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601 Challenging US imperialism -- rank: 1000

At 12:02 21/09/99 -0400, Doug wrote: >Chris Burford wrote: > >>Indeed to stay in pure isolation on the sidelines is one of the best ways >>to leave imperialism to have a free run. It is much better to challenge it >>as to whether it means its fine words. That in practical terms is much more >>effective anti-imperialism. > >Chris, your idea of challenging imperialism is to engage with those >prime agents of imperialism, NATO and the IMF. That's a very weird ...

Document Size:	6881
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Tue Sep 21 15:55:45 PDT 1999

602 PDS second in Saxony -- rank: 1000

At 09:19 21/09/99 +0100, you wrote: >In message <3.0.2.32.19990921081705.011cf590 at pop.gn.apc.org>, Chris >Burford <cburford at gn.apc.org> writes >>I see that the PDS website has a couple of articles in English. They >>promise to post a more considered statement on the Saxony election, perhaps >>in the next week. Meanwhile here is their tactically and strategically >>thoughtful analysis of the successes in Thuringia, and their foothold in >>Nort ...

Document Size:	5223
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Tue Sep 21 16:00:49 PDT 1999

603 PDS second in Saxony -- rank: 1000

After recently coming second in Thuringia, the PDS has come second, well ahead of the SPD, in Saxony in the Land elections this Sunday. Party Percent 1999 (Percent 1994) CDU 56.9 (58.1) PDS 22.2 (16.5) SPD 10.7 (16.6) Green 2.6 ( 4.1) FDP 1.1 ( 1.7) Prior to this election, the PDS was equal in votes to the SPD (just a little behind). Only in Dresden was its percentage of voters twice as large as that of the SPD. Now its percentage is twice as large as that of the SPD in Saxony as a whole. Ma ...

Document Size:	13959
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Tue Sep 21 00:17:05 PDT 1999

604 East Timor, Kosovo, and Kuwait -- rank: 1000

At 12:45 19/09/99 -0500, Carrol wrote: >But Nathan's pointless call for non-polemical discussion between >those who support and those who oppose imperialism does suggest >a more fruitful direction for the latter to pursue. While dogmatic positions appear at first sight very imposing, their achilles heel is that the authors are actually lazy. Nathan is quite right that the concrete analysis of concrete conditions does pan out differently with the three striking examples of intervention. ...

Document Size:	10164
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Mon Sep 20 15:30:03 PDT 1999

605 Genetic Engineering Again -- rank: 1000

At 19:00 18/09/99 -0700, Michael Perelman wrote: >This article is online at: >http://cnn.com/TECH/science/9809/03/promiscuous.weed.ap/index.html > >Plant Scientists Find Risk in Genetic Engineering >------------------------------------------------- >September 3, 1998 >Webposted at 12:10 PM EDT > >(AP) -- A weed altered by scientists to resist an herbicide also has >developed far greater ability to pollinate other plants and pass on its >traits, raising the possib ...

Document Size:	7669
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Sun Sep 19 05:23:23 PDT 1999

606 East Timor [was East Timor: the optimist's scenario] -- rank: 1000

At 22:54 15/09/99 -0400, you wrote: >>All the major players >>knew about the massacre beforehand. None was going to stop it, meaning >>each wanted it, or acqiesced to it, for their own reasons. The debate >>you and others were having about intervention and aiding imperialism was >>false, in the sense that the only interevntion that mattered--that could >>have saved the East Timorese--wasn't going to happen. ><snip> >>Roger > >Maybe it is ...

Document Size:	12262
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Wed Sep 15 23:42:27 PDT 1999

607 East Timor, Clinton, & the World Bank -- rank: 1000

At 08:58 15/09/99 -0400, you wrote: >The following is from Lou's marxism list. I'll pass this on without any >comments. Yoshie "To carry on a war for the overthrow of the international bourgeoisie, a war which is a hundred times more difficult, protracted and complicated than the most stubborn of ordinary wars between states, and to refuse beforehand to manoeuvre, to utilize the conflict of interests (even though temporary) among one's enemies, to refuse to temporize and compromise ...

Document Size:	5526
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Wed Sep 15 16:00:04 PDT 1999

608 East Timor [was East Timor: the optimist's scenario] -- rank: 1000

At 22:37 14/09/99 -0500, you wrote: > > >Roger Odisio wrote: > >> So it is now clear that the terms under which much of the debate has been >> held–whether or not intervention should be called for or supported–are false. >> > >Roger still conceals the weird assumptions on which his argument is based -- >the assumption that what any marxist anywhere *said* was going to make >an actual difference in whether or when any intervention occurred in >East Tim ...

Document Size:	6671
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Wed Sep 15 00:24:31 PDT 1999

609 The 20th Century - XS deaths -- rank: 1000

There was a useful, rather tight-lipped, exchange at the back of New Left Review 219, September 1996, between Robert Conquest and RW Davies on Excess Deaths in the Soviet Union. The exchange narrowed the differences down to a fairly small margin. They make it clear why a term like "excess deaths" is the only valid epidemiological one in view of the limitations on the historical evidence and the major part that famine played in the total. Conquest challenges Davies's article in NLR 214 ...

Document Size:	6178
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Tue Sep 14 15:13:03 PDT 1999

610 Windows 98 glitch -- rank: 1000

Can I warn Carl Remick and others that Windows 98 can make it easy accidentally to send mail to a list like this in html which when read in Windows 95 comes out as extremely small. Pity because it is a very significant article about impending inter-imperialist trade war with GM as the excuse (start below) If I am right that this is the problem, in Windows 98 it is solved, my friends tell me, by following this sequence: tools options send plain text Chris Burford London At 14:45 14/09/99 -0400, C ...

Document Size:	5716
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Tue Sep 14 13:50:13 PDT 1999

611 PDS second in Thuringia -- rank: 1000

At 14:16 13/09/99 +0200, Johannes wrote, among other interesting comments: >Regarding the PDS something important has emerged in the election analysis: >In the east the PDS is not longer primarily seen as the party of the old >East German leadership, but as the sole defender of social 'justice'. >Formerly the SPD was seen is this position thats the significane of the PDS >coming in second. I wonder how much Johannes would say the PDS is doing more than skirmishing with the SPD for ...

Document Size:	5309
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Mon Sep 13 15:44:26 PDT 1999

612 PDS second in Thuringia -- rank: 1000

The PDS rose to second place in the Land election in Thuringia (former East Germany) yesterday. The SPD was down 11% to 18.5%, and the CDU was up 8.4% to 51%. It can now rule without having to be in coalition with the SPD. The PDS up 4.8% is now second at 21.4%. I hope Johannes will comment on the results. I wonder if the experience of being jointly in opposition will make SPD members more open to alliance with the PDS and shift the left wing of social democracy a little more. This would be unin ...

Document Size:	6578
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Mon Sep 13 00:50:08 PDT 1999

613 East Timor and Kosovo -- rank: 1000

At 14:10 06/09/99 -0400, WDK wrote: >I'll bet neither the U.S. nor the U.K. government will lift a >finger over the Indonesian government's continuing slaughter in East >Timor. > >Yours WDK - WKiernan at concentric.net How could WDK put his name to a prediction that could turn out so wrong? I accept I do not know him well. And we can all get things wrong. But I have to wonder whether WDK comes from the large school of leftists for whom the fact of criticising one's government is m ...

Document Size:	5158
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Sun Sep 12 16:38:34 PDT 1999

614 SACP against neo-liberalism -- rank: 1000

There is a Business Day article that focusses interest on the SACP accepting a measure of privatization in terms of partnerships between government and the private sector. However the thrust of the position of SACP general secretary Blade Nzimande is against privatisation and neo-liberalism, as this article shows: Chris Burford London ______________ Article Written by: Dr. Blade Nzimande on Privatisation One of the most intense ideological onslaughts in the current period is that privatisation ...

Document Size:	10645
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Sun Sep 12 05:33:46 PDT 1999

615 Genocide -- rank: 1000

There was some argument at the height of the Kosovo war about whether what was happening to the Albanian majority, was genocide. People took up positions for and against the use of this term partly in accordance with their perception of the politics behind the war. Some argued that it was too strong. Now in the case of East Timor, where the politics are different, can we all agree that what has happened and is happening, fits the working definition of genocide, which includes partial genocide? O ...

Document Size:	5313
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Sat Sep 11 00:58:07 PDT 1999