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30076 "post-leftism" -- rank: 1000

Chuck0 wrote: >What is the alternative? Keeping industrial society with it inequalities >chugging along with a class of enlightened socialist managers? > >How are you going to coerce people in the Global South into sending you >resources to keep your little techno-utopia going? Socialist imperialism? > >Oh yeah, I remember, the Soviet model. It's a wonderful thing that they >were able to have an industrial society with a space program and not have >ANY envrionmental ef ...

Document Size:	5692
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri Aug 16 12:01:28 PDT 2002

30077 Stiglitz on Russia -- rank: 1000

Chris Doss wrote: >Galbraith: > >Talbott was inclined to trust the economic issues to the >hard-charging Lawrence Summers, then deputy secretary at the >Treasury Department. Summers was a fierce ally of the so-called >reformers in Russia, and of the International Monetary Fund, which >of course he controlled. On one occasion, he explained to then–Prime >Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin that, as Talbott puts it, "The rules >that governed IMF lending weren't arbitrary o ...

Document Size:	5776
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri Aug 16 11:28:23 PDT 2002

30078 "post-leftism" -- rank: 1000

Chuck0 wrote: >Yes, I'm saying that any post-revo anarchistic society wouldn't have the >capacity to create new complex industrial products. Of course, this >doesn't mean that we have to stop using what already exists. > >Yes, it would also entail moving back to the land, or, at least dispersal >to smaller towns. Big cities are unsustainable, even in a capitalist >society. Nein, danke. Next Utopia, please. Doug

Document Size:	4880
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri Aug 16 09:16:37 PDT 2002

30079 CNN censored itself -- rank: 1000

<http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/News.View.aspx?ContentID=1162> CNN chief claims US media 'censored' war By Julie Tomlin Posted 15 August 2002 12:00 GMT US news organisations "censored" their coverage of the US campaign in Afghanistan in order to be in step with public opinion in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks, a CNN senior executive has claimed. Coverage of the war in Afghanistan was shaped by the level of public support that existed for US action, Rena Golden, the ...

Document Size:	7022
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri Aug 16 09:13:16 PDT 2002

30080 "post-leftism" -- rank: 1000

Gordon Fitch wrote: >JCWisc at aol.com wrote: >> >One further question. Would the scientific knowledge and technological >> >skill >> >necessary to build new computers still be there, but people would stoically >> >refuse to use them? Or would the knowledge and skill themselves disappear? > >Doug Henwood: >> Well, you might need bookstores or libraries or databases - all of >> which would require - ewwww - institutions. And to read ...

Document Size:	5490
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri Aug 16 08:54:53 PDT 2002

30081 "Wake-up call sounds for U.S. workers" -- rank: 1000

Nomiprins at aol.com wrote: >We've recently witnessed, though, how much investing practice can >impact pension funds and retirement plans, to the tune of trillions. >It should matter much more now whether investing in an Enron or a >stable slow growth utility, or frankly in bonds vs. stocks (pension >funds tend to be overweight to stocks by 60-70% even though stocks >are far more volatile, because of the prevalent mantra that 'they >will outperform in the long run' .) Enrons ...

Document Size:	6242
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri Aug 16 08:35:23 PDT 2002

30082 Stiglitz interview up -- rank: 1000

I've just posted my interview with Joseph Stiglitz, which ran on my radio show yesterday evening. Follow the link from <http://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/Radio.html>. Doug ---- August 15, 2002 DH on economic news - Fed holds fire, manufacturing sags * Joseph Stiglitz, co-winner 2001 Nobel Prize in economics; professor of economics, Columbia University; former chief economist, World Bank; author, Globalization and Its Discontents, on the U.S. economy, the effects of the stock market scand ...

Document Size:	5162
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri Aug 16 08:11:00 PDT 2002

30083 "post-leftism" -- rank: 1000

JCWisc at aol.com wrote: >One further question. Would the scientific knowledge and technological skill >necessary to build new computers still be there, but people would stoically >refuse to use them? Or would the knowledge and skill themselves disappear? Well, you might need bookstores or libraries or databases - all of which would require - ewwww - institutions. And to read them, you'd need schools - ewwwww again. But we'd all be so unalienated we'd forget to miss them! Doug

Document Size:	4960
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri Aug 16 08:16:59 PDT 2002

30084 Scowcroft on Armageddon -- rank: 1000

Wall Street Journal - August 15, 2002 Don't Attack Saddam By BRENT SCOWCROFT Our nation is presently engaged in a debate about whether to launch a war against Iraq. Leaks of various strategies for an attack on Iraq appear with regularity. The Bush administration vows regime change, but states that no decision has been made whether, much less when, to launch an invasion. It is beyond dispute that Saddam Hussein is a menace. He terrorizes and brutalizes his own people. He has launched war on two ...

Document Size:	11640
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri Aug 16 07:49:54 PDT 2002

30085 "post-leftism" -- rank: 1000

Tom Wheeler wrote: >I'd suggest reading the following for a better understanding of >primitivism. - Tom > >The Primitivist Critique of Civilization >Richard Heinberg >http://www.primitivism.com/primitivist-critique.htm At the end, Heinberg seems frightened by the implications of his own argument, and starts talking about a new form of civilization. Why not do that in the first place, instead of indulging so foolishly in his primitivist fantasy? I've long thought that anarchism ...

Document Size:	7914
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri Aug 16 07:38:36 PDT 2002

30086 "Anarchy Reigns in Social Production" re: unions -- rank: 1000

Brian O. Sheppard x349393 wrote: >No, deciding for oneself what modes of transportation would exist for >everyone else in a hypothetical society is more akin to megalomania >than elitism. That's not really what's at stake. It's more like: do the organizational principles you espouse make it impossible to sustain a complex industrial society? If you want to get more than a handful of neo-primitivist romantics to sign on to the program, you'd have to answer the question with a convincing ...

Document Size:	5244
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri Aug 16 07:25:31 PDT 2002

30087 Abstraction & Sophomoric Irony -- rank: 1000

billbartlett at dodo.com.au wrote: >Not if they live off the profits, no. But the sort of shopkeepers >I'm referring to live off the value created by their own work. They >may have no employer, but they will often have a landlord and a >financial capitalist exploiting their labour. > >It all gets back to essence. You seem to be tripping over details, >like the legal form of exploitation and lack of freedom. > >As for how they vote, that is so obviously irrelevant to t ...

Document Size:	6044
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri Aug 16 07:20:21 PDT 2002

30088 "post-leftism" -- rank: 1000

Chuck0 wrote: >We wouldn't be able to build new computers in a post-revolutionary >anarchist society. Computer production requires a highly capitalized, >global, command and control capitalist system. Same with most other complex industrial products, and since most services depend on complex industrial products, you're basically saying that a post-revo anarchist socieety would be neo-primitivist to some degree. And since cities depend on complex goods and services and supply chains, it ...

Document Size:	5139
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri Aug 16 07:13:58 PDT 2002

30089 Grubman resigns! -- rank: 1000

Carl Remick wrote: >>From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> >> >>[next: breakin' rocks in the hot sun?] >> >>Salomon's Grubman resigns >>By Shawn Langlois, CBS.MarketWatch.com > >No, I think the next step, at least, for Grubman will be *basking* >in the sun. This appears further on in that CBS MarketWatch story >you cited: > >"Grubman will receive $32.2 million in severance pay, including the >forgiveness of $19 million in ...

Document Size:	5448
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Thu Aug 15 20:14:24 PDT 2002

30090 Stiglitz on Russia -- rank: 1000

Chris Doss wrote: >Please ask him his views on Russian economic growth over the past >three years. Does he think this is a reflection of systemic >developments in the structure of the Russian economy, or is it due >largely or solely to external factors? Thanks. He said growth was to be expected after such a severe decline, and didn't seem convinced of its permanence. He was quite worried about the level of industrial concentration, which he says is inconsistent with the development o ...

Document Size:	4936
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Thu Aug 15 17:08:10 PDT 2002