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3556 [lbo-talk] the retrenchment begins -- rank: 1000

So BHO is going to call for a freeze on domestic discretionary spending. Guy gets worse all the time.

Document Size:	4599
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Mon Jan 25 18:32:06 PST 2010

3557 [lbo-talk] Americans think StimPak was a waste -- rank: 1000

On Jan 25, 2010, at 4:16 PM, Max Sawicky wrote: > I'm not sure what else they could have done. Did Obama really do all he could to promote the thing? You can't expect people to turn off Jersey Shore to visit Recovery.gov. I know I wouldn't. The focus on health care is looking like one of the great political blunders of all time. Again, I don't mean that in some grand ideological sense, as if Obama & Co. were real social dems. I mean it in terms of partisan success on their own terms. ...

Document Size:	5137
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Mon Jan 25 13:30:48 PST 2010

3558 [lbo-talk] Americans think StimPak was a waste -- rank: 1000

On Jan 25, 2010, at 3:06 PM, James Heartfield wrote: > If the government spending in the US is anything like spending in > the UK, then the subject heads under which the spending is listed > will offer little insight into how the money was actually spent. They actually disclose quite a bit at Recovery.gov. I am normally not a fan of Joe Klein, but he's right in the following: <http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2010/01/25/too-dumb-to-thrive/> Too Dumb to Thrive Posted by JOE KLEIN Mo ...

Document Size:	7399
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Mon Jan 25 12:16:57 PST 2010

3559 [lbo-talk] the Tea Partiers -- rank: 1000

Bob Morris - you still here? - likes to say that the Tea Party gang includes some leftish types. After reading this, I'm very skeptical: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/02/01/100201fa_fact_mcgrath?currentPage=all

Document Size:	4763
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Mon Jan 25 11:34:20 PST 2010

3560 [lbo-talk] Americans think StimPak was a waste -- rank: 1000

[not that they have any idea what was in it - just like Joel Kotkin!] <http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/01/25/poll.stimulus.money/index.html> Washington (CNN) -- Nearly three out of four Americans think that at least half of the money spent in the federal stimulus plan has been wasted, according to a new national poll. A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Monday morning also indicates that 63 percent of the public thinks that projects in the plan were included for purely ...

Document Size:	6974
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Mon Jan 25 11:09:14 PST 2010

3561 [lbo-talk] factchecking the small business mystique -- rank: 1000

On Jan 25, 2010, at 12:47 PM, Joseph Catron wrote: > Speaking of which, Doug, I've been meaning to ask: Can you, or > someone else, > recommend any resources those of us who don't know our economic > trivia can > use to refute such lunacy when it arises? Surely some informed > person has > composed a systemic argument against the weird fetishization of the > petit > bourgeoisie across the entire political spectrum. Actually I don't know of such a thing. I've done some ...

Document Size:	15376
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Mon Jan 25 10:36:02 PST 2010

3562 [lbo-talk] How to make the Senate a majority ruleinstitutioninoneday -- rank: 1000

On Jan 25, 2010, at 12:09 PM, Carrol Cox wrote: > Observation 1: That's true -- in fact one of the more discouraging > phrases is "Let's do something." But that's a moment in a continuity. > People have to _learn_ to think, and (in left/resistance politics) > most > will only learn the excitement of thinking as part of a process. And > here Luxemburg is crucial: unless this activity is informed by a > (SIMPLE) final goal, that thnking won't take place. I wouldn't g ...

Document Size:	6013
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Mon Jan 25 09:38:45 PST 2010

3563 [lbo-talk] a history of Massachusetts in quotations -- rank: 1000

<http://www.theawl.com/2010/01/a-short-history-of-the-commonwealth-of-massachusetts-told-in-quotations-from-some-of-its-greatest-citizens > A Short History of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Told in Quotations from Some of Its Greatest Citizens "We must consider that we shall be as a City upon a Hill, the eyes of all people are upon us; so that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken and so cause him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall b ...

Document Size:	6940
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Mon Jan 25 08:37:22 PST 2010

3564 [lbo-talk] How to make the Senate a majority rule institutioninoneday -- rank: 1000

On Jan 24, 2010, at 11:27 PM, Michael Pollak wrote: > On Sun, 24 Jan 2010, Carrol Cox wrote: > >> ideas really do flow from action, and we haven't tried to act yet. > > Carrol, I think this is the first time since Doug started this list > 10 years that I've finally understood what you've been getting all > these years. On the other hand, a lot of activism is all about action, and opposed to reflecting on it. That's the whole point of the piece that Liza, Christian, and ...

Document Size:	5550
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Jan 24 20:42:56 PST 2010

3565 [lbo-talk] corporate personhood -- rank: 1000

On Jan 24, 2010, at 4:53 PM, SA wrote: > Please tell me I've got this wrong. I'm afraid you don't. It's a legalistic, petit bourgeois illusion that doesn't seem very thought through. Not a word about increasing social control over investment or worker control over the workplace. Instead, there's an instinctive focus on the corporate form itself, as if that were the focus of evil in the modern world, to borrow a phrase from Ronald Reagan.

Document Size:	4914
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Jan 24 14:12:41 PST 2010

3566 [lbo-talk] Suburban revolt against Obama -- rank: 1000

On Jan 24, 2010, at 3:00 PM, Michael Smith wrote: > On Sun, 24 Jan 2010 19:05:42 -0000 > "James Heartfield" <Heartfield at blueyonder.co.uk> wrote: > >> But the evidence is that suburban contribution to greenhouse gas >> emissions is less than urban. >> >> www.propertyoz.com.au/library/RDC_ACF_Greenhouse-Report.pdf > > Sad, flimsy, tendentious stuff. The technique here is to compare the > GHG > implications of *all* consumption -- they ...

Document Size:	6213
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Jan 24 12:17:37 PST 2010

3567 [lbo-talk] Suburban revolt against Obama? -- rank: 1000

On Jan 24, 2010, at 2:16 PM, Michael Smith wrote: > On Sun, 24 Jan 2010 13:51:16 -0500 > Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote: > >> I know that this sort of thing fits your prejudices, but try to find >> something better argued than a hack like Kotkin. > > Who is this Kotkin, anyway? Not a familiar name. http://www.joelkotkin.com/content/004-biography

Document Size:	5150
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Jan 24 11:33:31 PST 2010

3568 [lbo-talk] Suburban revolt against Obama? -- rank: 1000

On Jan 24, 2010, at 1:12 PM, James Heartfield wrote: > http://www.newgeography.com/content/001364-the-war-against-suburbia > In addition, the president s stimulus with its $8 billion allocation > for high-speed rail and proposed giant increases in mass transit > offers little to anyone who lives outside a handful of large > metropolitan cores. Economics writer Robert Samuelson, among others, > has denounced the high-speed rail idea as a boondoggle not well- > suited to a h ...

Document Size:	7208
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Jan 24 10:51:16 PST 2010

3569 [lbo-talk] How to make the Senate a majority rule institutioninoneday -- rank: 1000

On Jan 24, 2010, at 1:29 PM, Carrol Cox wrote: > Michael Pollak wrote: >> >> On Sun, 24 Jan 2010, Carrol Cox wrote: >> >>> For a mass movement of the sort that would create the necessary >>> public >>> pressure, it is eseential (as Eric Beck recently pointed out) to >>> cast >>> your campaign in terms of a NO! >> >> Really? Only No, and never Yes? > > Yes! Note that many No's do often enforce some kind of positi ...

Document Size:	5608
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Jan 24 10:41:22 PST 2010

3570 [lbo-talk] Suburban revolt against Obama? -- rank: 1000

On Jan 24, 2010, at 1:12 PM, James Heartfield wrote: > continues at http://www.newgeography.com/content/001364-the-war-against-suburbia Where we read: > And then there are the policies that seem targeted against suburbs. > In everything from land use and transportation to green energy > policy, the Obama administration has been pushing an agenda that > seeks to move Americans out of their preferred suburban locales and > into the dense, transit-dependent locales they have esc ...

Document Size:	5324
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Jan 24 10:40:33 PST 2010