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946 [lbo-talk] Catholicism... -- rank: 1000

andie might believe in positive rights, but I don't. He wrote: "We believe in positive rights, that people do have a right to what they need to survive; that it is just as unacceptable to allow people to starve because they cannot afford food or die of illness because they cannot afford health insurance as it is to just walk up and shoot them. A case could be made that committment to this idea defines what is to be on the left." The idea of 'positive rights' defines one strand of the l ...

Document Size:	7109
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sat Dec 13 05:39:09 PST 2008

947 [lbo-talk] Obama's very own surge.... -- rank: 1000

"it was the Soviet, anti-imperialist army defending a revolutionary government against terrorist gangs of counter-revolutionaries" Ha ha. The soviet anti-imperialist army? The same soviets who handed the German communists over to the Nazis under the non-aggression pact? Babrak Karmal a revolutionary? Palace-coup maker, wholly devoid of popular support, more like. You can oppose the CIA funding of mujahideen reactionaries without telling fairy-stories about the the other side.

Document Size:	5028
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sat Dec 6 13:50:10 PST 2008

948 [lbo-talk] The right to own bloody great weapons -- rank: 1000

"along with the abolition of speed limits, traffic lights and signs. Imagine living in that world!" Sounds good to me. Dutch traffic controllers have already shown that removing traffic lights and signs reduces the number of accidents. Arming the workers used to be a Marxist demand (cf. Karl Liebknicht's War and Anti-War) As for nuclear weapons, only capitalist governments have ever used them in anger.

Document Size:	5056
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sat Dec 6 13:50:05 PST 2008

949 [lbo-talk] anti-semitism in eastern Europe and Russia -- rank: 1000

Well, I never expected that a discussion of anti-Semitism in East Europe would pull me down these wierd routes, but here we go with Sebastian, who started off condemning the backward prejudices of the east, but very quickly descended into a great mea culpa about his complicity with Stalinism: "Without identifying with the old leadership in the east - and I did not, but in contrary was active in leftist opposition before the end of east germany - I have to accept, that they were coming out o ...

Document Size:	7909
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Wed Aug 6 15:51:03 PDT 2008

950 [lbo-talk] critique of Bruno Latour -- rank: 1000

Dear Lobsters, does anyone out there know of any interesting criticisms of Bruno Latour, especially his idea of the "agency of things". (I am tempted to say that this exemplifies the "fetishism of commodities", though I believe he has already anticipated that line of disagreement.) edification? sources? cheers James

Document Size:	4873
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Wed Aug 6 08:09:05 PDT 2008

951 [lbo-talk] Anti Semitism in East Europe and Russia -- rank: 1000

I wonder if this last paragraph of Sebastian's does not explain the differences between us: "For me the story of post-second-world-war antisemitism inm eastern europe is not a story about "the others" - it is the story about some of the crimes and mistakes commited sometimes by full hearted and minded communists - Gomulka in 1968! - commited in the name of communism. That's why it is a story dealing with me too. Like the defeat of the german labor movement in 1933 and the complet ...

Document Size:	6102
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Wed Aug 6 07:53:00 PDT 2008

952 [lbo-talk] Anti Semitism in East Europe and Russia -- rank: 1000

Sebastian asks, rhetorically, I guess, whether it is acceptable to talk about anti-Semitism in East Europe on the occasion of Alexander Solzhenitsyn's death. Yes, indeed it is. Both Chris and I are talking about anti-Semitism in eastern Europe and Russia, and about how influential it is. I think Chris's point was that there were people who hold those views, but that other antagonisms such as the conflict with Chechnya were more important to the state. I think I agree with him. I come across casu ...

Document Size:	7589
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Wed Aug 6 01:21:28 PDT 2008

953 [lbo-talk] Bengal Famine -- rank: 1000

I am not sure that the Bengal Famine 1943-5 would be a "proto-typical free market famine", more an imperialist war famine. As Dennis says, the British withdrew disrupted grain supplies in the face of a Japanese invasion. Niall Ferguson in his book War of the World tries to exonerate the British authorities, but fails. This was the result of a 'scorched earth' policy on Britain's part, that was less interested in the lives of Indians than it was in saving the British Empire from defeat ...

Document Size:	5707
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Wed Aug 6 00:24:52 PDT 2008

954 [lbo-talk] Anti-Slav Racism -- rank: 1000

"andie" - in a hole, just keeps on digging: "Endemically is not the word about Slavic backwardness and antisemitism, " he says because he has been caught out condemning Slavs as a race. So, suddenly a quick swerve "There's nothing permanent about it." And now "andie" is flustered: "racism is not the word. It has nothing to do with race, genetics, biology, or anything of the sort." Which is that old ploy "I'm, no racist, ...*but*..." And ...

Document Size:	10347
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Tue Aug 5 14:19:22 PDT 2008

955 [lbo-talk] Anti-Semitism in Russia, and Britain -- rank: 1000

I have to laugh listening to An Die lecturing the Russians about their anti-Semitic prejudices against Berezovsky, after a disturbing experience teaching on a third-world studies course at University of Westminster last year. Being a third world politics course, the students were by self selection somewhat to the liberal left, and quite cosmopolitan. There were quite a few continental Europeans, a smattering of Trotskyists and other radicals, and quite a large group of north African and Pakistan ...

Document Size:	7107
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Tue Aug 5 09:28:14 PDT 2008

956 [lbo-talk] Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Dies at 89 -- rank: 1000

I got the idea that Solzhenitsyn was not terribly representative of much Russian opinion after he returned from exile, and felt somewhat out of sorts with the new Russia, so I am not so sure what his attitudes tell us. My brief brush with the 'dissident' Russian diaspora showed me that the their Western handlers were always wincing at the default attitude of the epatriate intelligentsia towards extreme reaction. Solzhenitsyn was a bit of an old curmudgeon in the US, where he was out of sorts wit ...

Document Size:	6495
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Mon Aug 4 16:23:28 PDT 2008

957 [lbo-talk] Doug's case against Naomi Klein -- rank: 1000

Patrick writes "One position is based a sense of capitalist vulnerability to internal contradictions of accumulation" are we to take it, that that's you? if so, are you not open to the objection that (in my crude caricature of your doubtless more subtle position) you have been announcing the crisis of capitalism for the last fifteen years of growth? 'Even a stopped clock is right twice in 24 hours' as Tony Cliff used to say.

Document Size:	5055
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Mon Apr 28 09:35:53 PDT 2008

958 [lbo-talk] review of Shock doctrine -- rank: 1000

Doug: "Just posted to the LBO website, my review of Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine..." What a shocking adaptation to Klein's reformist outlook - masquerading as a critique, no less! - you two running dogs of neo-Keynesian imperialism deserve each other! Where's Bob Malecki when you need him?

Document Size:	4827
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Mon Apr 28 06:54:52 PDT 2008

959 [lbo-talk] Avoidable hunger -- rank: 1000

Conor Foley's explanation of first world protectionist subsidies against third world agricultural competition is ok, but misses out an important strand in food policy. As Foley notes, the recent upward movement in food prices follows decades of falling prices. Those falling prices were the consequence of agricultural 'overproduction'. ('Overproduction' in capitalist terms, one understands, there was too much food relative to 'effective demand', i.e. incomes, not relative to actual need.) Europea ...

Document Size:	7458
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sun Apr 27 02:59:38 PDT 2008

960 [lbo-talk] An Age of Transition -- rank: 1000

Shane Mage says forward to the "mutual ruin of the contending classes," but I am less sure that this is a programme that can encourage popular action. The European Values survey is interesting in this regard. It finds that belief in environmentalism is extensive, but that when asked very few people would accept higher taxes to fix the environment. I have to say that I am not surprised. Pessimistic beliefs about the future of the planet are hardly likely to lead to progressive attitude ...

Document Size:	5703
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Sat Apr 26 18:41:19 PDT 2008