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24931 [lbo-talk] Re: dean and rebel flags -- rank: 1000

mike larkin wrote: >Oh, that I agree with. I just meant the stupidity around whether we >should be using "people of color" and such when talking among Our >Crowd. I was just at a peacenik meeting the other night where I was >scolded for saying I "owned" a cat. Shame on me! I'm with you on that stuff. I love it when PC white folks correct you when you refer to "Indians," when that's the term Indians use themselves, not "Native Americans." Doug

Document Size:	5058
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri Nov 7 13:45:06 PST 2003

24932 [lbo-talk] Re: dean and rebel flags -- rank: 1000

Kelley wrote: >but do you think he's really appealing to those folks when he says >these things? or is he still appealing just to the folks who >appreciate that analysis. I have no idea. Dean himself isn't much of a social democrat. But at least he injected the issue into the discourse and we can run with it.

Document Size:	4858
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri Nov 7 13:41:28 PST 2003

24933 [lbo-talk] Re: dean and rebel flags -- rank: 1000

mike larkin wrote: >I agree completely. This sort of stuff is just totally destructive, >a textbook example of left thought policing. When I'm in meetings >with other lefties, they spend half their time "correcting" >incorrect utterances. You say "black," they say "African American," >you say "pet owner," they say "pet guardian," you say "handicapped," >they say "physically challenged." Everybody leaves feeli ...

Document Size:	5561
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri Nov 7 11:31:46 PST 2003

24934 [lbo-talk] Re: dean and rebel flags -- rank: 1000

John Adams wrote: >What he says is, in my experience, true enough. I believe the >majority--at least two-thirds--of those who display the confederate >flag do so without racist intent. And Dean was right to talk about trying to peel them away from the Repubs with, for the lack of a better phrase, social democratic policies. But to do so requires talking more explicitly about class and its relation to race than we usually do in American politics. Doug

Document Size:	5008
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri Nov 7 11:23:00 PST 2003

24935 [lbo-talk] Re: dean and rebel flags -- rank: 1000

Joseph Wanzala wrote: >The idea that the confederate flag carries racist symbolism 'for >some and not for others' is disingenuous. It is a racist symbol >period. No kidding. I find it very hard to believe that anyone doesn't realize that black people read it as such, as do antiracist nonblack people. Especially after all those public fights about the meaning of the thing on all those state flags. But the convenient thing about it is you can pretend it's not racist - so you get to have i ...

Document Size:	5063
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri Nov 7 11:14:30 PST 2003

24936 [lbo-talk] employment -- rank: 1000

Brad DeLong wrote: >They're not "pretty good numbers". They're just not putrid numbers. >You've gotten yourself anchored to the wrong set of benchmarks... The two-month gain is the best in three years. The employment/pop ration was up 0.2 point. The unemployment rate was held up by labor force re-entrants. Diffusion indexes improved markedly. Like I said, it's still only about half the long-term average, and a third what we'd be seeing in a normal early recovery, but been down so ...

Document Size:	4926
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri Nov 7 10:59:03 PST 2003

24937 [lbo-talk] Dean runs even further in front -- rank: 1000

[from The Note <http://abcnews.go.com/sections/politics/TheNote/TheNote.html>, a daily political commentary from ABC News] So, on this Day After the SEIU/AFSCME news, when Dean's frontrunning status has hardened even more, let's review those things that we have suggested are the truths about Howard Dean, the sundae on which the labor cherries are going to be placed next week: 1. Dean will raise more money in the year before the election than anyone else seeking the Democratic nomination, a ...

Document Size:	8435
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri Nov 7 09:02:50 PST 2003

24938 [lbo-talk] Bush among college students -- rank: 1000

The AAPOR-ites are raising serious questions about the recent poll of college students reporting them to be heavy Bush supporters. Two problems: 1) the sample was drawn from a universe covering only about a quarter of all college students, so there's no guarantee the sample was representative, and 2) 46% of respondents were first-year students, and since the poll was done in October, they'd been in college for no more than six weeks. That doesn't necessarily mean the findings are wrong, but ther ...

Document Size:	5024
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri Nov 7 08:59:31 PST 2003

24939 [lbo-talk] RE: Democratic Communism -- rank: 1000

Shane Mage wrote: >>Thomas writes: >> >>"I started to post a long response to this but have >>spared you :) I would like to hear what others think >>about the above observation."....[that democratic communism is not possible] > >But this is the most elementary Marxism (as to be found >in "State and Revolution"). Does Lenin get the last word on what Marxism is? Doug

Document Size:	4994
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri Nov 7 08:55:04 PST 2003

24940 [lbo-talk] Re: dean and rebel flags -- rank: 1000

frank scott wrote: >liberals, and some others, who need oxygen over this "shocker" should >understand that many working class folks who sport rebel flags on trucks >or t-shirts , do so to indicate that they are, ahem, individuals, free, >not to be pushed around, oakland raider fans, etc., and have nothing - >absolutely nothing - to do with racism, since the people who sport them >aren't as sophisticated as liberals and may not know about symbolism >that is, really, ...

Document Size:	5246
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri Nov 7 08:41:52 PST 2003

24941 [lbo-talk] U.S. frees Taliban dude -- rank: 1000

<http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5160.htm> U.S. frees Taliban leader to join Karzai By Shaun Waterman and Anwar Iqbal United Press International Published 11/5/2003: (UPI) The United States, in a move at odds with its publicly declared policy, has released from custody in Afghanistan the former Taliban foreign minister as part of a strategy to recruit elements of the former regime into the U.S.-backed government of President Hamid Karzai. Afghan and Pakistani officials told ...

Document Size:	9959
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri Nov 7 08:39:58 PST 2003

24942 [lbo-talk] literacy -- rank: 1000

Alexander Nekvasil wrote: >The $11 trillion of GDP is as real as $11 trillion, or a >GDP, can get. Just a significant part of it is an >anticipation of future value creation that might not >take place, or will only take place if and when a new, >and sustainable, regime of accumulation is found. You may be describing an economic model, but you're not describing GDP. The national income and product accounts (NIPAs) are records of current production and income earned in production. ...

Document Size:	5260
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri Nov 7 08:29:20 PST 2003

24943 [lbo-talk] employment -- rank: 1000

Pretty good U.S. employment report this morning - up 126,000 jobs, and September's iniitally reported gain of 57,000 was revised up to 125,000. This is about half the pace we'd see in a "normal" recovery, but it's still a lot better than the minus signs that dominated the first half of the year. Manufacturing is still shrinking, off 24,000, but private services were up 143,000. The unemployment rate fell from 6.1% to 6.0%, and it would have fallen further, had lots of people not re-ent ...

Document Size:	5133
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri Nov 7 06:42:02 PST 2003

24944 [lbo-talk] Dean: Yesterday's Real Stinker -- rank: 1000

Michael Dawson -PSU wrote: >BTW, I'm not necessarily saying all this means I won't vote for Dean. I >might. I'm just saying that we leftists shouldn't be fooled by what he >probably is. There are a lot of people who are *working* for Dean who think this way. I know a hardass Marxist who's got a Dean sticker on his car, fer Chrissake. Doug

Document Size:	4947
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Thu Nov 6 11:52:25 PST 2003

24945 [lbo-talk] Queer Eye Drinking Game -- rank: 1000

Miles Jackson wrote: >Doug, you're forgetting that we've spent all our disposable income >on Marx lunchboxes and coffee mugs. Not much left for bourgeois >accessories like nose trimmers. The CP is missing a branding opportunity - a Marx-themed beard trimmer! KM probably had a nose hair problem. Doug

Document Size:	4837
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Thu Nov 6 11:04:15 PST 2003