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931 [lbo-talk] Straub piece -- rank: 1000

Doug: "I'd love to see Wolcott eviscerate Pug." Nice to see the generous Spirit of Christmas is suffusing the list. Joyeux Noel to all James Heartfield

Document Size:	4639
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Tue Dec 23 02:26:44 PST 2008

932 [lbo-talk] Das Kapital Vol. 1 reading guide question -- rank: 1000

"I couldn't tell whether all those coats of yards or linen were supposed to be establishing the obvious or the counterintuitive, just that it was all very soporific" Matthias wrote, which made me laugh. The opening chapter(s) of Capital Vol 1 is very odd, and weirdly mundane at the same time. Robert Wolff gives the wittiest commmentary on what he is trying to do in his little book 'Moneybags is so Lucky'. Another excellent commentary is the late Geoff Pilling's Marx's capital. The Cle ...

Document Size:	7457
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Fri Dec 19 11:17:08 PST 2008

933 [lbo-talk] Anti-union corporate front group at it again -- rank: 1000

Between Doug and Patrick, I agree with Doug about the specificity of crisis. You can't talk about a crisis that has been going on since the 1970s without making the word meaningless. There is no virtue in telling everyone that the crisis is upon us in 2002, no more than there would have been telling people in Tokyo to get into their bomb-shelters in 1937. But I agree with Patrick that reflation - if that is a fair account of Doug's position - is obviously a bollocks of an answer. At best it is a ...

Document Size:	5677
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Fri Dec 19 06:40:45 PST 2008

934 [lbo-talk] New School occupied -- rank: 1000

I hear that most of the students have already gone home for the holidays. If so, that seems like a problem. Are the students indulging in a big gesture whose grandiosity is in inverse proportion to its support. I did the same, when I was at college. We occupied the admin offices (over nursery provision) and got the occupation voted on in smaller and smaller meetings. Eventually, as the Easter Holidays came, we die-hards insisted that principle came first and that we would not back down. The rest ...

Document Size:	5236
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Fri Dec 19 02:14:03 PST 2008

935 [lbo-talk] Fucking white assholes, kiss my ass -- rank: 1000

Shane writes: "If what Chuck wrote is the notion of Plato that he got from Strauss, than Strauss certainly is worthless. " Yes, but Chuck doesn't actually have to read Strauss, he just takes his waste measurement, checks to see if he's circumcised, and looks at his skin colour - which is how you analyse someone's ideas, apparently.

Document Size:	4952
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Wed Dec 17 15:48:14 PST 2008

936 [lbo-talk] Tut tut caucasians, kiss my derriere -- rank: 1000

"Most white guys in the US don't like to be talked about as white, homophobic, racist, fear ridden little chickenshits" You don't say, Chuck? I must admit I know few people who like to be called cunts or bastards, or morons either. Weird, isn't it? Chuck writes: "I blew months and months trying to understand Strauss's writing and his views in the history of ideas, and was at a complete loss ...It's impossibly anal. It is picky to an absurdity. ...So, I got fed up trying to figure ...

Document Size:	7383
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Wed Dec 17 13:51:36 PST 2008

937 [lbo-talk] Fucking white assholes, kiss my ass -- rank: 1000

Dwayne writes: "But to just shit on it as if Grimes is a random asshole...to completely miss the point and replace it with some bizarre comparison of which group has supposedly done more for social justice (as if world history can be sensibly described or understood this way) robs both Chuck and the list of the discussion we should be having. " "Replace it with some bizarre comparison of which group has supposedly done more for social justice"? Dwayne, you should read Chuck's ...

Document Size:	7503
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Wed Dec 17 06:21:13 PST 2008

938 [lbo-talk] Michael X -- rank: 1000

Dennis Perrin: *Michael* X? Murkel X, Morpheus X, Mustafa X -- I can never tell these X men apart. Yes, Michael X. Michael De Freitas, memorialised by VS Naipual and Diana Athill,leader of the 'Black House' in Holloway Road convicted in Jamaica of killing a groupie in the 1970s.

Document Size:	4644
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Wed Dec 17 05:54:46 PST 2008

939 [lbo-talk] Fucking white assholes, kiss my ass -- rank: 1000

So, Chuck, your basic argument is white people have a chip on their shoulders? Now where have I heard that before? Still, you would have to admit that white assimilated Jews have made a greater contribution to social liberation than most. Marx, Trotsky, Luxemburg, for starters... let's face it, a substantial proportion of the leadership of the early socialist and communist movement were assimilated Jews. Are white people in general reactionary? No. the European labour movement has been in the va ...

Document Size:	6045
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Wed Dec 17 04:42:56 PST 2008

940 [lbo-talk] Progress and Cariucature (Was Re: Catholicism. . . ) -- rank: 1000

an die writes: > > Chris and Shane evidently think that science is > insulated > > from social influence, somehow , magically, being > separated > > from all other kinds of beliefs in that they are > directly > > connected with The Truth whatever the social context > or > > social interest that surrounds them. But 'influenced by' and 'reducible to' are not the same. For sure natural sciences are influenced by fleeting social exigencies, but they are not ...

Document Size:	5802
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Mon Dec 15 10:32:53 PST 2008

941 [lbo-talk] Progress and Cariucature (Was Re: Catholicism. . -- rank: 1000

an die writes "It's only irrtaional to condemn slavery from a slaveowner's POV" Well, Hegel's Master-Slave dialectic makes a good argument why even the slave-owners' point of view also has its disappointments. The master has subordinated the other to his will, thereby showing that he values honour more than mere animal existence (the surrendering slave demonstrating the opposite, that he prefers existence to honour). But the master is only honoured by .... a slave. He has esteeem in th ...

Document Size:	6654
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Mon Dec 15 10:16:34 PST 2008

942 [lbo-talk] Avalon Hill's "Class Struggle" boardgame -- rank: 1000

"Does anyone have this vintage boardgame? " no, but you might be interested in these Situationists' revival of Guy Debord's (whose name is surely some French anagram for Board Game) 'Game of War': http://www.classwargames.net/ http://www.nowpublic.com/culture/class-wargames-revises-guy-debords-game-war-london

Document Size:	5183
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Mon Dec 15 08:43:40 PST 2008

943 [lbo-talk] Progress -- rank: 1000

" There's little sense that we've got the means to do a lot better. Of course you can't recreate that optimism out of nothing, and I'm not sure that there are any circumstances under which it could be revived. " I see it differently. On the long trend human society is vastly improved. At least in the sense that Marx was talking about, the enlargement of human development. That is the real backdrop to human existence. There it seems to me that Marx's idea of progress is not an ideal, bu ...

Document Size:	5877
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sun Dec 14 16:45:44 PST 2008

944 [lbo-talk] Sark: the history of capitalism contracted into a week -- rank: 1000

On the tiny island of Sark the decision to abolish feudalism was only taken this year, when hereditary seats on the island's legislative chamber, the Chief Pleas, were augmented by an elected council. Much of the pressure for the change came from Sark's nascent capitalist class, the Barclay twins, who bought the neighbouring island of Brecqhou and built a tax-free castle there, before going on to invest in the island, in hotels and restaurants. The Barclays bank-rolled the campaign for democrati ...

Document Size:	6566
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sun Dec 14 11:00:03 PST 2008

945 [lbo-talk] Lenin's Tomb on Greenwash, Blackmail and the Green Movement's Failure to Wake Up and Smell the Capitalism -- rank: 1000

Lenin's Tomb crows: "I direct your attention to an excellent post about congestion pricing over at 'Lenin's Tomb', written by guest contributor Dave S" But it is a bit late in the day to oppose the Congestion Charge *after* it has been voted down by four fifths of Mancunians. Some of us have been opposing this attack on working class mobility since it was first introduced in London by Ken Livingstone. (see http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/2002/2002-August/020657.html) Furthermore, your cont ...

Document Size:	6443
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sat Dec 13 16:41:45 PST 2008