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841 Ocalan and the Kurds - silence -- rank: 1000

By comparison with the opposition to NATO's action in defence of a national minority oppressed by a non-NATO country, the silence about Ocalan in marxism space is deafening. This is about the oppression of a national minority in a NATO country, whose leader was kidnapped by US intervention, and is highly likely to be sentenced to death. Is is that people cannot get their heads around camaigns for partial reforms, and regard marxism as an abstract stance, a sort of style accessory, a mark of poli ...

Document Size:	5188
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Sun Jun 13 15:21:41 PDT 1999

842 Will NATO bomb in future? -- rank: 1000

At 11:46 11/06/99 -0400, Doug wrote: >Chris Burford quoted: > >>Milosevic caved in not because the air strikes were working, but because he >>realised that this bombardment became the lowest common denominator around >>which NATO countries maintained their consensus, and could therefore be >>continued indefinitely at a negligible human cost to the west. This, >>coupled with serious preparations for a ground offensive, forced Belgrade >>to accept the deal ...

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Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Sun Jun 13 01:53:03 PDT 1999

843 SAP Reform -- rank: 1000

The Jubilee 2000 Coalition has pressed hard for another round of debt relief for the poorest countries. Governments like the British Labour Government has expressed itself in favour. Since the previous Conservative Government of John Major was glad to announce its annulment of debt of countries like Mozambique, this is not revolutionary. Nor necessarily is the next intiative of the World Development Movement, a non-charitable offshoot of Oxfam. Jessica Woodruffe, their head of campaigns, states ...

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Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Fri Jun 11 15:46:36 PDT 1999

844 Will NATO bomb in future? -- rank: 1000

>From an article by Jonathan Eyal, director of studies at the Royal United Services Institute, London, published in the Guardian 5.6.99. Chris Burford London "On paper, Nato's triumph in the Balkans appears complete." <large snip to conclusion> "Yet the biggest mistake the alliance can make is to assume that Milosevic's deafeat signifies a triumph for the strategy of air strikes, and that this policy can now be deployed against any other dictator. Air strikes were launche ...

Document Size:	5560
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Fri Jun 11 00:01:03 PDT 1999

845 Comparing Lin Biao to Khrushchev -- rank: 1000

At 07:22 08/06/99 -0700, Brad DeLong wrote: >How can anyone who has ever read the preface to _Quotations from Chairman >Mao_ deny that Maoist thought is characterized by a lack of critical >capacity? How can anyone deny that Maoist thought is characterized by >mindless brainwashed utterances? > >Or is the idea to deny that there was ever such a person as Lin Biao, >closest comrade-in-arms and designated successor to Mao Zedong? This statement is really a tautology: "Mao ...

Document Size:	7861
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Tue Jun 8 14:16:37 PDT 1999

846 Mao's premature death -- rank: 1000

I am taking the liberty of changing the thread title to comment on Brad DeLong's interesting post. At 06:23 07/06/99 -0700, you wrote: >> >>I was saying that an issue like the Great Leap Forward cannot fundamentally >>be analysed only in terms of one man, however great, flawed, or wicked. The >>dynamic of China's socialisation in the 50's was one in which millions >>participated and had a momentum of its own, beyond the conscious control of >>any one individua ...

Document Size:	8476
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Mon Jun 7 14:51:00 PDT 1999

847 M-TH: Re: Marx on Timon of Athens -- rank: 1000

At 22:58 07/06/99 +1000, Rob Schaap wrote: >G'day Chris, > >In *C1* Marx refers to Timon's speech, in which money is described as the >'common whore of mankind': "Just as every qualitative difference between >commodities is extinguished in money, so money, on its side, like the >radical leveller that it is, does away with all distinctions." He then goes >on to quote, of all characters, Creon (Sophocles's Antigone) on the evil of >filthy lucre - and then gives ...

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Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Mon Jun 7 13:34:06 PDT 1999

848 Comparing Mao to Hitler -- rank: 1000

At 00:24 07/06/99 -0700, you wrote: >Chris Burford wrote: > >> I sense however the question is more fundamental than respect for Mao, >since it >> is not controversial that Mao made major errors. It is a question of >respect for >> the Chinese people. > >This is the reason I suggested the Max and Delong sophmoric ridicule of my >serious >reponse the decision making process in Chinese mass movenments racist. >They find lampooning communist rhetoric fun ...

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Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Sun Jun 6 23:17:06 PDT 1999

849 Great Leap Forward -- rank: 1000

I agree with Henry Liu's detailed analysis of the Great Leap Forward as part of a process of collective learning. I note his point that the failure of the backyard steel part of the GLF did not do such serious economic damage despite what has been made out. Concerning the mass line, much must depend on which ideas of the masses are taken by the leadership, concentrated and then taken back to them. (I wonder if focus groups are the modern opportunist and passive equivalent.) I suggest the main ou ...

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Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Sun Jun 6 15:39:01 PDT 1999

850 Comparing Mao to Hitler -- rank: 1000

At 06:11 05/06/99 -0700, Brad DeLong wrote: >*Snort* *Giggle* *Chortle*. Obviously I am not completely convinced by this argument. I register Brad DeLong cordial intellectual contempt but I am not quite sure what we are disagreeing about. I have already amended the thread title once, to remove his name. I am not sure exactly how he compared Mao to Hitler of whether Henry's claim was that this was the "thrust" of his argument on another list. Really it is better only to criticise pe ...

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Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Sun Jun 6 11:51:14 PDT 1999

851 Marx on Timon of Athens -- rank: 1000

I was surprised, looking through a second hand copy of "Some Versions of Pastoral" by William Empson (1935), to see the first chapter entitled "Proletarian Literature". This seems to flirt archly with marxist ideas. He *claims* the book examines "a form for reflecting a social background without obvious reference to it". There is only one reference to Marx. In the chapter on Gay's "Beggar's Opera" (inspiration for Brecht's "Threepenny Opera"), he ...

Document Size:	5353
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Sat Jun 5 11:01:16 PDT 1999

852 Comparing Mao to Hitler -- rank: 1000

At 12:27 03/06/99 -0700, Brad de Long wrote: >>There have been famines in Cuba and in North Korea. Famines are actually a >>normal phenomenon of history in many human societies, depending also on >>climate. >> >>Chris Burford > >Not in the twentieth century they aren't. > >Go read Amartya Sen's "Poverty and Famines : An Essay on Entitlement and >Deprivation." Then come back and talk... This appears to be still the problem of logic. There is ...

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Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Sat Jun 5 00:44:09 PDT 1999

853 Chaos in the heart, in Pollock -- rank: 1000

This is for Barkley. Abstracts from this week's Nature. Chris Burford London Multifractality in human heartbeat dynamics PLAMEN CH. IVANOV, LUÍS A. NUNES AMARAL, ARY L. GOLDBERGER, SHLOMO HAVLIN, MICHAEL G. ROSENBLUM, ZBIGNIEW R. STRUZIK & H. EUGENE STANLEY There is evidence that physiological signals under healthy conditions may have a fractal temporal structure. Here we investigate the possibility that time series generated by certain physiological control systems may be members of a speci ...

Document Size:	6318
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Fri Jun 4 15:31:22 PDT 1999

854 Not total defeat? -- rank: 1000

At 08:58 04/06/99 -0400, you wrote: >In short - western imperialists won. Period. Their victory is total: >military, economic, social and cultural. All we can do here is to turn off >the lights, go home and tell your children that once upon a time there was >a dream of a better and more just society - or get drunk if there are no >children on board. Predictable - yet fuckingly depressing. > > >wojtek It was in anticipation of this sort of reaction, that I wrote my pos ...

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Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Fri Jun 4 15:18:25 PDT 1999

855 Not total defeat. -- rank: 1000

History is written by the victors. The underlying reality is different and can be used by the defeated if they are clear-headed and determined. While I have agreed that NATO's approach, opening, and conduct of the war has been imperialist, I have differed from those who thought it possible to criticise NATO effectively without also at the same time, supporting the principle of the human rights of the Kosovo Albanians. It was predictable that by war the Serb nationalists could defeat the Kosovo A ...

Document Size:	10350
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Thu Jun 3 23:44:24 PDT 1999