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1036 Fwd: IMF & Gold sales -- rank: 1000

At 12:11 15/04/99 -0400, Doug wrote: >[More from 50 Years Is Enough, even if they don't meet Chris Burford's test >of militancy.] < > >Under the guise of providing debt relief, the IMF is asking permission from >it stockholder countries to sell a portion of its gold stocks. The >majority of that money would actually go not to debt relief, but to allow >the IMF's ESAF fund to become self- sustaining. This would put the IMF >permanently in the development arena and rem ...

Document Size:	8570
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Thu Apr 15 14:48:22 PDT 1999

1037 Fwd: "Debt Relief for Africa": Congressional Testimony -- rank: 1000

At 13:06 14/04/99 -0400, you wrote: >[Something from one of the good NGOs.] >Africa Subcommittee of the House International Relations Committee >Hearing on "Debt Relief for Africa" > >April 13, 1999 >Testimony by: >Njoki Njoroge Njehû, Director >50 Years Is Enough: U.S. Network for Global Economic Justice Yes, there are some good NGOs. But even this presentation does not escape from the implication of begging for charity, for cancellation of debt, unable to expl ...

Document Size:	7660
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Wed Apr 14 23:57:33 PDT 1999

1038 Marshall Plan for Balkans? -- rank: 1000

At 12:21 14/04/99 -0400, you wrote: >Chris Burford wrote: > >>I actually think that Special Drawing Rights should be printed for the >>Africa, but that suggestion was also met by a received left wing common >>sense and worldy wisdom as quite impractical. > >Chris, for one you show a touching faith in the healing powers of funny >money, e.g. SDRs. Africa desperately needs real human, financial, and >physical resources, not a fresh issue of a notional currency. ...

Document Size:	8756
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Wed Apr 14 15:28:54 PDT 1999

1039 The economic basis of the war -- rank: 1000

Lenin: "Developing capitalism knows two historical tendencies in the national question. The first is the awakening of national life and national movements, the struggle against all national oppression, and the creation of national states. The second is the development and growing frequency of international intercourse in every form, the break-down of national barriers, the creation of the international unity of capital, of economic life in general, of politics, science, etc." "Cri ...

Document Size:	4978
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Wed Apr 14 00:06:37 PDT 1999

1040 Marshall Plan for Balkans? -- rank: 1000

At 21:43 12/04/99 -0400, you wrote: >I feel kinda bad for my first word at LBO to be - i'm not sure which - >you must be kiddin' Chris, or fat chance, and with NO strings! >even the Marshall Plan was a ball of them. > >cheers, no? >gunder frank As I have been wanting to meet Gunder Frank for 20 years, I cannot necessarily complain that the introduction was not as I would have wished. Nevertheless it does get to grips with the issues. I suppose it is inevitable that people like ...

Document Size:	9256
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Tue Apr 13 23:49:02 PDT 1999

1041 Intervention and anti-imperialism -- rank: 1000

First let me say I object strongly to Jim Farmelant copying this post including passages from me to Louis Proyect's marxism list without my permission, in circumstances in which Louis Proyect has denied me the right to reply on this question, on pain of being "shown the door." I would not have thought that Jim F would wish to win an argument by such unfair means. If Jim Farmelant wishes to join in the debate here with me and Jim H he can. Jim Heartfield wrote: >You are surprised, be ...

Document Size:	21797
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Tue Apr 13 13:31:40 PDT 1999

1042 Marshall Plan for Balkans? -- rank: 1000

At 18:33 12/04/99 -0400, you wrote: >Chris Burford wrote: > >>Maybe the IMF will bank roll it?? Without strings???? > >Chris, you continue to outdo yourself. Do you seriously believe there's any >chance of this? If you do, I really wonder what planet you live on. > >Doug Thanks! I do not see how the western imperialist powers can afford *not* to do this. They have taken on a fight which they can't lose with an opponent who cannot lose, since Milosevic has staked his wh ...

Document Size:	5731
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Mon Apr 12 17:24:03 PDT 1999

1043 Metohija - the significance -- rank: 1000

At 22:11 02/04/99 -0500, John Mage wrote: <snip> >In the western half, the Drim does not form a relatively narrow fertile >valley ("polje") but drains a wider relatively flat plateau from Pec south >to Prizren. >*This is Metohija*. In this plateau there is a railway junction at a sort >of T, with the short line being that between Pec and Pristina and the long >line ending at Prizren in the south. The small town at the junction is also >called Metohija. > & ...

Document Size:	9809
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Mon Apr 12 16:06:00 PDT 1999

1044 Marshall Plan for Balkans? -- rank: 1000

As well as increasing pressure on NATO to explain how it can win without a sophisticated plan for ground troops, there is also pressure on economic solutions. If NATO is to bome up with a comprehensive military plan it may topple fighting over into other Balkan countries. These must have economic hope. The Marshall aid plan after the Second World War was to prevent western Europe falling under communist influence. It was also a massive investment for a whole region. Its successor in the Blakans ...

Document Size:	8059
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Mon Apr 12 15:23:01 PDT 1999

1045 Intervention and anti-imperialism -- rank: 1000

Comments and replies to Jim H At 09:04 10/04/99 Jim Heartfield wrote in reply to DL: >I certainly would not want to leave out of >account the prior hostility Serbs felt towards the Albanian Kosovars. >However, these ethnic tensions would never have gotten any more violent >than those in other parts of the world - but for the >internationalisation of these conflicts. The key Western powers in >London, Washington, Bonn and Paris introduced new motivations and >inducements to ...

Document Size:	16743
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Mon Apr 12 05:19:03 PDT 1999

1046 NATO & Milosevich: Lovers' Quarrel? -- rank: 1000

At 22:13 10/04/99 -0700, Max wrote: >And now for something completely different, about Kosova. Funny thing about >this is, if what follows is true and we had all known it three weeks ago, we >might have foregone a lot of arguments. I attach below a copy of my post to marxism-unmoderated from over 3 weeks ago, 19th March before the war started. The article Max copied here is one that bears out the analysis, that members or supporters of the KLA have been gambling that they could manipul ...

Document Size:	8991
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Sun Apr 11 08:19:49 PDT 1999

1047 The practical Rosa Luxemburg -- rank: 1000

At 15:08 10/04/99 -0400, Wojtek wrote: >My own position on this issue is close to that of Rosa Luxemburg, who >opposed national separatism on the grounds that it divides the working class. Please consider section 8 "The Utopian Karl Marx and the Practical Rosa Luxemburg" in Lenin's "The Right of Nations to Self-Determination" 1914, and the article generally on Luxemburg's errors on this question. Chris Burford London

Document Size:	4995
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Sat Apr 10 15:51:07 PDT 1999

1048 Kosovo a Vietnam Insanity -- rank: 1000

At 00:15 10/04/99 -0400, Henry CK Liu forwarded: > >April 9 1999 OPINION The London Times >By Simon Jenkins > > Nato's leaders are treading the path that led to > insanity in Vietnam > > Will they never learn? etc. A good example of the imperialist roots of appeasement. > There is such a thing as a > world order and it does merit imposition, as in > the Falklands and Kuwait. Though the integrity > of states should be respected, ...

Document Size:	5198
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Sat Apr 10 15:42:41 PDT 1999

1049 genocide and "Breaking Glass" -- rank: 1000

At 12:43 09/04/99 -0400, Doug Henwood wrote: >All you folks deploying the words "fascism" and "genocide" might want to >contemplate this. > >Doug > >---- > >New York Times - April 9, 1999 > >CRISIS IN THE BALKANS: ECHOES >Auschwitz Survivor in Belgrade Now Fears NATO > > >By STEVEN ERLANGER > >ELGRADE, Yugoslavia -- Aca Singer, who lost 65 members of his family in the >Holocaust, says he didn't survive Auschwitz to die from a ...

Document Size:	12802
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Sat Apr 10 10:36:38 PDT 1999

1050 Intervention and anti-imperialism. -- rank: 1000

I would like to take up two further points that Jim H has made. At 09:24 08/04/99 +0100, Jim H wrote: >Chris gets up on his high horse about LM's position on the Bosnian War. >But what is he saying? LM's opposition to the war was certainly a >minority position, and the government and courts have tried to have the >magazine closed because of it. Every major newspaper supported Western >military intervention on the side of the Bosnians. It is only in that >context that opposition ...

Document Size:	12058
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Fri Apr 9 15:53:38 PDT 1999