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40591 crisis & pomoismo -- rank: 1000

Thomas Kruse wrote: >>A different perspective on the crisis thread... >> >>"Postmodernism is the logic of a capitalism not embattled, but complacent >>beyond precedent. Resistance can only start by staring down this order as >>it is." >> - Perry Anderson, The Origins of Postmodernity (Verso, 1998), p. 118. > >Staring down? Funny notion of engagement. What does one do? Does one do >it alone or in groups? I can't speak for Anderson, but I t ...

Document Size:	5132
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Mon Oct 19 08:06:09 PDT 1998

40592 The End of Welfare as We Don't Know It -- rank: 1000

Max Sawicky wrote: >> . . . Note how good WW II was for profits, though they were taxed at >their highest rates ever, peaking at 55% in 1943. If taxes had been that >high in early 1998, the government would have $182 billion more revenues.> >That, plus $250b out of the Pentagon, could finance a pretty generous >public health insurance system, Max.> > >No it wouldn't. I noted in a previous post total >U.S. health care costs are over $800 billion. If >you rol ...

Document Size:	5745
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Mon Oct 19 07:55:44 PDT 1998

40593 iceberg crackup! -- rank: 1000

Massive Iceberg Breaks Off In Antarctica 12:05 a.m. Oct 16, 1998 Eastern WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An iceberg larger than the state of Delaware has broken off the Ronne Ice Shelf in Antarctica in what scientists believe may be a sign of global warming, the U.S. National Ice Center announced Thursday. The iceberg, named A-38, measures 92 miles long and 30 miles wide and covers an area of about 2,751 square miles. The Ronne Ice Shelf is the second largest in Antarctica, located in the southern Weddel ...

Document Size:	6804
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Mon Oct 19 07:31:07 PDT 1998

40594 Jameson & Becker -- rank: 1000

I found this passage from Perry Anderson's The Origins of Postmodernity very illuminating. It's clear that Fredric Jameson's idea of "economics" is a rather limited thing - that he, like many "orthodox" Marxists, shares a lot of assumptions with orthodox capitalists, particuarly the idea that The Economy is an autonomous realm subject to its own unalterable laws. The orthodox Marxists reverse the signs in the orthodox capitalists' equations, but the absolute values remain the ...

Document Size:	10411
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Mon Oct 19 07:06:22 PDT 1998

40595 GrrRl Power -- rank: 1000

Frances Bolton (PHI) wrote: >I think it's QUITE telling that you left out Scary Spice, Doug. I think >it's a sign of intellectual dishonesty. Quite clearly, it is in the person >of Scary that the subversive messages regarding gender and race are found. >By deliberately erasing her from the Spice Girls, you take their project, >which is one of challenging traditional norms of gender, and particularly >the power of female friendship, and you make it peripheral, if not >complet ...

Document Size:	5059
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Oct 18 20:12:23 PDT 1998

40596 more right-wing radio -- rank: 1000

Max Sawicky wrote: >Actually this was included as an item in an article >Summers did for the New Republic, with a title along >the lines of "ten good taxes" or somesuch. So it >wasn't exactly a secret. Oh, I see. An unsigned edit in The Nation is a political appropriation, and one by LS in Peretz' rag isn't. >That this article never >surfaced as a bludgeon against Mr. Summers during >his confirmation hearings may be testimony to his >bipartisan big-shot status. ...

Document Size:	5077
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Oct 18 19:55:37 PDT 1998

40597 crisis & pomoismo -- rank: 1000

A different perspective on the crisis thread... "Postmodernism is the logic of a capitalism not embattled, but complacent beyond precedent. Resistance can only start by staring down this order as it is." - Perry Anderson, The Origins of Postmodernity (Verso, 1998), p. 118. Is that period of complacency now ending? Will Fred Jameson have to find a new schtick? Doug

Document Size:	4773
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Oct 18 19:49:42 PDT 1998

40598 GrrRl Power -- rank: 1000

K wrote: >But, but Doug. I thought you recognized at least >*some* progressive potential in identity politics >a la Judith Butler. Oh but Judy herself destabilizes notions of identity, a la the Lesbian Phallus, but anyway, the Spice Girls don't have much to do with JB. How is their citation of the iconography of babe-hood the least be subversive? You could argue - I wouldn't, but you could - that Madonna's citations of such are destabilizing and/or subversive, but Ginger, Posh, and Bab ...

Document Size:	4811
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Oct 18 19:38:53 PDT 1998

40599 gay-bashing and class -- rank: 1000

[here's a very perverse take on the "it's class, not identity" argument] Detroit News, October 18, 1998 615 W. Lafayette,Detroit,MI,48226 (Fax 313-222-6417 ) (E-MAIL: Letters at detnews.com ) ( http://detnews.com/ ) Gay man's murder reveals class schism Laramie, Wyo., divided between the haves, have-nots By Steven K. Paulson / Associated Press LARAMIE, Wyo. -- Matthew Shepard went to high school in Switzerland. He spoke three languages and had traveled the world. He was raised in a fa ...

Document Size:	7604
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Oct 18 19:35:03 PDT 1998

40600 Fed cuts rates; crisis over? -- rank: 1000

Brad De Long wrote: >Right-wing opposition to the IMF takes a pretty cruel form in *theory*. The >blood-from-a-turnip isn't a result of shortfalls in implementation, it's >the whole *point.* > >The point of the right-wing critique of the IMF is that episodes of >speculation *should* be followed by deep depressions--and that it is >immoral to attempt to alleviate the depression that follows speculation. Some folks think that, like Jim Grant and the Austrians, but there were a ...

Document Size:	5191
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Oct 18 13:26:26 PDT 1998

40601 Fed cuts rates; crisis over? -- rank: 1000

Paul Henry Rosenberg wrote: >That's cause you're not an 8-year old girl, Doug. That's who they >represent feminist consciousness to. And since rock 'n roll bands have >represented freedom to teenage boys for going on 50 years now, who are >we to argue? Lament, perhaps, but hardly argue. That's just the point. They represent girl power as the Thatcher-sympathizing assumption of cliched babe roles scripted by others. What's feminist about that? Doug

Document Size:	4916
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Oct 18 12:34:22 PDT 1998

40602 Fed cuts rates; crisis over? -- rank: 1000

Peter Kilander wrote: >PS and even if nothing dramatic happens, Republicans want harsher terms on >IMF loans which will exacerbate things for borrowers. No kidding, it's sadomonetarism at its worst. Going from concessional rates to a premium to market rates, and shortening the repayment period from 10 years to 2 1/2, is a blood-from-a-turnip approach. Right-wing opposition to the IMF takes pretty cruel form in practice. Doug

Document Size:	4896
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Oct 18 12:12:20 PDT 1998

40603 AUT: Asian workers' struggles -- rank: 1000

[Speaking of Asian labor...] Date: 18 Oct 1998 20:23:00 +0100 From: bernhard at wildcat.rhein-neckar.de (be) To: aut-op-sy at lists.village.virginia.edu Subject: Re: AUT: Asian workers' struggles MIME-Version: 1.0 Sender: owner-aut-op-sy at lists.village.virginia.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: aut-op-sy at lists.village.virginia.edu > As we have received various requests for the text of our chronology of Asian > worker's struggles from Midnight Notes No. 12, here it is: > Fine, if there ...

Document Size:	6710
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Oct 18 12:09:57 PDT 1998

40604 Fed cuts rates; crisis over? -- rank: 1000

K wrote: >No. (Why are the cops the only ones to side with >here, anyway?) I simply agreed w/ Proyect that >you seemed reluctant to recognize the radical >potential of the strike. I mean, Doug, if you can >(in the context of our Bad Subjects arguments) >recognize that the Spice Girls and their followers >may provide a basis upon which to tease out a >feminist consciousness, then hey why not a Hyundai > strike, even one conceived as a mechanism to get >back to bu ...

Document Size:	6144
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Oct 18 12:02:28 PDT 1998

40605 The End of Welfare as We Don't Know It -- rank: 1000

John K. Taber wrote: >pms wrote: >> >> Hey Max, what about the corporate tax? During the eighties(are they really >> over?)I remember reading in one of the left rags that if the corporate tax >> burden was the same as it was in the 50's, it would wipe out TheDeficit. [...] >One source of company information that amateur stock pickers use is >Value Line, which you can find in your public library. One row of data >is the income tax rate as a percentage of profi ...

Document Size:	6893
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Oct 18 11:31:35 PDT 1998