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1786 value -- rank: 1000

>are there any well-known (or obscure) tales of someone who spent a lot of >money to obtain something of value to them but, once they got it, they were >so afraid of losing it/having it stolen or damaged that they never used it >or displayed it? Parable of the talents -- James Heartfield

Document Size:	4558
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Thu Aug 30 13:30:31 PDT 2001

1787 reforms etc. -- rank: 1000

I must admit that exchanging mails with Patrick Bond over reform/revolution was something of a blast from the past for me. It is probably only in South Africa that you could come across a popular reformist movement. It is quite rare in Britain (and I think throughout the developed West) to confront a developed reformist position. (In fairness to Patrick, I don't think that he would agree that his position is 'reformist', but sees the struggle for reforms as a strategy for developing a revolution ...

Document Size:	15133
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Wed Aug 29 02:38:04 PDT 2001

1788 Externalities and reforms -- rank: 1000

I expressed surprise when Patrick Bond argued for a redistribution of resources within the limits set by capitalism, as a strategy for fighting poverty. I wasn't aware that he was so committed to the defence of capitalist property relations. At which point Patrick mystified me with this: >Ok, now we get into that tiresome debate about reformist or >non-reformist reforms. I guess it is to do with being in another part of the world, but the proposition that reforms are not intended to reform ...

Document Size:	6990
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Mon Aug 27 02:23:14 PDT 2001

1789 Rwanda; Tories -- rank: 1000

The WEEK ending 26 August 2001 US INTERVENTION IN RWANDA EXPOSED Documents published this week by the US National Security Archives Freedom of Information Project are purported to show that the United States blocked United Nations intervention in Rwanda in 1994, allowing the government to commit genocide against the minority Tutsi population (http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB53/press.html). The case argued by the FOIP Director William Ferroggiaro and by Samantha Power in an article in t ...

Document Size:	10775
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sun Aug 26 03:13:47 PDT 2001

1790 Externalities -- rank: 1000

In message <3B869E30.A5833004 at sprintmail.com>, Gar Lipow <lipowg at sprintmail.com> writes >Are you saying that there NO problems in which the classes may have >intesecting interests -- innoculation against disease for example which >protects members of all classes only if members of all classes receive >innoculations. But you pointed out the class conflict quite clearly >here. Elites want to save limited resources by reducing consumption in >the sense of make wo ...

Document Size:	16093
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sat Aug 25 09:25:01 PDT 2001

1791 Externalities -- rank: 1000

In message <200108231052.MAA13650 at brain.sn.apc.org>, Patrick Bond <pbond at wn.apc.org> writes >> Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2001 08:42:14 +0100 >> From: James Heartfield <Jim at heartfield.demon.co.uk> > > >Q3) >>Don't you need more dams/reactors/power stations >> to meet that demand? > >Thought you had me in an untenable contradiction, eh. > In answer to my questions >Q1) >> isn't the laudable aim of the S.E.C.C. ...

Document Size:	29027
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Fri Aug 24 01:45:14 PDT 2001

1792 Orwell -- rank: 1000

Orwell was a pretty good writer, though sometimes a bit of a fool. He was intimidated by the machine age, to the extent that he assumed the seaside postcard artist MacGill must be a vast production studio - when in fact it was just a guy, two streets down from him, with a desk and some pots of paint. Nineteen Eighty-Four's Winston Smith's working life as propagandist re- writing history was based on his own experience at the BBC, where copy was vetted by MI5. His critical insight into the disast ...

Document Size:	6412
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Fri Aug 24 01:08:58 PDT 2001

1793 Racist Comedy? -- rank: 1000

It seems like a mistake to me to presume any positive impact for comedy. Satirising those things that you disapprove of generally sounds just shrill and forced. In the 1980s 'alternative comedy' was big in the UK. Some of it was good, but lots of it was just rubbish and it is a common complaint that comics expected a congratulatory laugh amongst liberal-left audiences for reinforcing their existing beliefs. What a yawn. I seem to recall Judith Butler made a serious attempt to say that comedy, sp ...

Document Size:	7691
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Thu Aug 23 14:40:46 PDT 2001

1794 Externalities -- rank: 1000

I can't applaud Patrick Bond's and the Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee's campaign for free electricity enough. And while I am sure that pointing out the disparities between white profligacy in water use has some agitational effect, isn't the laudable aim of the S.E.C.C. to promote a great increase in consumption? Doesn't that imply increased electricity production? Don't you need more dams/reactors/power stations to meet that demand? In message <200108230538.HAA28820 at brain.sn.apc.org&g ...

Document Size:	11711
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Thu Aug 23 00:42:14 PDT 2001

1795 Free speech (was EU) -- rank: 1000

In message <20010823021014.F397 at niji.or.jp>, jean-christophe helary <helary at niji.or.jp> writes >our modern consumer whatever societies restrict citizen's deliberations' >abilitybecause they are consumption oriented systems and the system is controled >by the media and lets marginals at the margins so that everybody can testify >there is freedom of whatever you want. there is not even freedom of consumption. >how could there be freedom of speech. our societies wor ...

Document Size:	5522
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Thu Aug 23 00:33:33 PDT 2001

1796 Free speech (was EU) -- rank: 1000

In message <sb83b4d6.017 at mail.ci.detroit.mi.us>, Charles Brown <CharlesB at CNCL.ci.detroit.mi.us> writes In reply to my >Freedom of speech *is* the sine qua non for democracy; it is not a >'belief'. > > >((((((((( > >CB: No, popular sovereignty is the necessary cause of democracy. > > But popular deliberation is part and parcel of popular sovereignty, and such deliberation, were it already subject to restrictions, would be no deliberation at all. No pop ...

Document Size:	5698
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Thu Aug 23 00:31:11 PDT 2001

1797 Boycotting Nestle? -- rank: 1000

Johannes is surprisingly naive sometimes. These sorts of scare stories about the terrible fate that will befall babies who are not indulged by home-bound earth mothers are ten-a-penny. In message <01c401c12b0d$e04b8760$431e050a at fgl.atitech.com>, Johannes Schneider <Johannes.Schneider at gmx.net> writes >James Heartfield wrote: > >> >> What is true is that breast milk is marginally better for the health of >> small babies. > >From Reuters via Singapore ...

Document Size:	7851
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Wed Aug 22 09:52:02 PDT 2001

1798 Externalities -- rank: 1000

>X-From_: owner-lbo-talk at dont.panix.com Fri Aug 17 15:42:23 2001 >Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2001 12:47:13 -0700 >From: Gar Lipow <lipowg at sprintmail.com> >There is a quite strong anti-malthusian basis for environmentalism. It >is a view that we have plenty of resources to support a much larger >population than we have - but not enough to do so in a horribly wasteful >manner - and that in fact capitalism is using resources in a horribly >wasteful manner. (Waste here is ...

Document Size:	10788
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Wed Aug 22 08:07:04 PDT 2001

1799 EU -- rank: 1000

Try as I might, I cannot recognise much of Europe in Dennis's description. At best it corresponds to a European social democracy of thirty years ago (which, may it be said, was not a pro-working class political establishment, but a statist-capitalist one). Dennis seems to avoid the precipitate fall in union membership in the eighties and early nineties in Europe, its long-term decline in union density, and the political collapse of the working class left. From the US it might appear as if Europe ...

Document Size:	7097
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Wed Aug 22 00:37:36 PDT 2001

1800 Free speech (was EU) -- rank: 1000

In message <20010815213611.C383 at niji.or.jp>, jean-christophe helary <helary at niji.or.jp> writes >btw, does really _everybody_ in the us believe that f-o-s is the sine qua non >condition of 'true' democracy (maybe i am making this up ?). Freedom of speech *is* the sine qua non for democracy; it is not a 'belief'. No society that is incapable of deliberating upon its own future could in any sense be called a democracy. No society that's deliberations were restricted could pr ...

Document Size:	6701
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Wed Aug 22 00:31:35 PDT 2001