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961 Hillary, centrist creep like her husband -- rank: 1000

At 22:37 23/12/99 -0800, you wrote: >I do not deny that the Clintons are creeps, but I suspect that the >critics are correct that they are left wing Democrats. However, rather >than stand for any of the principals that they might believe in, they >follow the gods of expediency. It would have far more respect for them >if I thought they were legitimate conservatives acting on their >ill-conceived principles. > >-- >Michael Perelman >Economics Department >Califor ...

Document Size:	6187
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Fri Dec 24 00:05:44 PST 1999

962 Zizek within the limits of mere reason -- rank: 1000

At 18:26 18/12/99 -0500, you wrote: >Ken: >>Give it up, you have no idea what Zizek (or, I suspect, Hegel) is talking >>about, and I suspect you aren't very interested in actually figuring it out. >>Bad faith and insincerity are hardly good substitutes for trying to >>understand >>something (I did mention burning bridges didn't I?). Your 'critique' is >>meaningless and pays no specific attention to any of Zizek's writings. > >Assertion after assertio ...

Document Size:	8235
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Mon Dec 20 15:03:48 PST 1999

963 Chechen crisis (from LM 127) -- rank: 1000

At 11:15 20/12/99 +0200, you wrote: > Behind the Chechen crisis by Tracey Brown What crisis? The Russian military intend to crush the Chechens. The only thing they are prepared to negotiate about is surrender. There is no crisis. > Yeltsin was >able to galvanise a degree of popular support for renewed military action >in Chechnya, following the bomb explosions earlier this year in Moscow >which he attributed to Chechen terrorists. Convenient weren't they? Why are they not co ...

Document Size:	5089
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Mon Dec 20 14:13:57 PST 1999

964 Commodity Fetishism (was Re: Grumpy lefties and VENONA) -- rank: 1000

At 17:00 17/12/99 -0500, Yoshie wrote: >>From Doug to Charles: >>>Charles: If we could get a huge fraction of the population to think >>>of capitalism as organized crime, that would be one giant step for >>>humankind toward socialist consciousness. >> >>Which project conspiracy theories actually hinder, since they imply >>that there's some virtuous norm from which the conspiracy is an >>exception - and if we could just let that norm flouri ...

Document Size:	12608
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Sat Dec 18 00:07:37 PST 1999

965 Kohl besmirches Germany's democracy -- rank: 1000

Kohl has admitted accepting 2 million Marks for CDU campaign funds between 1993 and 1998 in secret accounts. The significance of this scandal is that the purest of the bourgeois democracies, the Federal Republic of Germany, like almost all the others, now has scandals about the funding of political parties. This is one of the front lines in the battle to turn bourgeois democracy into socialist democracy. In all countries - watch the money! Chris Burford London

Document Size:	4943
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Thu Dec 16 23:16:20 PST 1999

966 Ammiano's quasi-communist leanings -- rank: 1000

At 11:26 15/12/99 -0500, you wrote: >Chris Burford wrote: > >>I gather sex is uncontroversial between the two candidates. > >Sure would be more interesting to watch than those stupid debates, though. > >Doug I didn't suggest sex between the two candidates would be uncontroversial ... I presume the result has long been official now but the issue seemed to be that Ammiano was making a play against gentrification. I wondered whether his solution was utopian, thoroughly refor ...

Document Size:	6070
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Thu Dec 16 23:03:43 PST 1999

967 Yea, let's fix it -- a skeptical note -- rank: 1000

At 14:32 16/12/99 -0800, you wrote: >Nathan, I would love to see the WTO fixed. What is fixing mean? First of >all, it would mean having a well-informed public with the power to exert >significant control. What body of government today exerts meaningful power >in a way that does not favor the large corporations? Why with the WTO be >different? How are we could get our entree? Through Clinton, Gore, >Bradley? A. Just because prominent bourgeois politicians do catch onto di ...

Document Size:	7211
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Thu Dec 16 15:42:57 PST 1999

968 IMF reform, G20 born -- rank: 1000

The Summers proposals on the IMF look entirely reactive, but the birth of the G20 looks much more important. This is a serious effort to get a new mandate for global economic governance, one that combines the power of capital with the legitimacy of population. This formula brings China into the list of stake-holders and could be of immense importance for the shaping of world economic policy. We will have to see whether the Germans are prescient in their demands for a simplification of the number ...

Document Size:	7706
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Wed Dec 15 16:15:28 PST 1999

969 Ammiano's quasi-communist leanings -- rank: 1000

Is Associated Press stooping to class analysis in the report this morning on the contest for Mayor of San Francisco? >>> Jean Markinson was still undecided Tuesday morning as she waited for a bus. ``It's tough, because I think Ammiano has his heart in the right place, but I see Brown as a more competent politician,'' she said. ``I think it's a socioeconomic issue. Most people who are well-to-do are going to vote for Brown because they're afraid of Ammiano's quasi-communist leanings.'' & ...

Document Size:	5196
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Tue Dec 14 23:10:02 PST 1999

970 Cleanser of Krajina buried -- rank: 1000

At 15:50 14/12/99 -0500, you wrote: >Chris Burford wrote: > >> he earned the cool disapproval of the west by openly cleansing >> Krajina 0f 150,000 Serbs in 1995, by his failure to cooperate with the >> Hague tribunal on war crimes, and by his authoritarian style. >> >> > This is just splendid, Chris. Presumably "the West" means something >other than the NATO countries that supervised and assisted Tudjman's >Operation Storm . And it must exc ...

Document Size:	5922
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Tue Dec 14 15:54:05 PST 1999

971 Cleanser of Krajina buried -- rank: 1000

Franjo Tudjman was buried on Monday, first head of state of Croatia, at a funeral attended by only two other heads of state. Despite receiving political encouragement from Germany and military encouragement from the US, during his battles with Serbian domination of Yugoslavia, he earned the cool disapproval of the west by openly cleansing Krajina 0f 150,000 Serbs in 1995, by his failure to cooperate with the Hague tribunal on war crimes, and by his authoritarian style. Chris Burford London

Document Size:	4936
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Tue Dec 14 12:31:35 PST 1999

972 Takeover perks bonanza in London -- rank: 1000

The arrival of the euro has intensified the pressure for the concentration of capital. Here is Will Hutton's biting comment on the bonanza that this brings to the directors of a small number of companies in the City of London. The only weakness is a certain moralism about what is an inevitable part of the capitalist process, although one which, he is right, can be regulated. (Other financial columns this week note that in Europe the pressure is now on for transnational bank mergers.) >From th ...

Document Size:	6979
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Sun Dec 12 14:29:45 PST 1999

973 London's tax privileges - Hutton -- rank: 1000

Will Hutton, editor of the Observer, and zealous critic of finance capitalism, in today's paper:- >>> If you don't believe the markets in the City are rigged, then what do you think Blair and Brown were up to, risking an impasse at the European summit? The New Labour duo were defending the tax-haven status of the City, built up over 40 years, which permeates our tax system. The arcane distinction between domicile and residence; the exemptions, allowances and expenses that can relieve ca ...

Document Size:	5811
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Sun Dec 12 08:19:18 PST 1999

974 Koch-Weser to lead the IMF? -- rank: 1000

EU Favors Koch-Weser To Lead IMF Friday December 10, 1999 8:40 pm HELSINKI, Finland (AP) - European Union members appeared to agree Friday on Germany's deputy finance minister to succeed France's Michel Camdessus as head of the International Monetary Fund. No objections were raised to the candidacy of Caio Koch-Weser at a meeting of finance ministers during an EU summit, said Austrian Finance Minister Rudolf Edlinger. What are the political economics of Caio Koch-Weser? Chris Burford London

Document Size:	5710
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Fri Dec 10 14:22:51 PST 1999

975 King Assassination conspiracy -- rank: 1000

How strong is the evidence for Pepper's claim that Lyndon Johnson himself must have approved the assassination? Dexter King appears to accept Pepper's position on all other points. Chris Burford __________________ Civil trial jury finds conspiracy in King assassination MEMPHIS, Tennessee (AP) -- A jury hearing a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s family found Wednesday that the civil rights leader was the victim of a vast murder conspiracy, not a lone assassin. The ...

Document Size:	6432
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Wed Dec 8 15:40:29 PST 1999