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1261 [lbo-talk] Primitive Accumulation (was another one from Goldner) -- rank: 1000

I have argued elsewhere that the contemporary discussion of primitive accumulation, such as in Michael Perelman's book* are essentially a misunderstanding of Marx's concept and the method behind it, one that Loren Goldner would appear to repeat here. My article 'Zombie Anti-imperialists...' : http://www.spiked-online.com/Articles/0000000CA6BA.htm Marx's concept of primitive accumulation (and I think it is his original coinage), is like so many of his concepts, a re-working of a category of the p ...

Document Size:	8931
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sat Dec 9 10:14:55 PST 2006

1262 [lbo-talk] LBO Spouses -- rank: 1000

Yoshie wrote: > Where are the female partners of LBO-talk men, most of whom appear to > be heterosexual? What are they doing while LBO-talk men are posting > here? Doing housework that LBO-talk men are shirking? Ha ha... good question. In my case I have to admit that I generally post to get away from the kids - but that is only because I pick them up from school. I don't talk about Mrs Heartfield's work, because the last time I did I got her into trouble. She works full-time in TV, wh ...

Document Size:	5147
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Mon Dec 4 12:18:38 PST 2006

1263 [lbo-talk] Loren Goldner query on imperialism -- rank: 1000

Reading Loren Goldner's query on imperialism I was not quite sure what the point was. I think that Lenin's theory of imperialism was important, but for different reasons than Goldner, is no longer appropriate (principally that he characterised the era of imperialism as one of transition, which ours isn't). On the substantive point, though, I think that Loren is quite as guilty as Lenin of straining the meaning of imperialism - remember Lenin linked the political fact of colonisation to an underl ...

Document Size:	7109
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sun Dec 3 12:19:37 PST 2006

1264 [lbo-talk] Litvinenko's English (Was LBO Russophiles) -- rank: 1000

Chris asks whether Alexander Litvinenko spoke english. He did. Indeed I could not have talked to him in Russian, as I have none. It was not very grammatical and he talked at length to Julia Svetlichnaja in Russian. But he had no trouble making himself understood in English. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <../attachments/20061203/c160c647/attachment.htm>

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Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sun Dec 3 09:56:21 PST 2006

1265 [lbo-talk] LBO Russophiles -- rank: 1000

My friend Julia has more insights into Litvinenko in today's Observer: "He told me shamelessly of his blackmailing plans aimed at Russian oligarchs. 'They have got enough, why not to share? I will do it officially,' he said. ... So we carried on walking, Litvinenko regaling me with more stories about his war against the Kremlin. 'Every time I publish something on the Chechen press website, I piss them off. One day they will understand who I am!' he said. Some of his emails were confidential ...

Document Size:	5385
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sun Dec 3 08:45:29 PST 2006

1266 [lbo-talk] Re: Critique of SA NGOs -- rank: 1000

Doug writes of Ashwin Desai's lecture: 'This would have been more interesting and effective if Desai had actually cited some examples and named some names.' I did clip it, but the tenor of caution is present throughout, I assume because he is describing a milieu in which he is active. I thought that it sounded pretty familiar to me, and had some echoes in particular of the Landless People's movement that achieved some prominence during the UN Conference on Racism in SA. > Vans, Autos, Kombis ...

Document Size:	7680
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Tue Aug 1 16:04:41 PDT 2006

1267 [lbo-talk] Iran's supposed torture and murder of gays -- rank: 1000

I would not want to minimise the importance of homophobic legislation in the Middle East, nor throw up some culturally relativistic smoke screen, but when these charges become a part of a western diplomatic-military offensive, the truth is bound to get a bit twisted. After all, it is not so very long ago that western accounts of the Orient invited us to distrust Arabs and Persians precisely for their supposed effeminacy. How long ago, exactly? Well just before the point that gay sex was legalise ...

Document Size:	5919
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Tue Aug 1 11:53:02 PDT 2006

1268 [lbo-talk] Critique of SA NGOs -- rank: 1000

Vans, Autos, Kombis and the Drivers of Social Movements by Ashwin Desai Harold Wolpe Memorial Lecture Centre for Civil Society International Convention Centre, Durban, Hall 1B Friday 28 July, 5:45-7pm This paper is a contribution in an on-going debate in Durban concerning the nature of left, radical politics in this city and the orientation of but the latest crop of social movements that has, since 1998, taken root here. It happens in the context of wall-to-wall (and somewhat dubious) coverage o ...

Document Size:	18797
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Tue Aug 1 06:37:34 PDT 2006

1269 [lbo-talk] London Design Festival -- rank: 1000

Can creativity save the British economy? Chancellor Gordon Brown has recruited the Design Council to help save British industry, hoping that more intelligent design can restore its fortunes. It is flattering to designers, but can the creative industries really generate innovation? A talk by James Heartfield, as part of the London Design Festival http://www.design-agenda.org.uk/Events/ Design Council 34 Bow Street London WC2E 7DL Wed 21 September 6.30pm for 7pm, until 9pm Please contact nico at d ...

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Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sun Sep 18 03:57:30 PDT 2005

1270 [lbo-talk] Murder and rape - fact or fiction? -- rank: 1000

Excellent piece by Gary Younge in today's Guardian: "Murder and rape - fact or fiction? Gary Younge in Baton Rouge Tuesday September 6, 2005 There were two babies who had their throats slit. The seven-year-old girl who was raped and murdered in the Superdome. And the corpses laid out amid the excrement in the convention centre. In a week filled with dreadful scenes of desperation and anger from New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina some stories stood out. But as time goes on many remain u ...

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Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Tue Sep 6 04:26:49 PDT 2005

1271 [lbo-talk] New Orleans -- rank: 1000

The WEEK ending 4 September 2005 GLOATING OVER NEW ORLEANS 'Third World America,' declared the headline in the Daily Mail. 'Law and order is gone, gunmen roam at will, raping and looting, and as people die of heat and thirst, bodies lie rotting in the street.' According to the Observer 'urban American society revealed its fragility, its vast inequalities, its racial fault lines and its ready propensity to violence'. Le Devoir reported that Cuba had promised aid. Official response to the hurrican ...

Document Size:	7270
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Mon Sep 5 04:37:11 PDT 2005

1272 [lbo-talk] Visiting New York -- rank: 1000

I am off to New York today, speaking on the European Union tomorrow at an academic conference 'Sovereignty in the 21st Century' at the Kellogg Center, International Affairs Building, 15th Floor, Columbia University. http://www.said-workshop.org/columbiaprogram.php any LBOers who fancy it will be welcome I am sure. I'll be in NY till Sunday, staying at the Union Theological Seminary (3041 Broadway at 121st Street, New York, NY 10027). James Heartfield

Document Size:	5007
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Tue Nov 29 22:50:48 PST 2005

1273 [lbo-talk] SSRIs -- rank: 1000

I can agree that brain chemistry and firing neurons are the physical substrate of thought, the stuff of which it is made, at one level. But then I could say, too, that the painting on the roof od the Sistine Chapel is made of pigments, vegetable dyes and crushed minerals etc. (so to speak). That would not address those other things that the painting is made of: representations, symbols, allegories, techniques of colour and shading and so on. The mind is made of neurons and hormones etc, but it i ...

Document Size:	6513
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Mon Nov 21 10:03:08 PST 2005

1274 [lbo-talk] Marko v LM -- rank: 1000

Marko wrote >> Living Marxism never condemned >> Milosevic's crimes Which seems like a pretty definitive statement to me. 'Never', as in not ever, not once. Then, when I post up examples of LM doing exactly that, Marko says "Talk about selective quotation !" But you weren't the editor of LM. It is not up to you to decide what relative weight it gave to denunciations of Milosevic and denunciations of Nato. There's no point shifting the goalposts now, and raising a different ...

Document Size:	4967
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sun Nov 20 00:49:37 PST 2005

1275 [lbo-talk] Marko vs Living Marxism -- rank: 1000

Marko writes > Living Marxism never condemned > Milosevic's crimes But as usual, he is wrong. 'Milosevic is certainly a brutal, self-serving politician and the Serbian forces have certainly been responsible for many civilian deaths in Bosnia.' Living Marxism July 1992 'President Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia, who has been singled out as the target of Blair's progressive war, certainly has a grim record of repressing the ethnic Albanian minority within Serbia.' Editorial, May 1999 Smear, ...

Document Size:	5072
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sat Nov 19 14:43:38 PST 2005