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32716 No Sex Please - We're Post-Human! -- rank: 1000

No Sex, Please! We're Post-Human Jan. 22, 2000 by Slavoj Zizek, special to Britannica.com The Elementary Particles, a novel by French author Michel Houellebecq, triggered a sensational debate all around Europe following its publication in 1998. Now finally available in English, it is a story of radical desublimation if there ever was one. Bruno, a high-school teacher, is an undersexed hedonist, while Michel, his half-brother, is a brilliant but emotionally desiccated biochemist. Abandoned by th ...

Document Size:	31848
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Feb 11 13:20:11 PST 2001

32717 Lenin in Essen -- rank: 1000

Charles Brown wrote: >Doesn't most of the evidence support the notion that state-monopoly >is the data shape of capitalism in 2001 ? Why is it that the hedge >fund couldn't go bankrupt if it wasn't in a monopoly category >qualitatively different than millions of small businesses ? That the failure of a big financial institution could cause a cascade of failures leading to systemic crisis is hardly a new development. Using the word "monopoly" to describe the situtation is ju ...

Document Size:	4960
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Feb 11 12:22:18 PST 2001

32718 Fwd: UPDATE: a20 Quebec, roadshows, international news -- rank: 1000

Date: Sat, 10 Feb 2001 22:51:19 -0500 From: info at a16.org [This is an update from http://www.a16.org - info at bottom] a20: Quebec, April 20 2001 - Get ready for the next International Day of Action! http://www.a20.org ---------------------------------------- April 18-22 The global corporate elite are headed to Quebec to discuss the FTAA, the Free Trade Area of the Americas: "think NAFTA on steroids." This trade pact extends the impact of NAFTA to the rest of Central and South Amer ...

Document Size:	15211
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Feb 11 12:06:29 PST 2001

32719 Lenin in Essen -- rank: 1000

Rob Schaap wrote: >A bit unfair, I think, Doug. You gotta have categories if you're gonna >count stuff. And categories get constructed by someone, and for some >reason. Yes, of course. We've been over this territory lots of times, but I've yet to see that a Marxian reworking of the national income accounts, to take one example, has ever illuminated much of anything. Clever exercise (and everyone comes up with different numbers, no?), but that does it mean? Doug

Document Size:	4799
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Feb 10 16:28:23 PST 2001

32720 value stuff -- rank: 1000

[Attachments aren't an improvement; they bounce to me, and I have to reformat and forward them. Andrew should be able to post to the list now; he'd changed his email address from andrew_kliman at msn.com to Andrew_Kiliman at msn.com, and majordomo thinks those are different.] Date: Sat, 10 Feb 2001 17:19:26 -0600 From: "Michael McIntyre" <mmcintyr at wppost.depaul.edu> Perhaps if I forward Andrew's response as an attachment this time the = listserv will refrain from eating large ...

Document Size:	14682
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Feb 10 15:30:59 PST 2001

32721 Right-Wing Populism -- rank: 1000

Carrol B Cox wrote: >Yes. And the sky is blue when it isn't some other color >& Manhattan Island the last I knew was part of NYC. >I also believe bread frequently but not always contains >wheat flour. Do you have any other exciting new >discoveries to communicate? > >There was no error in student writing that I found >more offensive than the use of 'but' in contexts that >called for 'and.' You commit that elementary error >here. Where'd you learn to be so charmi ...

Document Size:	4947
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Feb 10 15:14:50 PST 2001

32722 Lenin in Essen -- rank: 1000

Roger Odisio wrote: >So don't look for "trends" from snapshot data, Doug. Try to understand >the underlying dynamics, which focuses on the creation of surplus value, >not reported profits, both at the firm level and in the aggregate. This >is the same point I have made to you in countless rants against your >misunderstanding of Marx's Falling Rate of Profit tendency. Thought for >the day: tendencies and dialectics, not trends. In other words, if the data don't tell ...

Document Size:	4929
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Feb 10 12:18:31 PST 2001

32723 Lenin in Essen -- rank: 1000

Roger Odisio wrote: >You're right Doug. Your're neither an economist nor marxist (oh no, >another rant). Whew. I'll sleep better tonight after hearing this diagnosis. Doug

Document Size:	4486
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Feb 10 11:58:10 PST 2001

32724 Young Germans see 'good side' to Nazis -- rank: 1000

Tom Waters wrote: >Don't the attorney general and a bunch of other US bigshots see a >good side to the Conferderates? Yes, as did Alex Cockburn in a Nation column. Doug

Document Size:	4697
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Feb 10 11:55:29 PST 2001

32725 Tariq Ali on Porto Alegre -- rank: 1000

Porto Alegre By Tariq Ali The World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, in the deep South of Brazil was more than a symbolic counter to Davos. The aim behind it was serious: to unite the Seattle generation with the Old Left and to think seriously about alternatives to neo-liberalism. It is an example from the American continent for the rest of the world. It was North American students and trades unionists who came out on the streets of Seattle against capitalism. It is the South American left that is ...

Document Size:	10436
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Feb 10 11:30:17 PST 2001

32726 Right-Wing Populism -- rank: 1000

Chip Berlet wrote: >But as you point out, a "centrist" politician using populism >is really just trying to "throw the bums out" but offering >no real change in the sysyems or structures of power, and no >real policy changes. What's the point? There's a big boneheaded tradition in American political discourse that's anti-political - that uses "political" as a synonym for partisan self-interest, the lust for personal power, at the expense of the general in ...

Document Size:	5365
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Feb 10 10:55:15 PST 2001

32727 Right-Wing Populism -- rank: 1000

Kelley wrote: >why on earth should we call something centrist? what on earth could >that possibly mean? the best shot you give, below, is that they are >against the two parties. well, that makes them *for* nothing >actually so centrism is what? nothing? > >the use of the word "centrist" is a cop out by people who are >ashamed for one reason or another to identify with this or that >policy. But that includes much, maybe most, of the American electorate. They ...

Document Size:	5222
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Feb 10 10:48:58 PST 2001

32728 Hardt & Negri: The New Federalist? -- rank: 1000

Yoshie Furuhashi wrote: >It seems to me that our contemporary anti-statist American leftists >are not into building an organization. Building a union of 45,000 >members would probably violate the American spirit of >decentralization. :) The anarchist current that has been >influential in Europe is anarcho-syndicalism (to which the CGT, the >CNT, etc. belong). Anarcho-syndicalism probably is a little too >disciplined & organized to appeal to anti-statist sentiments of ...

Document Size:	5204
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Feb 10 10:45:04 PST 2001

32729 Lenin in Essen -- rank: 1000

Brad Mayer wrote: >I believe that Kautsky projected a transnational superstate. This >certainly is not the case today, where all we have is the USA and >its dependent network. Like I said, No USA, no Empire - No Empire, >no USA. The relatively peaceful cooperation of the junior partners - the G7 less the USA - is rather different from what's gone before, no? And the fact that the US operates through multilateral institutions like the IMF and NATO is also different. The US dominates ...

Document Size:	6618
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Feb 10 10:26:18 PST 2001

32730 Lenin in Essen -- rank: 1000

John Mage wrote: >Did they include commercial banking?...investment >banking?...tv/cable/movie studios and distribution/record >companies/commercial book and magazine publishing ("media")? Or by >industrial did they mean "manufacturing"? And just how much more >concentrated could aircraft, tires, petroleum refining, soap and other >detergents, etc. get? There's an abstract of the article at <http://www.hbsp.harvard.edu/products/hbr/julaug00/R00405.html& ...

Document Size:	5066
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Feb 10 10:16:34 PST 2001