010, at 1:47 PM, SA wrote: > I think it would be better if Republicans won both the Senate and the House, rather than just the House. Better how? Funnier? (There will undoubtedly be some real doozies in a sweep.) Or more likely that the Dems would recover in 2012? Or some other way?

[lbo-talk] Tea Party Numbers (and Chomsky's citation of polls)

SA — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 17:50:35 GMT

On 9/2/2010 1:27 PM, Doug Henwood wrote: >> This produces the classic political dynamic, where debates on critical issues play out with the right making broad ideological appeals and the left appealing to facts and pie charts. The right's ability to mobilize ideology is almost always what causes it to win these debates (when it wins). > But I think the "ideology" taps into "common sense" - received wisdom, imprinted patterns, cultural/political instincts. That's why it's so easy for the right to make it work for them. > Absolutely. But received wisdom and cultural-political instincts aren't primordial. They can change. More importantly, they can be reinterpreted, with old concepts given new meanings and certain themes elevated at the expense of others. This is what the right *does* when it it does ideology. SA

[lbo-talk] ciao, Dems

SA — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 17:47:05 GMT

I think it would be better if Republicans won both the Senate and the House, rather than just the House. SA

[lbo-talk] Michael Heinrich on Capitalism and the State

Shane Mage — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 17:31:43 GMT

On Sep 2, 2010, at 12:24 PM, Angelus Novus wrote: > > > DIE LINKE's draft party program reads like a Keynesian wish list > addressed to Santa Claus: as if by means of regulation and a > nationalized financial sector (under "democratic control") a > capitalism can be created that reconciles all contradictions. > > Full: http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/heinrich020910.html The Heinrich article is a good example of abstract impossibilism. Nowhere does it offer a critique of the draft program as a whole, nowhere a formulation of concrete improvements to it. Instead a series of captious criticisms of phrases devoid of context, all in the name of some ultrapure Marxism. Which Marxism has very little to do with Marx, as exemplified in this typical phrase: "not much remains of Marx's insight that wages and profits have little to do with performance" while, to the contrary, Marx explicitly called piecework wages (payment in accordance with performance) "The form of wages most in

[lbo-talk] Tea Party Numbers (and Chomsky's citation of polls)

Doug Henwood — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 17:27:29 GMT

On Sep 2, 2010, at 10:52 AM, SA wrote: > This produces the classic political dynamic, where debates on critical issues play out with the right making broad ideological appeals and the left appealing to facts and pie charts. The right's ability to mobilize ideology is almost always what causes it to win these debates (when it wins). But I think the "ideology" taps into "common sense" - received wisdom, imprinted patterns, cultural/political instincts. That's why it's so easy for the right to make it work for them. Doug

[lbo-talk] ciao, Dems

Doug Henwood — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 17:24:35 GMT

[via Mike Allen] BREAKING - LARRY J. SABATO, Director, U.Va. Center for Politics, Sixty Days to Go: The Crystal Ball's Labor Day Predictions: Republicans have a good chance to win the House by picking up as many as 47 seats, net [39 needed for control]. This is a 'net' number since the GOP will probably lose several of its own congressional districts in Delaware, Hawaii, and Louisiana. If anything, we have been conservative in estimating the probable GOP House gains, if the election were being held today. -- In the Senate, we now believe the GOP will do a bit better than our long-time prediction of +7 seats. Republicans have an outside shot at winning full control (+10), but are more likely to end up with +8 (or maybe +9, at which point it will be interesting to see how senators such as Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, and others react). GOP leaders themselves did not believe such a result was truly possible just a few months ago. If the Republican wave on N

[lbo-talk] tea party numbers

Dennis Claxton — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 16:50:49 GMT

At 06:33 PM 9/1/2010, Shane Mage wrote: >But you are blathering. Charming >Why, if there was evidence, do every thing possible to extort a >guilty plea and fight like hell in >the courts to avoid a trial? Because that's the way every fucking criminal case in the country works. Hardly anything goes to trial.