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841 [lbo-talk] Noam Chomsky is losing it -- rank: 1000

On Sep 28, 2011, at 12:18 PM, Alan Rudy wrote: > At the same time, I side with Doug and Reed in their analysis of the > political futility of the vast majority of institutionalized and many many > movement efforts to combat racism pure and simple. What's most confusing to > me, and I think to Ravi, is that absolutism of Reed's argument. On the one > hand, he wants to acknowledge that racism-as-prejudice still exists while > simultaneously saying that its existence is politica ...

Document Size:	5871
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Sep 28 09:52:12 PDT 2011

842 [lbo-talk] Noam Chomsky is losing it -- rank: 1000

On Sep 28, 2011, at 12:04 PM, Eric Beck wrote: > Because it's incoherent? I think Reed's argument is ultimately > idealist (for lack of a better term): He wants us to pretend that the > racial stratifications of capitalism don't exist, that they can > abstracted from a pure capitalism that can do without them. And he's > probably right. But who cares? He's assuming a phantasm, he's positing > a world that doesn't exist, while people who dispute his take are > arguing with th ...

Document Size:	7101
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Sep 28 09:47:51 PDT 2011

843 [lbo-talk] Noam Chomsky is losing it -- rank: 1000

On Sep 28, 2011, at 11:18 AM, Carrol Cox wrote: > If he has written it, then he has been spitting on the graves of Malcolm, of King, Stokely Carmichael, of the murdered Fred Hampton and Mark Clark (and other Panthers), of the recently murdered Troy Davis, and of the millions of lives that are still be snuffed out by the continuing racism at the core of u.s. culture. Jesus H Christ. I hope you feel better after this expression of righteous outrage, because it's a piece of ignorant tripe.

Document Size:	5028
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Sep 28 08:54:36 PDT 2011

844 [lbo-talk] My visit to the Wall Street occupiers -- rank: 1000

On Sep 28, 2011, at 10:56 AM, Eric Beck wrote: > When this convo first happened, I agreed with you. But this helps me > see it differently, and my response to your question here would be, > Who cares? Of course the state is going to replace its titular head > with one of its own. Do you really expect a few months of protest to > overturn 50 or 200 years (or 10,000 years, depending on how you look > at it) of (heavily armed) history? In the meantime, however, Egyptians > did ...

Document Size:	5848
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Sep 28 08:03:45 PDT 2011

845 [lbo-talk] Noam Chomsky is losing it -- rank: 1000

On Sep 28, 2011, at 10:09 AM, // ravi wrote: > For we know as a fact that racism is a term and concept that people find politically useful. Using the concept, they describe the problem with clarity, they organise under a banner, they define means to identify/measure the problem, and at times even solve it. Reed is in fact aware of this, for he acknowledges (IIRC) that antiracism was one of the pillars of the civil rights movement Exactly not. The civil rights movement was about repealing Ji ...

Document Size:	5410
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Sep 28 07:44:11 PDT 2011

846 [lbo-talk] My visit to the Wall Street occupiers -- rank: 1000

On Sep 28, 2011, at 12:46 AM, Michael Smith wrote: > I loved 'em, of course. > > http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org/2011/09/the_kids_are_all_right.html I see this in the previous entry: > Well, the obvious analogy would be 'Obama must go', wouldn't it? > Very disappointing responses, for the most part: > > Well, the obvious analogy would be 'Obama must go', wouldn't it? > To be replaced by the Joint Chiefs of Staff? > > Oh snap. That pretty much sums it up, really. T ...

Document Size:	5677
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Sep 28 04:41:43 PDT 2011

847 [lbo-talk] Noam Chomsky is losing it -- rank: 1000

On Sep 28, 2011, at 2:16 AM, 123hop at comcast.net wrote: > People of color are disporportionately jailed and punished for crimes that white people walk away from. Of course, they are also poor. But if poverty were the only variable, then there wouldn't be the disproportion. > > How do I talk about this without talking about prejudice against people of color? It's the "prejudice" problem. Having identified it, what do you do about it? Just pointing the finger and saying " ...

Document Size:	5689
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Sep 28 04:16:31 PDT 2011

848 [lbo-talk] Noam Chomsky is losing it -- rank: 1000

On Sep 27, 2011, at 6:52 PM, Joseph Catron wrote: > If a member of an ethnically privileged group Chomsky? Please. This is identitarianism in its dotage. Doug

Document Size:	4698
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Sep 27 20:38:17 PDT 2011

849 [lbo-talk] The "Anarcho-Liberal" -- rank: 1000

On Sep 27, 2011, at 3:31 PM, Bhaskar Sunkara wrote: > I tried to coin a term. > > http://www.dissentmagazine.org/atw.php?id=560 Where we read: > At a panel hosted by the Platypus Affiliated Society, Klein critiqued Milton Friedman on the peculiarly reactionary grounds that he was a Utopian ideologue, mentioning that she didn t think that there was any great need for grand projects of human freedom. This is consistent with past statements to the effect that she wasn t a utopian t ...

Document Size:	5654
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Sep 27 12:45:45 PDT 2011

850 [lbo-talk] A trader's view of the coming depression -- rank: 1000

On Sep 27, 2011, at 10:08 AM, SA wrote: > I think the problem with using the corp "financial assets" line is that it's dominated by receivables and "miscellaneous assets," neither of which is cash-like. They don't go into much detail on what misc assets are (though in the stock tables, as opposed to the balance sheet, there are a few lines of detail). Misc includes the value of FDI, but even in the stock tables there's a "misc" line. It could be derivatives, repo ...

Document Size:	5304
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Sep 27 10:36:53 PDT 2011

851 [lbo-talk] A trader's view of the coming depression -- rank: 1000

On Sep 27, 2011, at 10:06 AM, Wojtek S wrote: > Yes, but I believe that Dennis' point was about savings rather than > assets. The value of assets is speculative anyway, no? Depends. Bank deposits and money market fund holdings aren't. Bonds are to some degree, and stocks are to a major degree. But how can you measure the stock of savings without valuing them at market prices? Doug

Document Size:	5085
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Sep 27 10:34:58 PDT 2011

852 [lbo-talk] A trader's view of the coming depression -- rank: 1000

Household assets are about $72 trillion - $23 trillion tangible (mostly housing) and $49 trillion financial. Nonfinancial corps assets are around $29 trillion - $14 trillion tangible, $15 trillion financial. So HH assets are more than twice corporate - financial alone, more than 3x. Of course, conceptually, households are the ultimate holders of everything. Corps are mere legal fictions, though what a fiction they are. Doug

Document Size:	5088
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Sep 27 06:50:14 PDT 2011

853 [lbo-talk] LBO-Talk's Message to the Masses -- rank: 1000

On Sep 27, 2011, at 2:29 AM, wrobert at uci.edu wrote: > I think SA is referencing the demand nothing documents from the California > occupations, which is a fairly accurate description of them, although one > should probably substitute 'Semiotexte' with 'Society of the Spectacle', > lots of situationist obsession in that crowd. To wax Harold Bloomian, a lot of radicals are suffering from weak misreadings of Debord. The burden of that past is crushingly heavy. Doug

Document Size:	5186
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Sep 27 06:11:43 PDT 2011

854 [lbo-talk] A trader's view of the coming depression -- rank: 1000

On Sep 27, 2011, at 8:58 AM, Wojtek S wrote: > SA: "Households probably hold about 5x as much cash as corporations > currently do, the "record amounts" notwithstanding." > > [WS:] Not anymore http://www.bea.gov/iTable/iTable.cfm?ReqID=9&step=1 That link just goes to a portal page, so not sure what you're getting at. In any case, the national income accounts have nothing to do with assets or liabilities. They're pure flows, not stocks, and refer only to current ...

Document Size:	5845
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Sep 27 06:08:06 PDT 2011

855 [lbo-talk] LBO-Talk's Message to the Masses -- rank: 1000

On Sep 26, 2011, at 8:26 PM, Michael Smith wrote: > On Mon, 26 Sep 2011 19:49:04 -0400 > dndlllio at aol.com wrote: > >> " Tahrir succeeded in large part because the people of Egypt made a >> straightforward ultimatum that Mubarak must go over and over again >> until they won. Following this model, what is our equally uncomplicated >> demand?" > > Well, the obvious analogy would be 'Obama must go', wouldn't it? To be replaced by the Joint Chie ...

Document Size:	5295
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Mon Sep 26 18:02:38 PDT 2011