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1246 [lbo-talk] Ian Williams -- rank: 1000

Michael Pugliese writes " Ian Williams of ITN and Ian Williams of The Nation are different individuals, I think." I would be interested to know. The Ian Williams of ITN was one of the plaintiffs in the libel suit that bankrupted the magazine Living Marxism which I was working for at the time.

Document Size:	4834
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sat Dec 30 03:20:22 PST 2006

1247 [lbo-talk] post-Zionists -- rank: 1000

Yoshie writes: >> If I were young and Jewish, I'd like a Jewish magazine that looks >into all aspects of Jewish history and contemporary Jewish cultures and >finds inspirations for new, cool, post-Zionist ways of being Jewish. And Chuck replies >It doesn't come in magazine form, but I think this website is what you >are talking about: >http://jewschool.com/ I could add www.jewdas.org

Document Size:	4985
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Fri Dec 29 01:07:18 PST 2006

1248 [lbo-talk] AIDS, was Foucault, was Fidel -- rank: 1000

Joanna: > I never voted for quarantine, but I am taken aback by the reaction > on this list that the only motive for quarantine would be gay > bashing/oppression. I think where I disagree with Joanna is that I would assume that the government (if I was writing only for an English list I would say 'State', not 'Government', but the meaning I think is not quite right for US listers) was not to be trusted as a starting point. In the abstract there is nothing wrong with any public policy us ...

Document Size:	5832
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Thu Dec 28 15:45:39 PST 2006

1249 [lbo-talk] Foucault on AIDS, was Fidel -- rank: 1000

James Miller quotes Berkeley philosophy professor Hans Sluga warning Foucault about AIDS: 'He didn't believe it. He thought that Americans were basically puritanical and anti-sexual; and that it was all coming out in this sudden hysteria about this mysterious disease.' (345) Sluga is echoed by English professor D.A. Miller: '"Je n'y crois pas," Miller recalls the philosopher [that's Foucault] saying: "I don't believe it."' (349) ... Clinching to his point, Foucault leaned tow ...

Document Size:	5724
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Thu Dec 28 09:49:03 PST 2006

1250 [lbo-talk] Fidel -- rank: 1000

I can't get worked up about Cuba's policies on gay liberation in particular. Poverty is not the best condition for sexual liberation, and the country is blockaded. Yes, it is on the list of the failures of the regime, but not at the top. The constraints on democratic debate and accountability are much more pressing. The demand that Cuba adapt itself to the moral outlook of San Francisco when its people are hungry and impoverished seems a bit egotistical to me.

Document Size:	4842
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Wed Dec 27 09:49:12 PST 2006

1251 [lbo-talk] How to deconstruct almost anything -- rank: 1000

> > That thread lasted a few days. The pomo-all-is-text-deconstruction > > bashing thread has been going on for over ten years. There can never be enough pomo bashing in my opinion. And in the end, whose fault was it that Derrida is misunderstood, but Derrida's? Let's face it, people did used to be pomos, but now they are environmentalists, in the seventies they were all marxists, just as they were all positivists in the sixties. These intellectual fashions come and go. No doubt in ...

Document Size:	5531
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Fri Dec 22 09:51:24 PST 2006

1252 [lbo-talk] WILL PEOPLE USE PLAIN TEXT DAMMIT -- rank: 1000

I've set my send preference for plain text on Outlook Express, and this is me testing it.

Document Size:	4753
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Thu Dec 21 12:43:06 PST 2006

1253 [lbo-talk] Ticktin was right -- rank: 1000

Chris Doss points out an error in Ticktin's view that the Soviet population ever offered any political opposition to the bureaucracy. But that does not take away from the fact that Ticktin pointed out the utter depletion of the Soviet Union's economic dynamic when both the regimes apologists and its cold war critics were colluding in a massive overestimation of the quality of Soviet industrialisation, the latter uncritically reproducing the former's quantitative output figures. Only Ticktin, as ...

Document Size:	5848
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sun Dec 17 15:16:24 PST 2006

1254 [lbo-talk] faith in the US Empire -- rank: 1000

Yoshie writes: "What makes them [China etc.] invest in the USA? It seems to me that it comes down to faith in the US Empire, past and present (past faith is important, too, because of high costs of transition for countries like Japan and China that have accumulated lots of dollar reserves), and absence of an alternative." Absence of an alternative is most to the point. If China did not extend credit to the US, the US would not be able to buy back China's goods. It was the same relatio ...

Document Size:	5821
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Tue Dec 12 08:37:33 PST 2006

1255 [lbo-talk] What Lies Behind the Rash of Russian Poisonings? -- rank: 1000

No doubt it is true that Russia under Putin is no liberal democracy, but you would have to be blind not to notice that the coverage of the Litvinenko case is being used to crank up anti-Russian sentiment in the western press. Bear in mind that no evidence whatsoever has been produced linking the authorities to Litvinenko's killing, and the two men who are being investigated, Kovtun and Lugovoi are both associates of Putin's most vocal critic in the UK. But don't let the facts get in the way of a ...

Document Size:	6026
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Mon Dec 11 03:24:19 PST 2006

1256 [lbo-talk] primitive accumulation -- rank: 1000

Abu Hartal writes: "I don't see how quotes will settle this. At any rate, no one is saying that the principal source of capitalisation is primitive accumulation. But why write off as unimportant or marginal analysis of the whole public debt/private complex?" I agree that quotes won't solve anything substantial. And nor would I say that the public debt/private capital is not interesting in its own right. But I would not rush to the judgement that just because individual capitalists are ...

Document Size:	5487
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sun Dec 10 12:40:19 PST 2006

1257 [lbo-talk] primitive accumulation and taxation -- rank: 1000

Abu Hartal writes: "Marx certainly describes the system of robbery that is state debt as primitive accumulation." Does he? He does credit the state with a key role in primitive accumulation, as the institution of coercion, and indeed does indicate that state debt and taxation are a burden on the worker. However, he checks himself (and others) with the following: "The great part that the public debt and the fiscal system corresponding with it, has played in the capitalisation of we ...

Document Size:	5932
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sun Dec 10 09:26:45 PST 2006

1258 [lbo-talk] primitive argumentation -- rank: 1000

Patrick Bond writes: "James, for someone who arranged such a marvellous early 1990s retranslation and (Pluto Press) publication of Grossmann, it seems like amnesia regarding fictitious capital has set in. How come?" How does this follow from my pointing out that Marx's category primitive accumulation described the origins of capitalism and was not typical of accumulation today? If I did not mention fictitious capital, it is because we were discussing primitive accumulation, which, to s ...

Document Size:	7927
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sun Dec 10 07:23:30 PST 2006

1259 [lbo-talk] primitive accumulation -- rank: 1000

Michael Perelman writes: "If you look at Marx's work on finance, he refers to it as a form of primitive accumulation." But when I search my e-book of Marx's Capital volume three (in which he analyses finance) each and every occurence of the phrase 'primitive accumulation' is followed with the reference: "(Buch I, Kap. XXIV [English edition: Part VIII.-Ed.])" In other words, primitive accumulation belongs in the historical account of the emergence of capitalism. First referenc ...

Document Size:	5545
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sun Dec 10 00:19:29 PST 2006

1260 [lbo-talk] primitive accumulation -- rank: 1000

Bitch writes: "I'm unclear what you're saying here Jim. Which examples of primitive accumulation from Goldner did you object to? I didn't get the sense that he was talking about extraordinary theft and con tricks, but ordinary ones. " My point was that in fixating on the exotic thefts that happen at the margins, the central story of capital accumulation through the exploitation of labour is obscured. So what I object to is the following, which is just not true: "when the bloated ...

Document Size:	6136
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sat Dec 9 15:47:02 PST 2006