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15316 [lbo-talk] eminent domain -- rank: 1000

Nathan Newman wrote: >On the middle income side, I'm part of the gentrification of Harlem as there >is nowhere me and my wife could afford to live south of Harlem in Manhattan >or even much of nearer Brooklyn. We may be following you someday soon. You've got to do what you've got to do. But it's not about individual decisions - it's about how the city has been planned over the decades. Doug

Document Size:	4830
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Feb 26 11:06:22 PST 2006

15317 [lbo-talk] NYT on equity risk premium -- rank: 1000

joanna wrote: >It's not necessarily the case that they return more, except to >insiders. I think the statistics of who wins and who loses at stocks >are not all that impressive. A friend told me once that 90% of those >who invest in stocks lose money, but I find it hard to believe it's >that bad. That may be a twisting of the classic factoid that 80% of futures traders lose money. I don't think it's that bad. Someone who, say, buys a Vanugard S&P index fund and holds it over 3 ...

Document Size:	5518
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Feb 26 10:47:41 PST 2006

15318 [lbo-talk] Religious vs National struggles... -- rank: 1000

Jim Devine wrote: >Isn't Ariel Sharon a secular Jew? the initial Zionist philosophy >involved saying that Jews are like Italians (or whatever) and since >not all Italians are religious, not all Jews have to be. And the >original Zionism was all-Ashkenazi, non-Sephardic. The focus on >Yiddish was invented, not traditional. As Jeffrey Fischer points out, >nationalism is an artificial creation, for political purposes. In Image & Reality, Norman Finkelstein argues that Zionism ...

Document Size:	5292
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Feb 26 10:40:04 PST 2006

15319 [lbo-talk] Wikipedia: demographics and prose style (was: Socialim (was: Cheery thought... -- rank: 1000

Colin Brace wrote: >There is a lot of Bad Prose on Wikipedia. It may not be the most >critical problem with the site, but it very pervasive. Did you see >this piece? > >http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2005/10/the_amorality_o.php > >This guy was spot on, and his comments were a great embarrassment to >the Wikipedia community. He's got a more recent piece at <http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2006/02/community_and_h.php>. It's pretty damning - and tears apart that N ...

Document Size:	5881
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Feb 26 10:37:37 PST 2006

15320 [lbo-talk] the conservative mind -- rank: 1000

New York Times Book Review - February 26, 2006 The Conservative Imagination THE MAKING OF THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE MIND National Review and Its Times. By Jeffrey Hart. Illustrated. 394 pp. ISI Books. $28. IMPOSTOR How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy. By Bruce Bartlett. 310 pp. Doubleday. $26. Review by GEORGE F. WILL IN 1950, in "The Liberal Imagination," Lionel Trilling noted "the plain fact" that there were then no conservative ideas " ...

Document Size:	15882
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Feb 26 10:26:05 PST 2006

15321 [lbo-talk] Buckley throws in the towel on Iraq -- rank: 1000

Michael Pollak wrote: >I thought Buckley never saw himself as a neocon, and saw himself as >closer to the paleocons -- who, led by Buchanan and Taki at The >American Conservative, were always against this war. Buckley was always able to straddle the fault lines of American conservatism - he was able to be traditionalist & libertarian, reactionary Catholic and Market Man, all at once. It never made any sense intellectually but his charm managed to get him through. Doug

Document Size:	5125
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Feb 26 10:23:05 PST 2006

15322 [lbo-talk] eminent domain -- rank: 1000

Nathan Newman wrote: >The real problem driving gentrification is not planning in the city but the >lack of planning for the last few decades. Do you really believe that? Did you ever look at the 1987 plan, New York Ascendant? A lot of what's happened over the last 20 years is in there. Moving the CBD westward in Manhattan and eastward into the coast of Queens, gentrifying Harlem, upscaling the Brooklyn waterfront. There's been plenty of planning - just the wrong kind. Interesting footnote ...

Document Size:	5144
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Feb 26 10:11:05 PST 2006

15323 Planning and progressivism Re: [lbo-talk] eminent domain -- rank: 1000

Nathan Newman wrote: >Doug, you're talking about New York City Council which has a female gay, >pro-labor chair and quite progressive members who elected her. So what? The City Council doesn't control the process of land use and zoning and subsidies. Earth to Nathan... > Sure, the >whole planning process in NYC could be made more accountable That's a big concession. We've had a century of this shit, in which a small group of developers, financiers, and their hired professionals pl ...

Document Size:	9002
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Feb 26 10:06:10 PST 2006

15324 [lbo-talk] NYT on equity risk premium -- rank: 1000

Jim Devine wrote: >Why Do Stocks Pay So Much More Than Bonds? Ha - the Dow 36,000 guys claimed that the market was overestimating the risk of stocks, to the premium was unjustified. Now it's back again! What I never understood was why the market plays along with the risk premium. Why, if stocks are more volatile than bonds, should they return more? What is the mechanism by which the market conforms to finance theory? Are investors like little kids who say "I won't buy stocks unless they ...

Document Size:	5183
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Feb 26 09:56:41 PST 2006

15325 [lbo-talk] Buckley throws in the towel on Iraq -- rank: 1000

Marvin Gandall wrote: >Dennis Perrin writes: > >>Didn't WFB tell Lingua Franca before its demise that if he were a young >>today, he'd be a socialist, maybe even communist? There's long been a >>weird fascination with the sexy world of socialists by public members of >>the right, doubtless colored by the likes of Burnham and Chambers in their >>early ranks. Buckley's resisted this since forever, but in recent years >>he's clearly loosened up. For whateve ...

Document Size:	8693
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Feb 26 09:38:24 PST 2006

15326 [lbo-talk] eminent domain -- rank: 1000

Michael Pollak wrote: >Still Joanna's right -- despite those dastardly origins, it's magnificent. I couldn't agree more. Love it. Raymond Williams wrote somewhere - The Country & The City I think - about the contradiction of being a Marxist, who admires and even supports the onward march of capitalism for its revolutionary potential but who has to support the workers in any given struggle who are the collateral damage in that forward march. Central Park, NAFTA... Doug

Document Size:	4892
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Feb 26 09:24:53 PST 2006

15327 [lbo-talk] Buckley throws in the towel on Iraq -- rank: 1000

Jim Farmelant quoted Bill "Today I'd be a communist" Buckley: >And >the kernel here is the acknowledgment of defeat. Wow. You gotta admire the guy for the nerve & honesty. Is the right going nuts? Doug

Document Size:	4845
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Feb 25 20:20:52 PST 2006

15328 [lbo-talk] eminent domain -- rank: 1000

Carrol Cox wrote: >Doug Henwood wrote: > >> Actually CP was a real-estate scheme to take >> land off the market and raise prices. The >> working class was opposed. > >This confuses me. I got this from one of Elizabeth Blackmar's books. Doug

Document Size:	4786
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Feb 25 20:11:09 PST 2006

15329 [lbo-talk] eminent domain -- rank: 1000

joanna wrote: >I do believe that Central Park is one of the most beautiful parks >I've ever seen....but could you say more about this success? Actually CP was a real-estate scheme to take land off the market and raise prices. The working class was opposed. But I'm thinking of the elimination of industry from Manhattan and then the outer edges of Brooklyn & Queens, expand the central business district, push midtown development westward (Fitch says to valorize Rockefeller Center, which o ...

Document Size:	5417
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Feb 25 15:42:48 PST 2006

15330 [lbo-talk] Solidarity vs sectarianism -- rank: 1000

Colin Brace wrote: >The horrific attack which destroyed much of the Golden Mosque >generated sectarian outrage which led to attacks on over 50 Sunni >mosques. Many Sunni mosques in Baghdad were shot, burnt, or taken >over. Three Imams were killed, along with scores of others in >widespread violence. > >This is what was shown by western corporate media. Not true of the NYT. E.g.: <http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/25/international/middleeast/25iraq.html?pagewanted=1> >M ...

Document Size:	6812
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Feb 25 14:24:47 PST 2006