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1051 [lbo-talk] Liza Featherstone on the anti-vaccination crowd -- rank: 1000

Yes, very good piece. Can I recommend Michael Fitzpatrick on MMR and Autism, Routledge, 2004 http://www.amazon.co.uk/MMR-Autism-Michael-Fitzpatrick/dp/0415321794

Document Size:	4905
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Tue Mar 27 05:38:08 PDT 2007

1052 [lbo-talk] Left wing loathing for the working class -- rank: 1000

John Thornton says I do not understand Marx's argument about wants being generated socially. I beg to differ. What Marx is saying in the Grundrisse about wants is most definitely not, what John says 'objecting to the capitalist imperative to consume'. On the contrary, Marx thinks this is one of the positive sides of Capital, 'the great civilizing influence of capital' its tendency to develop the individual as a cultured being. John writes that under capitalism the 'desires' of the masses are 'ma ...

Document Size:	7127
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Mon Mar 26 06:45:22 PDT 2007

1053 [lbo-talk] Left wing loathing for the working class -- rank: 1000

John Thornton : "Privilege may mean this to you but I doubt it means this to most USer's. Privilege mean inequality, not just in income but access to education, healthcare, and even some measure of financial security." Well, yes, sure, people use these words loosely, but the point is that the market creates inequality even without recourse to formal discrimination. Thornton: "James wants to focus on production rather than consumption because he believe we can consume our way to ha ...

Document Size:	7225
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sun Mar 25 11:25:25 PDT 2007

1054 [lbo-talk] Development of Political Underdevelopment -- rank: 1000

Yoshie directed us to this fascinating article on Nepal, but in this passage, I couldn't help thinking that "Birat" was a misspelling for "Borat": "The Maoist movement had driven out the usurious moneylenders, but it was only in 2002 that a people's cooperative bank was formed "to help build the base of a socialist economy," according to bank manager comrade Birat, whom we met by chance one afternoon at a roadside teashop." http://monthlyreview.org:80/mrzi ...

Document Size:	5252
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sun Mar 25 05:30:34 PDT 2007

1055 [lbo-talk] 15% of the Population, 2 Hours per Weekend -- rank: 1000

> >I don't think this is Yoshie's point, but there is another way to go > >about it, which is to terminate this ressentiment toward religion, and > >try to engage with the religious rather than writing them off. Rosa Luxemburg said that the problem with reformism wasn't that it was a different road to the same path, but that it was a different road to a different path. That's what I think about religious sentiments. Engagement might lead you towards salvation and the kingdom of ...

Document Size:	5358
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sun Mar 25 05:19:53 PDT 2007

1056 [lbo-talk] Between Actions (was Character) -- rank: 1000

JR Davies wrote: > I would suggest that left groups close down their coast offices and > move inland. To areas with no left activity or very little. Get > back to the real people... But as the poet Cavafy wrote: You said: "I'll go to another country, go to another shore, find another city better than this one. Whatever I try to do is fated to turn out wrong and my heart lies buried as though it were something dead. How long can I let my mind moulder in this place? Wherever I turn, ...

Document Size:	5925
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sun Mar 25 01:56:25 PDT 2007

1057 [lbo-talk] Apologies (was Time use studies) -- rank: 1000

James Heartfield wrote "You're breaking my fucking heart" Sorry about that, Miles, list, Doug. Drunken posting. James

Document Size:	4739
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sun Mar 25 01:45:43 PDT 2007

1058 [lbo-talk] Time use studies -- rank: 1000

Miles wrtes: "I have a hard time believing James has ever worked in the professional/managerial class if he thinks they "control their working environment". I've been serving as an interim Dean at my community college for the past term, and I have to say administrators' lives are tightly constrained by meetings, deadlines, and bureaucratic regulation. I can only imagine it's worse in for-profit organizations." You're breaking my fucking heart

Document Size:	5005
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sat Mar 24 18:01:41 PDT 2007

1059 [lbo-talk] Time Use studies -- rank: 1000

Doug: "And check out table 3 <ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/news.release/atus.txt>: leisure hours decline with educational attainment. The working class has more time on its hands than the professional-managerial class." I take that with a pinch of salt. Time Use studies groan under the weight of moaning "overworked" managers, most of whom hide away from their depressing families at work, where they can goof around in good conscience. The difference between the working class an ...

Document Size:	5479
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sat Mar 24 11:58:28 PDT 2007

1060 [lbo-talk] Left wing loathing for the working class -- rank: 1000

John writes, 'Privilege is relative' [continues below]. But this seems unsatisfactory to me. If all we can do is impose a schema of better off and worse off, where the metropolitan working class is underprivileged in comparison to the metropolitan elite, privileged in relation to the thrid world masses, then that is not a very good analytic tool. (No better, in fact than the comedy sketch Ronnie Barker, Ronnie Corbett and John Cleese did for That Was The Week That Was nearly 50 yrs ago). Pedanti ...

Document Size:	8039
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sat Mar 24 11:24:35 PDT 2007

1061 [lbo-talk] re. subprpime suburbs -- rank: 1000

Jason asks: "Anyway, so James, how about it? Ireland has enjoyed housebuilding on something like the scale that you've argued is needed in Britian. Why are prices continuing to rise here? As I said before, genuine question." I have to say, I don't understand the Irish housing market, so I am in no position to make any comparisons. Nor for that matter is it the low levels of housebuilding alone that account for the price rises in the UK. If credit were not cheap, then UK house prices wo ...

Document Size:	5423
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Fri Mar 23 15:44:23 PDT 2007

1062 [lbo-talk] elite bashing -- rank: 1000

"Well yeah. Americans grumble about this & that, but it's mostly meaningless, completely lacking any political context or consequence. Naomi Klein thinks that this has something to do with undermining the saleability of the American model of political economy, but the connection eludes me." I agree that it does not have the consequence that Klein sees in it, but the phenomenon seems worthy of note. As you suggest, grumbling out of context will not undermine elite rule. That is the ...

Document Size:	5511
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Fri Mar 23 14:37:07 PDT 2007

1063 [lbo-talk] re. subprpime suburbs -- rank: 1000

I should have known that the relatively high home ownership in the US would be transformed into proof of Americans' low incomes. (file under quaint beliefs of the LBOers: US immiseration) Doug writes: " it's interesting that the countries with the highest ownership rates are on the periphery, historically poorer countries like Ireland and Spain, and the lowest are at the core, like Germany. The state with the highest homeownership rate in the U.S. is West Virginia, which is our own internal ...

Document Size:	4995
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Fri Mar 23 14:28:28 PDT 2007

1064 [lbo-talk] elite-bashing -- rank: 1000

Doug writes: > Naomi Klein is a very smart person, but her Canadianness is showing > here. If only this were true... I think Canadianness grants more insight into US anti-elitism than you do. There is a lot of elite-bashing out there, but it is entirely reconcilable with the persistence of elites, and it is by no means exclusively American.

Document Size:	4802
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Fri Mar 23 07:26:32 PDT 2007

1065 [lbo-talk] Social revolution, North or South -- rank: 1000

Yoshie writes: " I don't understand the problem you and Doug have with my view that social revolution is unlikely to appear on the political horizon in the North any time soon. It seems to me that we all agree on that." I think you fetishise social revolution. Just because we do not live in a time of revolutionary change, it seems to me, one should not succumb to the temptation of declaring a revolution where none exists. The wish should not be father to the thought. It strikes me as ...

Document Size:	6273
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Mon Mar 19 01:17:34 PDT 2007