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19741 [lbo-talk] Gott on Chavez -- rank: 1000

Cseniornyc at aol.com wrote: >Very good article. But Chavez is not trying to " spread >revolutionary fervor through South America." This is the thesis of >the neo-cons at the State Dept. He's trying to round up allies among his neighbors, no? Gott was purged from The Guardian for being too left. There's no way he's a neo-con. Is it just that anyone who disagrees with you is a right-winger? >Chavez, as the article points out, is hardly even a "leftist'. >Perhaps thes ...

Document Size:	6560
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Aug 28 09:30:39 PDT 2005

19742 [lbo-talk] today in history -- rank: 1000

The Pridelets Files for August 28 On this day in 1969, the North American Conference of Homophile Organizations compiles : "A RADICAL MANIFESTO : THE HOMOPHILE MOVEMENT MUST BE RADICALIZED!" l) We see the persecution of homosexuality as part of a general attempt to oppress all minorities and keep them powerless. Our fate is linked with these minorities; if the detention camps are filled tomorrow with blacks, hippies and other radicals, we will not escape that fate, all our attempts to ...

Document Size:	7217
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Aug 28 08:42:05 PDT 2005

19743 [lbo-talk] Cuba's painful transition from sugar economy -- rank: 1000

Carrol Cox wrote: >For example, it is pointless, even seriously misleading, to discuss GM >except on the premise that GM decisions are going to be made by >companies that are totally indifferent to human needs. So an argument >that GM _could_ be a useful technology is a false argument. Will GM as >used in current agribusiness be a useful technology? That is the >question, and really, the only question. If the answer is no, then for >the time being we need to oppose _any_ use ...

Document Size:	5738
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Aug 28 08:39:39 PDT 2005

19744 [lbo-talk] Cuba's painful transition from sugar economy -- rank: 1000

Marvin Gandall wrote: >Carll Remick wrote: > >>[Ah, James, you're not the only one keen to put the Third World on the >>cutting edge of technology.] >> >>Published in the July 1, 2002 issue of The Nation >> >>Globalizing Clinical Research >>Big Pharma Tries Out First World Drugs on Unsuspecting Third World >>Patients >> >---------------------------- >But I just saw James write (the part you neglected to quote): "The question ...

Document Size:	5850
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Aug 28 08:37:18 PDT 2005

19745 [lbo-talk] Cuba's painful transition from sugar economy -- rank: 1000

James Heartfield wrote: >Technology is not political, its application is. I recall a time when it was said that the old model of computing - a big mainframe at the center with lots of time-sharing terminals scattered about the periphery - was a mirror of capitalist social relations. Now the thing is lots of individual systems linked together in giant networks. Have capitalist social relations changed, or is it that it was really about technological imperatives all along? Doug

Document Size:	5190
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Aug 28 08:36:15 PDT 2005

19746 [lbo-talk] Cuba's painful transition from sugar economy -- rank: 1000

Gar Lipow wrote: >Interestingly enough Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN >supports Michael's argumentson wheat. How is that different from what I, or the USDA, said? At 6:22 PM -0400 8/27/05, Doug Henwood wrote: >According to the USDA tables at ><http://www.fas.usda.gov/psd/intro.asp?circ_id=1>, US wheat >production is just slightly above the world average - 2.90 vs 2.87 >tonnes per hectare in 2004-2005 (though note that that's up 9% from >the yield you cite ...

Document Size:	5358
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Aug 27 20:59:31 PDT 2005

19747 [lbo-talk] Cuba's painful transition from sugar economy -- rank: 1000

James Heartfield wrote: >Michael Perelman wrote a rather snooty reply, I thought. Michael Yates writes: >Dear Doug, > >I edited the section of the Review of Radical Political Economics in >which both James's and Michael's essays on agriculture appeared. >Each was written independently of the other. I don't know where >James gets the idea that Michael wrote a snooty reply. Simply not >true. > >Just to set the record straight, you can post to lbo if you want. > & ...

Document Size:	5347
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Aug 27 20:55:19 PDT 2005

19748 [lbo-talk] Corn in the USA -- rank: 1000

Yoshie Furuhashi wrote: >Moreover, "[c]orn is one of the most heavily subsidized crops in the >United States, with subsidies accounting for some 46% of farm income >in the sector" (Nadal and Wise, p. 15). A single-minded pursuit of >higher and higher yields, in the context of constant overproduction >of the crop, doesn't really make sense. US taxpayers are >subsidizing this economically senseless behavior only to destroy >subsistence farmers in Mexico and other c ...

Document Size:	5428
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Aug 27 20:53:30 PDT 2005

19749 [lbo-talk] Cuba's painful transition from sugar economy -- rank: 1000

Carrol Cox wrote: >That Cuba has been able to survive at all with the U.S. boycott, as well >as the distorted economy left behind by imperialism, is something of a >miracle. It is also strong evidence for Patrick Bond's argument that at >least a partial delinking from the world economy, at almost any cost, is >the prerequisite for building a decent society. Cuba is where it is today because there was a USSR when it "delinked" from the circuits of capital. Without cheap o ...

Document Size:	6449
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Aug 27 15:32:03 PDT 2005

19750 [lbo-talk] Cuba's painful transition from sugar economy -- rank: 1000

Michael, in your RRPE article you write: >Even for grain, yields in the United States are not >especially striking. For example, in 1998, farms in the United States >produced about 2.67 metric tons per hectare of wheat according to the >Department of Agriculture, slightly above the world average of 2.66. >Mexico produced 4.32, Belgium-Luxembourg 7.95, and the Netherlands >8.94. and >Corn yields in the United States were >just shy of 8.0 metric tons per hectare in 1988. Th ...

Document Size:	7017
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Aug 27 15:22:31 PDT 2005

19751 [lbo-talk] Gott on Chavez -- rank: 1000

Guardian (London) - August 25, 2005 Two fingers to America He's a friend of Fidel Castro, a fierce critic of the war in Iraq, and wants to spread revolutionary fervour throughout South America. Venezuela's president, Hugo Chávez, has long been a thorn in the side of the US - a fact highlighted this week when televangelist Pat Robertson called for his assassination. Richard Gott on a man at war with the White House Hugo Chávez, the president of Venezuela, is a genial fellow with a good sense of h ...

Document Size:	14420
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Aug 27 14:32:33 PDT 2005

19752 [lbo-talk] Cuba's painful transition from sugar economy -- rank: 1000

Carl Remick wrote: >I think the problem is Doug's (recent, uncharacteristic) fondness >for forced binaries. Sorry, you're supplying that, not me. Doug

Document Size:	4868
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Aug 27 14:13:12 PDT 2005

19753 [lbo-talk] Cuba's painful transition from sugar economy -- rank: 1000

Cseniornyc at aol.com wrote: >Doug Henwood writes: "I do think, however, that >there's a lot that's valuable in the technology and organization that >capitalist society has achieved. " >Yes, indeed and economic history backs it up, in general. But the >way you express it id too broad and exclusionary proposition to test. Well, yeah. But this is an e-list posting on a Saturday afternoon, not a book or even a 2000-word article. > Non- capitalist i.e. non laissez faire ...

Document Size:	5631
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Aug 27 12:42:44 PDT 2005

19754 [lbo-talk] Cuba's painful transition from sugar economy -- rank: 1000

Dwayne Monroe wrote: >This is particularly ironic when you remember Marx's rhapsodies >about capitalism as feudal world smasher in the Manifesto and >elsewhere. Yes, it's true, most lefties aren't Marxists but the old >fellow's words and ideas hang in the air like the seductive scent of >newly baked bread, influencing (if only in a distant and inaccurate >form) even if not directly tasted. > >The urge to fly from modern systems, instead of moving through them >to even ...

Document Size:	5494
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Aug 27 11:51:29 PDT 2005

19755 [lbo-talk] Cuba's painful transition from sugar economy -- rank: 1000

Dwayne Monroe wrote: >As is often the case, I see merit in both points of view as well as >problems created by taking their central ideas to logical >conclusions. I agree with this. I'm not an advocate of business as usual, in agriculture or much of anything else. I do think, however, that there's a lot that's valuable in the technology and organization that capitalist society has achieved. I see a tendency on the broad left to dismiss it all as pure delusion or pure damage, and the thi ...

Document Size:	5550
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Aug 27 09:56:39 PDT 2005