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5326 [lbo-talk] Gideon Levy: green with envy -- rank: 1000

<http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1093876.html> 13:08 18/06/2009 The unrest in Iran makes me green with envy By Gideon Levy It makes one green with envy: The scenes from Iran prove that some nations are trying to take their fate into their own hands. Some nations are not floating on the surface in sickly indifference, some are not looking around in endless complacence. And some are not following their leaders with the blindness of a herd. There are moments in the histories of certa ...

Document Size:	9374
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Thu Jun 18 11:07:18 PDT 2009

5327 [lbo-talk] paranoia -- rank: 1000

On Jun 18, 2009, at 12:57 PM, Julio Huato wrote: > I think we can take for granted that the main source of the opposition > in Iran is endogenous. But that does not exclude that the CIA and the > Mossad may be trying to exploit the situation to advance their > agendas Israel wants Ahmadinejad to stay in office. He's a perfect demon for them. Doug

Document Size:	4834
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Thu Jun 18 10:07:50 PDT 2009

5328 [lbo-talk] paranoia -- rank: 1000

On Jun 18, 2009, at 12:13 PM, Carrol Cox wrote: > Eric Beck wrote: >> >> [Chavez's persecution mania knows no bounds. Anyone else aware of >> this >> "vicious and unfounded campaign" he's speaking of? As far as I can >> tell, "the outside" has been quiet and cautious.] >> >> > Whatever ignoramus wrote this is either ignorant of U.S. history in > Latin America -- or lying. I realize you've got serious problems with reading, an ...

Document Size:	5183
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Thu Jun 18 09:22:36 PDT 2009

5329 [lbo-talk] paranoia -- rank: 1000

On Jun 18, 2009, at 11:38 AM, Eric Beck wrote: > [Chavez's persecution mania knows no bounds. Anyone else aware of this > "vicious and unfounded campaign" he's speaking of? As far as I can > tell, "the outside" has been quiet and cautious. No kidding. The demos on the streets of Tehran are entirely spontaneous. Foreign powers, even the U.S., have been mostly discreet. And official Israel loves the results! Doug

Document Size:	4829
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Thu Jun 18 09:08:07 PDT 2009

5330 [lbo-talk] Obama's sell-out of the public plan, cont'd -- rank: 1000

On Jun 17, 2009, at 2:38 PM, Max Sawicky wrote: > Tell me if I'm wrong, but the thrust of this is that centralisation of > credit permits banditry and is potentially dangerous, but it is not > quite > central to periodic breakdowns and crises under capitalism. For > that you > need Keynes & Minsky. They help a lot, for sure. It's just unfair to Marx to say that he thought money and finance were peripheral. Doug

Document Size:	5209
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Jun 17 11:46:34 PDT 2009

5331 [lbo-talk] Hamid Dabashi on Iran -- rank: 1000

On Jun 17, 2009, at 2:27 PM, Chris Doss wrote: > BTW Perestroika was not an invention of Gorbachev. It was born out > of think-tanks run under the auspices of his (much more competent) > mentor, Andropov. This is not surprising, since the KGB, which > Andropov headed, had been pushing for economic liberalization since > the early 1970s. Yea, this is an important point which analysts in the "West" rarely make. The Soviet transformation was an elite project, not a mass u ...

Document Size:	5141
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Jun 17 11:34:38 PDT 2009

5332 [lbo-talk] Obama's sell-out of the public plan, cont'd -- rank: 1000

On Jun 17, 2009, at 1:59 PM, SA wrote: > Well, although I'm not for "mere manipulations" of money, I disagree > here. A monetary policy that produces 3% unemployment instead of 7% > unemployment will definitely change productive relations and social > structure. Hence the Kaleckian argument about the politics of full > employment. Monetary policy can easily raise unemployment. But the reverse isn't always true - stimulative policies don't always lower unemployment. > ...

Document Size:	8409
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Jun 17 11:15:39 PDT 2009

5333 [lbo-talk] Hamid Dabashi on Iran -- rank: 1000

On Jun 17, 2009, at 1:53 PM, Dennis Claxton wrote: > At 05:29 AM 6/17/2009, Carrol Cox wrote: > >> That vile post was the beginning of making lbo >> intolerable for Yoshie. > > > I remember it the other way 'round. It was Yoshie posting 90 times > a day and very often forwarding long articles in their entirety that > was making lbo intolerable for everyone else. Carrol's an old-fashioned guy. He feels a chivalrous urge to protect Yoshie, shrinking violet that s ...

Document Size:	5093
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Jun 17 11:11:30 PDT 2009

5334 [lbo-talk] Once & future -- rank: 1000

On Jun 17, 2009, at 12:49 PM, C. G. Estabrook wrote: > Martin Wolf in the FT this morning summarizes work on the comparison > of the 1930s and the present: "The recession tracks the Great > Depression" > <http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b31c06a2-5a7a-11de-8c14-00144feabdc0.html>. > > "The question is whether today s unprecedented stimulus will offset > the effect of financial collapse and unprecedented accumulations of > private sector debt in the US and el ...

Document Size:	5395
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Jun 17 10:47:37 PDT 2009

5335 [lbo-talk] Obama's sell-out of the public plan, cont'd -- rank: 1000

On Jun 17, 2009, at 12:21 PM, Carrol Cox wrote: > I haven't been reading this thread, but want to... ...comment anyway.

Document Size:	4833
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Jun 17 09:27:29 PDT 2009

5336 [lbo-talk] Obama's sell-out of the public plan, cont'd -- rank: 1000

On Jun 17, 2009, at 12:13 PM, SA wrote: > BTW, the dismissal of Greenbackery is part and parcel of M&E's > general dismissal of money and finance as somehow external to "the > real inner workings" of capitalism. No. Money and finance are central to the construction of scarcity and power. Mere manipulations in the monetary realm won't change productive relations or social structures, but that doesn't mean that m & f are external. "A man carries his bond with soc ...

Document Size:	5213
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Jun 17 09:27:08 PDT 2009

5337 [lbo-talk] Hamid Dabashi on Iran -- rank: 1000

On Jun 17, 2009, at 11:52 AM, ravi wrote: > And being fundamentally liberal, they cannot deliver the goods, but > only promise that the poor's best hopes is in the "rising tide", no? > Free the Blackberry-toting, texting and twittering crowd and they > shall lift your lot ("twitter-down" replaces "trickle-down"?). So, > perhaps you can ask Dabashi (and also take a shot at an answer > here): is Ahmadinejad unable to deliver a better economy because ...

Document Size:	6673
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Jun 17 09:24:50 PDT 2009

5338 [lbo-talk] Obama's sell-out of the public plan, cont'd -- rank: 1000

On Jun 17, 2009, at 10:45 AM, SA wrote: > I wouldn't be so categorical, but I basically agree. I wish more > people on the left would see that it's structure of the US > government that's doing much of the work, not "betrayal" or the > perfidiousness of "the Democrats." Unfortunately Marx, being only > one guy, didn't have quite enough time to do a full-scale analysis > of the differential effects of alternative political institutions > under capitalism, ...

Document Size:	8133
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Jun 17 08:35:29 PDT 2009

5339 [lbo-talk] Obama's sell-out of the public plan, cont'd -- rank: 1000

On Jun 17, 2009, at 10:43 AM, Mark Rickling wrote: > On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 10:40 AM, Michael Pollak <mpollak at panix.com> > wrote: > >> >> On Wed, 17 Jun 2009, Wojtek Sokolowski wrote: >> >> The best proof of that is that no truly national social program has >> ever >>> been established in this country. Every social program that came to >>> existence involved some form of dicking around with "public-private >>> part ...

Document Size:	5752
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Jun 17 08:34:13 PDT 2009

5340 [lbo-talk] Obama's sell-out of the public plan, cont'd -- rank: 1000

On Jun 17, 2009, at 10:40 AM, Michael Pollak wrote: > On Wed, 17 Jun 2009, Wojtek Sokolowski wrote: > >> The best proof of that is that no truly national social program has >> ever been established in this country. Every social program that >> came to existence involved some form of dicking around with "public- >> private partnerships" i.e. pork and barrel for local interest >> groups, political patronage etc. > > Social security? But the New ...

Document Size:	5391
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Jun 17 08:33:49 PDT 2009