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29536 Who is a capitalist nowadays? (was Re: Negri on globo -- rank: 1000

John K. Taber wrote: >Based on purely personal, and therefore subjective experience, I >think the guy who owns a plastic plant in Tennessee, or something >similar in Houston, is more of a capitalist than the CEO of IBM. But the capital stock of the U.S. is mostly owned by the likes of IBM, and not small plastics plants in Tennessee. Does that means that the means of production aren't really under capitalist control? Doug

Document Size:	5137
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Jan 9 17:22:51 PST 2002

29537 manna for conspiracists -- rank: 1000

Hakki Alacakaptan wrote: >O'Neill was deeply in debt, his high-flying lifestyle exceeding his FBI >income. He hobnobbed with the high an mighty but apparently insisted on >picking up his own tabs, which he obviously couldn't afford. The lucrative >WTC job offer came at a time when he was getting nowhere at the FBI either >in terms of the ObL investigation or promotion-wise, for which he was passed >up. The reason he was passed up is the briefcase incident, which has all the > ...

Document Size:	5873
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Jan 9 16:14:57 PST 2002

29538 advances in science -- rank: 1000

An item from the current New Scientist: >RESULTS are now in from the survey of belly button lint (or fluff) >conducted by Australia's popular science broadcaster Dr Karl, with >support from Feedback (14 October 2000). > >Data from 4799 people revealed that 66 per cent of them have >belly-button lint (BBL). You're more likely to have BBL if you're >male, older, hairy and have an "innie" (a concave belly button as >opposed to a convex "outie"). For a det ...

Document Size:	5185
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Jan 9 16:12:56 PST 2002

29539 Visualizing Congress -- rank: 1000

Nathan Newman wrote: >If half the caucus plus one are for single-payer, that means the median >Democrat is for single-payer. Wow, that's extreeeeeemely devious. If 51% are for and 49% are against, the one who's for is hardly representative. A median isn't a good way to represent something whose value is either 0 or 1; it is a good way to represent something where there lots of different values lying between 0 and 1. Doug

Document Size:	4786
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Jan 9 15:11:57 PST 2002

29540 Visualizing Congress -- rank: 1000

Nathan Newman wrote: >And beyond the caucus, I will note that over 100 Democrats, roughly half the >caucus (ie. the median Democrat)... Uh, I'm no stat whiz, but this "roughly half the caucus" would be the half to the left of the median. That means there's half to the right, too. So your median would be in the middle, which is where you usually find the median. Doug

Document Size:	4739
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Jan 9 14:18:29 PST 2002

29541 Negri on globo -- rank: 1000

Thomas Seay wrote: >Really? Depends on which "marxists"? I haven't seen >too many of the various communist parties around the >world taking up in a big way the sort of oppresion of >housewives and students. My divorce lawyer - and this conversation is one of the advantages of having an NLG member as your attorney - told me that she spent an hour or two in a wedding chapel in Cuba some years ago. The wedding vows included a pledge that the grooms would share equally in the ...

Document Size:	5033
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Jan 9 13:45:00 PST 2002

29542 Capitalist class is a tiny elite; workers owning stock, so what ? -- rank: 1000

Charles Brown wrote: >Doug: >Almost no one has a controlling interest in a large corporation of >any consequence. > >%%%%% > >CB: "Almost" being a key word. It is not "no one" who has >controlling interest, so it is someone who has a controlling >interest ( Justin and Ian will check that logic). Let me rephrase that - there's almost no corporation of any consequence in which identifiable individuals have a controlling interest. >The capitalist cl ...

Document Size:	7659
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Jan 9 13:39:45 PST 2002

29543 Pat B & the decline of the west -- rank: 1000

[A reminder for those of you who might feel a Buchanan populist itch...] Pat Buchanan Predicts the 'Death of the West' By Christine Hall CNSNews.com Staff Writer January 08, 2002 (CNSNews.com) - In what's sure to be a controversial new book, former presidential candidate and television talk show host Pat Buchanan predicts Western culture will wither and die by mid-century because America and Europe are abandoning their Christian roots, having fewer children, and allowing their lands to become ov ...

Document Size:	11450
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Jan 9 11:11:54 PST 2002

29544 Query for fun & making trouble ;-> -- rank: 1000

Carrol Cox wrote: >Conspiracy theories usually seem to claim that there is only a symbolic >relationship between appearances (or empirical actuality) and essence >(or reality or cause). > >Is not psychoanalysis a conspiracy theory of human behavior? Uh, what? Psa depends on the belief that a person's life history determines in some part their temperament and behavior. It also takes seriously what people say and how they say it, as offering clues to what goes on under the surface. ...

Document Size:	5288
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Jan 9 11:05:42 PST 2002

29545 Daudet, "The Last Class" (was Respects to Joey Ramone, but...) -- rank: 1000

Carrol Cox wrote: >I really think Americans are better off if they refuse to claim a >"national" culture. We are a collection with no essence. Wow, you going all postie now, Carrol? Doug

Document Size:	4952
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Jan 9 11:02:25 PST 2002

29546 Halliday on Afg -- rank: 1000

[Michael Pugliese <debsian at pacbell.net> tried to post this to the list, but it bounced as too long (almost 30k). If you want a copy, ask Michael.] Date: Wed, 09 Jan 2002 07:21:45 -0800 From: Michael Pugliese <debsian at pacbell.net> Subject: Fred Halliday review books on Afghanistan The country that lost the cold war. THE UN-GREAT GAME The Fragmentation of Afghanistan: State Formation & Collapse in the International System by Barnett R. Rubin (Yale University Press, 378 pp., $ ...

Document Size:	6085
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Jan 9 10:44:22 PST 2002

29547 Negri on globo -- rank: 1000

Charles Brown wrote: >CB: Wouldn't controlling interest in the corp be an obvious first >approximation of this ? Seems a rather elementary question. Almost no one has a controlling interest in a large corporation of any consequence. Most Fortune 500-scale firms are owned by millions of shareholders, few with single shareholders even approaching even 5% of the total. There are some exceptions - the Ford family still has big power over Ford, the Sulzbergers over the NY Times - but not many. ...

Document Size:	5006
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Jan 9 10:28:01 PST 2002

29548 Visualizing Congress -- rank: 1000

Jim Farmelant wrote: >Isn't that the point in contention here? The fact that a rather limited >range of issues upon which there is only a limited range of disagreement >ever comes into play in our political system. I would suggest that >Charles Jannuzi is correct. Despite the statisitical polarization >between the two major parties, there is little fundamental divergence >between them in terms of worldviews. The Democrats are not >about to propose legislation for nationa ...

Document Size:	11171
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Jan 9 10:20:13 PST 2002

29549 Negri on globo -- rank: 1000

Hakki Alacakaptan wrote: >The vertiginous rise of the US Gini in the last 20 years and the parallel >rise of right-wing politicians, lobbies, and media funded by the top >bourgies like Ken Lay prompts me to think: Isn't class also about how much >political power you can buy, as opposed to work for? Yeah. It seems to me that membership in the ruling class isn't just about money - it's also about social connections, prestige, political influence, etc. Arrivistes with money capital but ...

Document Size:	5067
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Jan 9 09:43:08 PST 2002

29550 US involvement with dictaorships -- rank: 1000

Chris Doss wrote: >BTW, some of the oligarchs have actually started, perish the thought, >investing in the economy! Oleg Deripaska has been buying up the auto >industry and actually making cars instead of stripping assets! this is >virtually unprecidented. How widespread is this? Is the period of thievery and decay over, or is it just resting? Doug

Document Size:	4817
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Jan 9 06:30:25 PST 2002