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12466 [lbo-talk] another piece on agriculture -- rank: 1000

On Aug 7, 2007, at 1:54 PM, John Thornton wrote: > So how much is a loaf of this bread? > How many hours does a typical working class person have to work to > buy a > weeks worth of bread? Or is this bread for the upper crust? > Isn't this more about niche marketing than anything else or am I being > overly cynical? I know this guy, since he's married to Liza's cousin. They're both very earnest people. They're not trying to service yuppies. They're sincere back to the land ty ...

Document Size:	5218
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Aug 7 11:53:34 PDT 2007

12467 [lbo-talk] Cross in memory of Stalin repression victims placed in Moscow -- rank: 1000

Speaking of Stalin, we finally got to see the Lenin Statue in Seattle. Set in the heart of the hipster Fremont neighborhood, you can almost see the air quotes around it. But it's pretty cool. According to the plaque, it's the only known statue of VI that shows him surrounded by guns and flames rather than holding a book or some such. Took some great pix of Ivan making his acquaintance. Doug

Document Size:	5263
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Aug 7 11:39:50 PDT 2007

12468 [lbo-talk] Nader, et al -- rank: 1000

On Aug 7, 2007, at 1:22 PM, Michael Smith wrote: > But... but... doesn't this rather undercut your insistence on the > difference between the two parties? You laid a lot of stress on the > fact that some, or even many, Democratic officeholders express mildly > liberal sentiments. And of course you're right, there are such. But if > the "swing" legislators were elected to be Bush-lite -- then the > liberalism of the Kennedys et al. is just decoration, isn't it? Which & ...

Document Size:	5788
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Aug 7 11:37:32 PDT 2007

12469 [lbo-talk] Nader, et al -- rank: 1000

On Aug 7, 2007, at 1:12 PM, Chuck wrote: > What a bunch of rich > liberals on a Nation cruise There were some rich people on the cruise, but there were plenty of nonrich people there too. I talked with a teacher, a carpenter, and an organic farmer. People dip into their savings to go on a Nation cruise, or ask for tickets as a gift from better off kids. There are a lot of people who really love The Nation. I'm not kidding. And you should have seen the welcome rally organized by Vetera ...

Document Size:	5031
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Aug 7 11:33:34 PDT 2007

12470 [lbo-talk] FOMC -- rank: 1000

[this is more hawkish than I expected, though I don't know what the market thinks, to whose wisdom I would, of course, have to defer - they're still more worried about inflation and low unemployment (euphemized as "the high level of resource utilization") and don't seem worried about the financial markets freaking out, regardless of what that lunatic Jim Cramer thinks] <http://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/press/monetary/2007/20070807/ default.htm> For immediate release T ...

Document Size:	6346
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Aug 7 11:28:00 PDT 2007

12471 [lbo-talk] Samuel Bowles's turn? -- rank: 1000

On Aug 7, 2007, at 1:45 PM, Auguste Blanqui wrote: > I had to blink a couple times when I saw Samuel Bowles's name in the > article praising the book. It's indeed the same Samuel Bowles. I > don't know much about what he did after the height of URPE. Does > anyone know? Did his views/assumptions change? Not as much as his former collaborator Herb Gintis. But he definitely moved into the mainstream. He's out at Santa Fe pursuing the mathematization of economics. You can take the ...

Document Size:	5305
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Aug 7 11:22:16 PDT 2007

12472 [lbo-talk] Nader, et al -- rank: 1000

On Aug 7, 2007, at 11:44 AM, Michael Smith wrote: > The fact that they never get > sanctioned for breaking from what the party supposedly advocates > suggests to me that, far from contravening the actual will of the > party, the aisle-crossers in fact *represent* the actual will of the > party Do you have any sense of political geography? A lot of the new crop of Dems elected last November came from conservative districts whose voters were fed up with Bush, but think Nancy Pelos ...

Document Size:	5359
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Aug 7 09:50:32 PDT 2007

12473 [lbo-talk] Nader, et al -- rank: 1000

On Aug 7, 2007, at 12:10 PM, Jeffrey Fisher wrote: > right. i don't disagree, at least not very significantly (a dime's > worth of > disagreement? :-), but the logic seems pretty inexorable, to me. > when was > the last time we saw a party build itself from the bottom up? the > local-state model certainly hasn;'t worked for the GP on the > national level. > they can't even get someone elected to the US congress. Part of their problem seems to be their pathological locali ...

Document Size:	6420
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Aug 7 09:47:42 PDT 2007

12474 [lbo-talk] Nader, et al -- rank: 1000

On Aug 7, 2007, at 11:10 AM, ravi wrote: > On 7 Aug, 2007, at 9:50 AM, Doug Henwood wrote: >> On Aug 7, 2007, at 9:33 AM, Carrol Cox wrote: >> >>> There has never been an attempt >>> in Congress to _raise_ the minimum wage in real dollars. >> >> Every time it's raised in nominal dollars, it's raised in real >> dollars. > > > I don't understand your response. Carrol's emphasis is on the word > "raise" not on "real" ...

Document Size:	6224
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Aug 7 08:56:05 PDT 2007

12475 [lbo-talk] Alex Balk on the bloggers' organizing committee -- rank: 1000

<http://gawker.com/news/idiots/join-the-bloggers-union-286408.php> idiots Join The Blogger's Union! What kind of good ideas are coming out of the Yearly Kos convention? Here's one! In a move that might make some people scratch their heads, a loosely formed coalition of left-leaning bloggers are trying to band together to form a labor union they hope will help them receive health insurance, conduct collective bargaining or even set professional standards. We are about as pro-union as p ...

Document Size:	6410
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Aug 7 08:21:16 PDT 2007

12476 [lbo-talk] Nader, et al -- rank: 1000

On Aug 7, 2007, at 10:33 AM, Michael Smith wrote: > The last sentence here, I think, reveals the fallacy in this argument. > It's the aisle-crossers who control the party as_an_institution_. Huh? The minority, not the leadership, control an institution? That makes no sense. Doug

Document Size:	4714
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Aug 7 08:12:28 PDT 2007

12477 [lbo-talk] Nader, et al -- rank: 1000

On Aug 7, 2007, at 10:32 AM, Jeffrey Fisher wrote: > it is dominated by foreign policy issues, esp troops on foreign soil. Like I said, on issues of empire there's little difference at all, and Dems are the ones who founded the CIA, NATO, and the Bretton Woods institutions. On issues involving civil rights, the environment, taxes and spending, and "social issues" (which I think are important and not to be derided as trivial or distractions), there is a difference. See the ACU r ...

Document Size:	5074
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Aug 7 08:11:36 PDT 2007

12478 [lbo-talk] Nader, et al -- rank: 1000

On Aug 7, 2007, at 10:26 AM, Jeffrey Fisher wrote: > but what do we make of the difference between dem behavior in the > senate and > dem behavior in the house? The Senate is a structurally reactionary body, by design. > i have to admit, what i'm really hearing in this discussion is that > it's > worth abandoning any third party and going partisan dem hardcore. > which > would really disappoint me -- and would be entirely too satisfying > to a > couple of my friends ...

Document Size:	5394
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Aug 7 08:04:32 PDT 2007

12479 [lbo-talk] Nader, et al -- rank: 1000

On Aug 7, 2007, at 9:33 AM, Carrol Cox wrote: > There has never been an attempt > in Congress to _raise_ the minimum wage in real dollars. Every time it's raised in nominal dollars, it's raised in real dollars. Perhaps you mean to restore the minwage to late 1960s levels, when it was close to $10/hr in real dollars (and close to where it would be if it were at the same ratio to the average hourly wage as it was back then - then it was around 55%, now it's 30%). Doug

Document Size:	4911
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Aug 7 06:50:35 PDT 2007

12480 [lbo-talk] Nader, et al -- rank: 1000

On Aug 7, 2007, at 12:25 AM, Michael Smith wrote: > I feel sure I must not be taking your point -- are we talking past > each other? I think the Dems suck, are abject tools of capital - and the whole notion of their "spinelessness" arises from the fact that they are tools of capital who have occasionally to sound (and even act) like they're not. But they're not identical to the Republicans. In the 50s and 60s, both parties had liberal, moderate, and conservative wings. Since ...

Document Size:	5489
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Aug 7 06:05:13 PDT 2007