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1156 chaos, economics, and arms races -- rank: 1000

At 07:17 PM 11/22/98 -0500, you wrote: >This just in from the American Institute of Physics weekly >newsletter. not sure whether to file it under >ripley's-believe-it-or-not", science-in-search-of-funding, >history-minus-the-participants, or just plain old >hmmm-thats-interesting. > >les schaffer Why not file it under, that's-probably-true? What we are talking about is not reality but models of reality. It is most unlikely that variables covary in a constant rectilinear ...

Document Size:	6000
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Wed Nov 25 14:17:52 PST 1998

1157 anti-Confucianism -- rank: 1000

At 04:29 PM 11/20/98 -0500, Jim Farmelant wrote: under the Hybrid Marxism thread >Also, I hope that if Henry returns to discussing Confucianism again >that he might explore the conflicting attitudes that Chinese Communists >have displayed towards it. Why the Gang of Four for instance made a >point of attacking Confucius while after their fall there seemed to be >at least a partial rehabilitation of Confucius. My understanding is that in the aftermath of the Lin Biao disaster, the ...

Document Size:	5911
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Mon Nov 23 14:29:08 PST 1998

1158 Leninist-International -- rank: 1000

Paula wrote in Re: JUST WHAT IN THE HELL IS GOING ON? >And BTW, does anyone know if I've been dropped from Mark's list for some >reason? It is hard for me to deny an element of Schadenfreude, but Leninist-International appears to have imploded dramatically within a bare four weeks of the unprincipled personal attack that Mark launched on me on LBO-talk on 25th October. I obviously do not think the following was critical but I am bound to recall it with some wryness. >>>>>> ...

Document Size:	14394
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Sun Nov 22 13:52:03 PST 1998

1159 apartheid debt -- rank: 1000

At 06:47 AM 11/20/98 +0000, Patrick Bond wrote: >Right again, but progress is awfully slow. If you like I'll pop up on >the list an amazing document released a couple of weeks ago by >the ANC-SACP-Cosatu Alliance: a radical critique of capitalist >crisis (they use these very words, and base them on overaccumulation >theory) joined by a completely mealy-mouthed position on this issue. Please do. I might be a bit more prepared to give it the time of day, but it is important to unde ...

Document Size:	5304
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Fri Nov 20 22:33:16 PST 1998

1160 Animal testing of cosmetics to end in UK -- rank: 1000

>Actually I have been seeing Latisha for some months now and she is thinking >about leaving the department and going to work here at Columbia University. >It turns out her dad was a Maoist and we get along famously. Why last >weekend we went fishing for flounder in Montague and talked about old >times. He was actually the guy with the bullhorn who tried to drown out >Vance Hartke at the NPAC conference in 1971. Enough with these petty bourgeois prevarications, Comrade Proyect! ...

Document Size:	5151
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Tue Nov 17 11:40:55 PST 1998

1161 Animal testing of cosmetics to end in UK -- rank: 1000

Of course I knew that Louis Proyect would have difficulty avoiding regarding this as bait and rising to it. Reform of practices about the cruel use of animals to test commercial cosmetics does of course not seem to have very much to do with the Trotskyist theory of permanent revolution. It appears trivial as I noted in my post. It would hardly pass a mention in social conversation with Tariq Ali. It is at the other end of the scale of reforms to the ones I have also argued, to LP's shock, horror ...

Document Size:	8000
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Mon Nov 16 23:47:49 PST 1998

1162 Animal testing of cosmetics to end in UK -- rank: 1000

As promised in the election manifesto, the Labour Government is ending the testing of cosmetic ingredients on animals. I suggest this apparently trivial item is more significant than it seems on several counts. 1. It is a victory for animal rights activists over the means of production in a sensitive consumer market. The English have a reputation of wishing to appear more considerate to animals than to children, but this is more than legislation against the beating of pit ponies. It grows out of ...

Document Size:	6353
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Mon Nov 16 14:37:55 PST 1998

1163 ANC Economist moves into business -- rank: 1000

I am forwarding this item from SouthScan because it illustrates the complexity of the fine details of the struggle for a more progressive economic policy in South Africa, about which Patrick Bond has much more inside information. Even assuming Max Sisulu was hardly advocating a revolutionary approach, his departure appears a loss. The departure of a number of good ANC people to private business over recent years makes me wonder if there is not a capitalists co-ordinating group. Well-targeted sug ...

Document Size:	10314
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Sun Nov 15 23:36:52 PST 1998

1164 Hong Kong social land management -- rank: 1000

Michael Hoover's letter of 14th and Enzo's reply clarify this issue a bit more. I read Michael as essentially challenging me on any implications that the social planning in Hong Kong has been particularly progressive. I accept that other contributions in this thread suggest that it has been the exception rather than the rule that Labour influenced administrators have succeeded in such initiatives. My phrase about putting the government in a stronger position for further social urban planning may ...

Document Size:	10056
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Sun Nov 15 23:52:02 PST 1998

1165 Nathan's thread -- rank: 1000

At 01:08 PM 11/14/98 -0500, pms wrote: >>I would venture the supposition that the position you and >>others advance is held by more people on this list than certain >>over-excited, putatively "marxist" ones. I raise this as >>a note of objection to LP's suggestion to Burford that he >>migrate to a list more conducive to his politics. > >Yeah. Like Max said. > >a party of one >pms I want to take this opportunity to record Nathan's reply to m ...

Document Size:	11523
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Sun Nov 15 00:29:22 PST 1998

1166 tobbacco/anti-Clintonism -- rank: 1000

At 02:33 PM 11/13/98 -0500, you wrote: >The analysis posted on this topic certainly makes >sense. The one flaw is that the WSJ has been a big >voice in the anti-Clinton New Southern Baptism for >America campaign, and yet the same paper (I am talking >about its official editorial positions) has not been >very sympathetic to tobacco. Life would be more >logical if the two forces could be knitted together. >-gn > >-- >Gregory P. Nowell I assume you are referring ...

Document Size:	6727
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Sat Nov 14 00:00:55 PST 1998

1167 Gingrich falls + personal -- rank: 1000

I am not sure with the high volume of this list whether Nathan missed my question, or I missed his answer. Or perhaps he finds my questions too schematic. I am copying this post to him personally in the hope he would find it useful to respond on LBO-talk. Chris Burford London. At 09:38 AM 11/8/98 +0000, I wrote: >I wish to put a question to Nathan Newman at the end of this post so I hope >at least he will skim down to the end. I am glad to see him join the debate. <snip> >My quest ...

Document Size:	6074
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Wed Nov 11 23:59:38 PST 1998

1168 Capitalism and Clinton -- rank: 1000

A few Sundays ago the Observer (London) carried a further report on their analysis of the class forces behind the attacks on Clinton. An earlier report had identified a group of right wing politicians from the plains part of Arkansas (unlike Clinton and his group who come from the northern part of the state). This group has links with old plantation attitudes and are soft on racism, particularly in the context of Little Rock. One of them went on record not to admit any links directly promoting t ...

Document Size:	8962
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Thu Nov 12 00:05:37 PST 1998

1169 Marxist support for bourgeois politicians? -- rank: 1000

Apart from the misleading slanting of the debate as far as my position is concerned, as expressed in the thread title, what is really valuable about this contribution from Louis Proyect is that it makes a number of lines of demarcation clear. It reveals the basic secret of his revolutionary passion. None other than the Trotskyist theory of permanent revolution. Secondly, and centrally to his political position, Louis Proyect has reaffirmed his opposition to the 1935 change of line in the interna ...

Document Size:	7128
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Wed Nov 11 15:36:12 PST 1998

1170 Clintonism -- rank: 1000

>He then highlighted an argument that "Clintonism is power negotiation. >Clintonism is negotiation." Correction: "Clintonism is power negotiation. Clintonism is a calculation." *Calculation* I would say the same of "Blairism". Of course skillful politicians have always done this, but Clintonism-Blairism adds the most modern methods and exceptional single mindedness in doing so. This is one of the reasons why satires on Blairism, while they may score good point ...

Document Size:	4915
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Tue Nov 10 23:29:22 PST 1998