From M.Amoah@lse.ac.uk Sun Feb 1 08:08:15 1998 From: "Amoah,M" To: "'psn@csf.colorado.edu'" Subject: Re: Special WID Opportunity in Wash., DC Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 15:08:07 -0000 > Dear Progressives, > > I would be very pleased if someone could kindly supply me with the > e-mail address of the Institute for the Study of World Politics (IWP) > based in Washington DC 20036. > > Thank you very much in advance for your kind co-operation. > > Yours sincerely, > > Michael Amoah. From dhenwood@panix.com Sun Feb 1 13:11:07 1998 id NAA04500; Sun, 1 Feb 1998 13:11:02 -0700 (MST) Sun, 1 Feb 1998 15:10:46 -0500 (EST) Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 15:10:45 -0500 To: marxism-international@jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU, PEN-L@GALAXY.CSUCHICO.EDU, pkt@csf.colorado.edu, ipe-cafe@csf.colorado.edu, psn@csf.colorado.edu, bad@ENG.HSS.CMU.EDU From: Doug Henwood Subject: LBO web site updates Finally, after months of gathering dust, the LBO web site has been spiffed up with some new entries: * a historical overview of U.S. income and poverty statistics (http://www.panix.com/~dhenwood/Stats_incpov.html) * an examination of why computers haven't offered the promised productivity boom, in the form a review of Daniel Sichel's book on this topic (http://www.panix.com/~dhenwood/Payoff.html) * updates to historical figures on U.S. employment, unemployment, and earnings, through December 1997 (http://www.panix.com/~dhenwood/Stats_comments.html) Stop by for a visit... Doug -- Doug Henwood Left Business Observer 250 W 85 St New York NY 10024-3217 USA +1-212-874-4020 voice +1-212-874-3137 fax email: web: From jnaiman@acs.ryerson.ca Wed Feb 4 09:33:20 1998 Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 11:34:20 -0500 (EST) From: Joanne Naiman To: psn@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Job opening in Canada Please distribute this as widely as possible. Thanks, Joanne Naiman Ryerson TENURE-STREAM APPOINTMENT The Department of Sociology at Ryerson Polytechnic University invites applications for a tenure-stream appointment at the level of Assistant Professor, to commence August 1, 1998 (subject to budgetary approval). We seek a person with a primary specialization in media studies, capable of building a serious reputation for research and of teaching courses in media, culture and communication, and popular culture. The ideal candidate will also be able to teach in a second area of specialization in sociology. We would be very interested in persons who blend practical and theoretical knowledge. Our requirements include a Ph.D., a record of scholarship in the area of primary specialization, and demonstrated ability to teach effectively at the university undergraduate level. Duties will include a balance of teaching and research, and involvement in departmental work. Salary will be commensurate with academic rank. Applicants should send an up-to-date curriculum vitae detailing exact courses taught, a statement of academic specializations and research interests, and evidence of teaching excellence; and should arrange to have three referees forward letters to accompany the application. No faxes please. Closing date for applications is noon local time, Tuesday March 31, 1998. Mail to Ms. Anice Gibbons, Secretary, Department of Sociology, A-831, Ryerson Polytechnic University, 350 Victoria Street, Toronto ON M5B 2K3 CANADA. Consult our web page at http://www.ryerson.ca/soc/. This advertisement is directed to Canadian citizens and permanent residents. Ryerson Polytechnic University has an employment equity program and encourages applications from all qualified applicants, including women, visible minorities, aboriginal peoples and people with disabilities. In accordance with Section 14 of the Ontario Human Rights Code, special consideration will be given to female applicants. From chadk@yourinter.net Wed Feb 4 09:54:32 1998 (Post.Office MTA v3.1.2 release (PO205-101c) Date: Wed, 04 Feb 1998 11:49:09 -0800 To: psn@csf.colorado.edu From: chadk@yourinter.net (Chad Kimmel) Subject: Teaching Information?? >Date: Tue, 03 Feb 1998 15:33:05 -0800 >To: psn >From: Chad Kimmel >Subject: Teaching Information?? > > >Teachers on PSN, > >I am currently enrolled in a "Teaching Sociology" course and find it extremely rewarding. The purpose of this message is to ask teachers of PSN to share with me and my class stories, philosophies, etc.. anything you feel would be of benefit to us. Our teacher is wonderful and enjoys very much teaching this course. However, I felt perhaps getting different opinions would be of help, good/bad experiences, first class taught etc.. > >Our readings include much of what ASA has to say through its "Teaching Sociology" journal as well as the book "Teaching Tips" by Wilbert J. McKeachie. They are all great sources, but I would like to hear from other professionals as well. > >Awaiting Responses, >Thank You. >Chad... > ***************************************************** Chad M. Kimmel Graduate Assistant/Data Manager Mid-Atlantic Addiction Training Institute (MAATI) Indiana University of Pennsylvania 102 McElhaney Hall Indiana, Pennsylvania 15705-1087 ckimmel@yourinter.net http://www.yourinter.net/~ckimmel 724-463-7010 **************************************************** From YLPSLL0@cpua.it.luc.edu Wed Feb 4 13:20:42 1998 Date: Wed, 04 Feb 98 14:08 CST From: YLPSLL0@cpua.it.luc.edu To: psn@CSF.COLORADO.EDU Subject: Socialist Scholars For those of you who noted the call for papers for Socialist Scholars, I would personally invite anyone on psn to come to the Marcuse panels that I am organizing. SC is a great conference, its nice for us left ists to be with thousands of others. Further, anyone who replies to me that they will be in NYC, will get 2 collections of Clinton jokes. Hurry, by next week with the bombing or Iraq, pecadillos won't have anymore market share. Lauren From rsaute@email.gc.cuny.edu Wed Feb 4 10:12:54 1998 Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 12:12:22 -0500 (EST) To: marxism-news@jefferson.village.Virginia.edu, pen-l@galaxy.csuchico.edu, psn@csf.colorado.edu, cm150-l@mtu.edu From: ROBERT SAUTE --=====================_886623136==_ --=====================_886623136==_ ***1998 SOCIALIST SCHOLARS CONFERENCE*** A World to Win: From the MANIFESTO to New Organizing for Socialist Change ***CALL FOR PANELS*** http://www.soc.qc.edu/ssc Dear Friends, Scholars, Activists, The 1998 Socialist Scholars Conference will take place this year from Friday March 20 to Sunday March 22, at Borough of Manhattan Community College, 199 Chambers Street, New York City. This year's theme is "A World to Win: From the MANIFESTO to New Organizing for Socialist Change," and we encourage panels to address issues covered by it. We are also eager to have panels on any and all subjects of interest to socialists, radical democrats, activists and intellectuals who want a better world. Last year 1800 activists, scholars, socialists, and radical democrats from more than a dozen countries met for a weekend of dialogue and debate about changes in the labor movement at the top and bottom; independent politics; struggles for survival and justice in Asia, Africa, and Latin America; bringing culture back in; and dozens of others on race, ecology, gender, class, and the struggle for liberation. At more than 120 panels speakers and participants exchanged ideas, honed tactics, and discovered new ways to look at old problems. This year the aim of the Conference is modest: we would like to reintroduce organizing into the socialist project. The recent Teamster victory in the U.P.S. strike illustrates the efficacy of rank and file organizing: educating, agitating, and persuading. Yet, in this increasingly fragmented and complex world where virtual communities supplant face-to-face communication, where membership implies no commitment, organizing is a radical act. Two anniversaries will be important components of this year's Conference: the one hundred and fifty years since the birth of the COMMUNIST MANIFESTO, and the thirty years since the events of 1968 -- the Prague Spring, Paris, Chicago, the Tlatelolco Massacre. We encourage wide-ranging discussion. Debates are more interesting for speakers and audience. Diversity of opinion and experience, as well as in race, class, and gender, give your panel and the Conference strength. We have participants organize panels rather than submit papers because panels with coherent themes are more interesting; they allow for meaningful debate and encourage participation from the audience. Panels are an hour and fifty minutes long and typically have three to five speakers, sometimes including a moderator. Talks of less than twenty minutes per speaker work best. They allow for exchange among and between panelists and the audience. Videos, slide presentations, and/or overhead projections can be accommodated with advance notification. **Deadline for panel submissions is February 27, 1998.** To submit a panel, please include a panel title, a list of panelists with one -and only one- affiliation per panelist, an address with email for each panelist, a sponsoring organization (if applicable) and a contact person with address, phone number, and email. Panels take place on Saturday March 21 and Sunday March 22, from 10:00 AM to 11:50 AM, 1:00 PM to 2:50 PM, and 3:00 PM to 5:00 PM. Please let us know your preference, and, given early notification, we will do everything possible to meet your needs. The cost of a panel is $100. The fee includes admission for each of the panelist for the entire three day conference. There are no additional charges for panelists. Please make your checks payable to: Socialist Scholars Conference c/o Dept. of Sociology/ CUNY Grad Center 33 West 42nd Street New York, NY 10036-8099 If you have further questions, please look for our web page at: http://www.soc.qc.edu/ssc or contact us at the above address, phone us at (212) 642-2826, or email us at: socialist.conf@usa.net  --=====================_886623136==_-- From maxsaw@cpcug.org Wed Feb 4 14:30:03 1998 id OAA07524; Wed, 4 Feb 1998 14:29:22 -0700 (MST) id PAA02701; Wed, 4 Feb 1998 15:16:35 -0500 (EST) From: "Max B. Sawicky" To: femecon-l@bucknell.edu, pkt@csf.colorado.edu, pen-l@galaxy.csuchico.edu, ippr@easynet.co.uk, psn@csf.colorado.edu, psn-cafe@csf.colorado.edu, budgetgroups@RTK.NET, DEMSOC-L@LISTSERV.AOL.COM, cdvnet@quantum.sdsu.edu, WELFAREM-L@AMERICAN.EDU, adaction@ix.ne Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 15:15:58 +0000 Subject: Deep Data Reply-to: maxsaw@cpcug.org --Message-Boundary-31999 Document your pet hypotheses, contribute to progressive public policy, and win bar bets. The Economic Policy Institute has expanded its web site to include topical data sets which can be downloaded in spreadsheet form free of charge. Presently most of the data pertains to labor markets and income, but as we go forward we will broaden the subject matter. The home page for EPI's web site is still EPINET.ORG The table of contents for the "data zone" is at web address http://epinet.org/datazone/deepdata1.htm The contents are reproduced here in text form. A much better-looking HTML version is attached to this message. EPI DataZone Table of Contents Wage and Compensation Trends 1.Hourly Wage Decile Cutoffs for 1973-1996, for Men , Women , or All 2.Share of Employment by Wage Multiple of Poverty Wage for for 1973-1996, Men, Women, or All 3.Average Hourly Earnings by Education Level for 1973-1996, for Men, Women, or All 4.Real Hourly Wages by Education, Using CPS Education Definitions from 1992 to the present 5.Weekly and Hourly Earnings of Production, Non-Supervisory Workers for 1962-1996 6.Growth of Average Hourly Wages, Benefits and Compensation in the National Income and Product Accounts, 1959-1994 7.Growth of Average Hourly Wages, Benefits, and Compensation, 1987-1994 8.Usual Weekly Earnings of Full-Time Wage and Salary Workers, for 1979-1996, for Men, Women, or All 9.Median Annual Earnings of Full-Time, Full-Year Workers, Men and Women, for 1960-1996 Family Earnings and Income Trends 1.Median Family Income, 1947-96 2.Share of Aggregate Income Going to Each Fifth and the Top 5 Percent of Families 1947-1996 3.Income Limits for Each Fifth and Top 5 Percent of Families 1947-1996 4.Mean Income Received by Each Fifth and Top 5 Percent of Families and the Top 5 Percent of Families 1966-1996 5.Median and Mean Income of Families by Race of Householder:White, Black, or Hispanic 6.Changes in Family Income Group by Family Type, 1979-94 7.Sources of Income Growth of Top Fifth, 1979-94 8.Change in Family Income Shares, 1979-94 9.Husbands' and Wives' Hours of Work, 1979-94 10.Role of Higher Wives' Earnings and Hours on Family income Growth, 1979-94 11.Effect of Wives' Earnings on Income Shares Among Married Couples with Children, 1979-94 12.Changes in Income Inequality of Married Couple Families with Children, 1979-94 Prices 1.Consumer Price Index, for all Urban Consumers, Series X1 (CPI-U-X1). Low Wage Labor Market Indicators National Employment Statistics Employment Statistics by Census Division Wages by State Online Supplemental Tables to EPI Publications 1."Has Wage Inequality Stopped Growing?" by Jared Bernstein and Lawrence Mishel =================================================== Max B. Sawicky Economic Policy Institute maxsaw@cpcug.org 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-8810 (voice) Ste. 1200 202-775-0819 (fax) Washington, DC 20036 http://tap.epn.org/sawicky =================================================== --Message-Boundary-31999 The following section of this message contains a file attachment prepared for transmission using the Internet MIME message format. If you are using Pegasus Mail, or any another MIME-compliant system, you should be able to save it or view it from within your mailer. If you cannot, please ask your system administrator for assistance. ---- File information ----------- File: deepdata1.htm Date: 4 Feb 1998, 14:52 Size: 8860 bytes. 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QSBIUkVGPSJodHRwOi8vZXBpbmV0Lm9yZy9kYXRhem9uZSI+RGF0YVpvbmU8L0E+PC9GT05U PjwvRk9OVD48L1REPg0NCg0NCjxURCBBTElHTj1DRU5URVI+PEZPTlQgU0laRT0rMT48QSBI UkVGPSJodHRwOi8vZXBpbmV0Lm9yZy9kYXRhem9uZS9wYWdlcy9kZWVwZGF0YTEuaHRtIj5E YXRhWm9uZS1UT0MmbmJzcDs8L0E+PC9GT05UPjwvVEQ+DQ0KDQ0KPFREIEFMSUdOPUNFTlRF Uj48Rk9OVCBTSVpFPSsxPjxBIEhSRUY9Imh0dHA6Ly9lcGluZXQub3JnLyI+RVBJPC9BPjwv Rk9OVD48L1REPg0NCg0NCjxURCBBTElHTj1DRU5URVIgVkFMSUdOPUNFTlRFUj48Rk9OVCBT SVpFPSsxPjxBIEhSRUY9Imh0dHA6Ly9lcG4ub3JnLyI+RVBOPC9BPjwvRk9OVD48L1REPg0N CjwvVFI+DQ0KPC9UQUJMRT48L0NFTlRFUj4NDQombmJzcDsNDQo8L0JPRFk+DQ0KPC9IVE1M Pg0NCg== --Message-Boundary-31999-- From Spectors@mail.netnitco.net Thu Feb 5 08:41:46 1998 Date: Thu, 05 Feb 1998 09:39:35 -0800 From: Spectors Reply-To: Spectors@mail.netnitco.net To: psn@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Marxism versus Idealist Abstractions The following is the text of what I wrote for the Fall, 1997 issue of FROM THE LEFT, the newsletter of the Section on Marxist Sociology of the ASA. TRYoung, who works fifty hours a day to help build a world free of exploitation and oppression posted this on his WEB page. In my discussions with many people, it turns out that many still don't know how to surf the net and mainly confine their internet activity to e-mail. There hasn't been much controversy on PSN lately, and I believe that it is in the confrontation of ideas that refinements, as well as new syntheses can emerge helping to create clarity. Keep in mind that these ideas are mine alone and do not represent the opinions of anyone else in the Section Marxist Sociology. I hope they can stimulate further analysis and debate on and off the net. ----------------Alan Spector ======================================================== Marxists should oppose: democracy, binding elections, academic freedom and free speech in general, multiculturalism, self-determination and all nationalisms, and, of course, peace. Why would a Marxist say that? After all, isn!t Marxism the umbrella standpoint that opposes elitism, especially authoritarian elitism, the suppression of the voices of oppressed groups and classes by the coerced hegemony of the powerful, as well as racism, imperialism,and the ravages of greed-inspired wars? While there have been many types of political standpoints and groups which call themselves "Marxist", it is certainly true that Marxists have been in the leadership of most major struggles against the forms of capitalist oppression, including racism, sexism, and imperialism. What distinguishes Marxism from other modes of opposition is not Marxism's concern for the well-being of the exploited and oppressed. What distinguishes Marxism from other modes of opposition is that Marxism strives to base its analyses and strategies on a scientific analysis of the material world (including the social world, in all its ever-changing complexities and contradictions). That analysis sees the centrality of class relationships as the axis which shapes, even creates particular modes of oppression. These modes of oppression are extremely brutal and have extremely complex aspects which may appear to be completely unrelated to class economics. But to assert that they are "parallel" to class oppression (as some of the "Class, Race, and Gender" discourse does) is to actually support the reductionist definition of class while endorsing a kind of psychological reductionist explanation for "other types" of oppression. Marxists oppose all forms of exploitation and oppression, but as long as capitalism or any class society exists, these forms of oppression can never be finally defeated. Back to the use of the word "science"--surely a point of controversy. We know that the term "scientific" has often been used by the powerful and their puppets as a way to deny the complexity of the world, to inhibit the search for better, deeper, more comprehensive, multi-dimensional answers, and to silence the voices of oppressed people whose credentials have not been validated by the powerful. We are using the term "scientific" here not to reduce the complexity of the world down to a few variables, but to acknowledge the complexity of the material world. The idealist philosophies often pretend to be even more "radical" than Marxism because they are not just against "class" oppression, but are for ALL GOOD THINGS. (Not surprisingly, many of the so-called "ultra-radical" anti-economic theorists find themselves alongside the most narrow of economist theorists in supporting liberal reform politicians.) In fact, advocates of idealistic philosophies, including, in particular, psychological reductionism, often critique materialist Marxism as being one dimensional, superficial, and incapable of grasping complexity, when, actually, it is the anti-materialist, metaphysical ideologies which reduce the complexity of material-social reality down to some simplistic, abstract, nearly sanctified phrases. Being abstract and sanctified, they can't be criticized, and those who do are often ostracized as being deviants, subject to the kind of labelling and ad hominem arguments one finds in religious arguments, (e.g. "He criticizes self-determination? Well, what can you expect from a privileged white person", or "He doesn't believe in Absolute Free Speech? Well, what can you expect from a Stalinist", or "He didn't cry for Princess Diana? Must be another Marxist with no feelings for humanity.") This kind of discourse destroys honest investigation even as it bathes itself in the rhetoric of sensitive, creative, multi-dimensional humanistic philosophy. But there is another important point. It is not simply the case that Marxists SHOULD oppose the Sanctified Abstractions listed above. In fact, NOBODY believes absolutely in any of those slogans. Therefore, to use those slogans as the basis for "proof" that one's position is automatically correct is specious dogmatism at best, and can be outright dishonesty at worst. Example: democracy. What is democracy? Rule by majority? Which majority? Where? Is it elections? Should elections always be binding? What if the majority of students at a school vote to endorse the Vietnam War? Are students who try to physically block university participation therefore acting "undemocratically?" Did the Vietnamese get to vote? Is the U.S. embargo against Iraq, which has killed tens of thousands of children, an example of democracy in action? Did those children get to vote? Even if people do have the formal right to vote, would we always accept the results as binding? Of course not. Everyone, except perhaps Plato's interpretation of the death of Socrates, reserves the right to oppose unjust policies, even by force, whether or not those unjust policies were the result of some kind of election. (And this is without even discussing the manipulation of elections by the media, schools, and outright coercion.) Example: self-determination, including the "nationalism of the oppressed." If self-determination is a phrase that automatically wins arguments, then does that mean one is supposed to support Croatia's split from Yugoslavia? How about Protestant communities wanting to split from Catholic Ireland? Or the Confederate States wanting to split from the United States? Perhaps these examples seem extreme, but even in less extreme examples, whose self-determination is being discussed? Does Haiti have self-determination because it has black politicians running the government? If someone puts forward the slogan of "self-determination" as the winning card in an argument, they may find themselves having to eat their words later. (And as a side point, a particularly perceptive Marxist from Africa pointed out to me recently (to paraphrase): "Just look at the phrase SELF-determination. What does that have to do with Marxism? SELF? SELF? Of course we want a society where individuals can develop. But do we want to enshrine the concept of SELF as the key concept in Marxist liberation? Isn't SELF-determination the ideology of capitalism?") Similarly with "oppressed group nationalism." The experience of Algeria should have put that argument to rest. Should Marxists support struggles against imperialism? Of course, with all the commitment and energy we can muster! But that does not mean supporting the colonized "nation" as a "nation." Are we not allowed to criticize a nationalist leader if we believe he or she is selling out the struggle? All the nations of the world were created by capitalists. There are different classes within every nation. We should oppose the capitalist class within each nation, rather than blurring over the differences in class and considering the whole "nation" as an oppressed group. Multi-culturalism, as many others have pointed out, may sound like an especially radical form of anti-racism, but in fact, it weakens and dilutes the anti-racist struggle by implying that we should tolerate the cultures of people who are supposedly so different, rather than understand that underneath the differences there are fundamental similarities and that it is the racists who exaggerate the differences that need to be directly opposed with actions, not with ethnic food festivals. Academic freedom? Free Speech? Nobody supports the right of a psychology professor to teach that the rape of children is good for their mental health. Nobody would support the right of a group to hold a film series on campus with child pornography. Nobody supports the right of a pharmacist to tell a customer to drink bleach as a way to cure a cold. Nobody believes in absolute free speech and nobody believes in absolute academic freedom. Racism should not be taught in schools. Racist films should not be shown. Some people say that it is a "different" issue. Is it? Isn't racism as bad as child pornography? Aren't the effects of racism deadly to tens of millions of people? "But it is more difficult to define 'racism'", say some people. Perhaps, but insofar as we can identify it, it should not be taught. If that means that Marxists are vulnerable to attack, then so be it. Marxists have to defend their right to teach on the grounds that what we do falls within the range of reasonably accurate, socially constructive social science--not on the grounds that anyone should be allowed to do whatever they want. And finally, peace. Peace for whom? The normal condition of peace under capitalism is mass murder of the working class. Of course we oppose the capitalist wars. But to call for Peace as an absolute is to politically disarm the working class and other oppressed people, making it appear that the struggle to eliminate capitalist oppression can happen easily and peacefully. Were the slaves wrong to revolt against slavery? Were Partisans in Eastern Europe, concentration camp prisoners in Sobibor, soldiers in the Red Army wrong to make war against the Nazis? The point of this discussion is to infuse what is distinctive about Marxism into these discussions. Marxism is not about "higher wages". Of course ideas are important. Why else did Marx, (and the rest of us) spend our lives reading, writing, learning, and teaching. Economics is a social-political relationship. Class struggle is as much about shaping and controlling production as it is about ensuring egalitarian distribution. Marxism seeks to expose the underlying contradictions, contradictions that are about relationships, not simply about "amounts of money". Abstract philosophy seeks to blur the irreconcilable antagonistic class relationships and substitute superficial, abstracted ideas. Contrary to the argument that Marxism is "class essentialist" (unfortunately reinforced by some who call themselves Marxist), actually Marxism opposes all essentialism. Classes are both objective and constructed, temporary relationships. Asking the Marxist questions: "For Whom? Which class does this serve? Does this serve the cause of creating a world free of exploitation and oppression or does this serve one or another of the exploiters and oppressors?"---asking these questions is not reducing the discussion down to economist, superficial one dimensionality. On the contrary, it is reliance on abstractions, even ideas that wear the cloak of creative, sensitive humanism, that denies the ever-changing, multi-dimensional richness of the material world. =============================================================================END END END From brook@california.com Thu Feb 5 11:41:07 1998 Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 10:37:47 -0800 (PST) To: flatta@ceb.ucop.edu, theperegri@aol.com, PSN@csf.colorado.edu From: CyberBrook Subject: minuto_de_silencio >From: juan manuel gomez gonzalez >Subject: minuto_de_silencio >Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 01:01:46 -0600 (CST) >Reply-To: chiapas@planet.com.mx >To: brook@california.com > > >english version below > > >La Red Ciudadana de Apoyo a la Causa Zapatista propone: >Guardar un minuto de silencio por nuestros hermanos asesinados en Acteal, >el próximo 9 de febrero a las cuatro de la tarde. Sería una ciudad >completamente inmóvil durante sesenta segundos, para decirle a nuestros >muertos que están vivos. La idea es que el metro se detenga. Las oficinas >públicas suspendan sus labores. Las fábricas se llenen de quietud. Las >universidades se paralicen. Las estaciones de radio interrumpan sus >transmisiones. Todo por un minuto. Mientras nuestros compañeros del >Congreso Nacional Indígena realizan un acto afuera del edificio de la ONU. >Al cálido movimiento de solidaridad internacional con el pueblo mexicano >le pedimos que ese día coloque afuera de las embajadas mexicanas 45 >veladoras por Acteal y 1 por Ocosingo. Una ciudad en completo silencio >durante sesenta segundos, no le devolverá las madres a sus hijos, no nos >devolvera la risa de nuestros hermanos muertos, pero será un silencio que >dirá muchas cosas. Sería solo un minuto, del mundo detenido para honrar a >los muertos y a los vivos. ¿Nos ayudas a organizar este minuto eterno?. Es >tiempo de expresar nuestro repudio y nuestra esperanza. Viva la vida. Ni >un muerto más. > > >si usted no desea recibir la informacion de esta lista por favor mande un >correo electronico con la direccion que quiere que se retire de la >lista... > >gracias > > > > >Translated for Nuevo Amanecer Press by Susan Rasco'n: > > >The Citizen Support Network of the Zapatista Cause proposes: >That we observe a moment of silence, on February 9th at 4:00 p.m., for our >brothers and sisters massacred in Acteal. The city will be completely >motionless for sixty seconds, in order to tell our dead that they are alive. >The idea is that the subway will stop, public offices will suspend their >work, factories will fall silent, universities will be paralyzed, and radio >stations will interrupt their broadcasts. All of this for a minute, while >our indigenous compan~eros conduct an action outside the UN building. We >ask the generous movement of international solidarity with the Mexican >people on that date to set up outside the Mexican Embassies 45 candles for >Acteal and one for Ocosingo. A city in complete silence for sixty seconds, >it will not bring back the mothers of orphaned children, nor will it return >to us the laughter of our dead brothers and sisters, but it will be a >silence that will say many things. It will be just one minute of the world >stopped to honor the living and the dead. Will you help us organize this >eternal minute? It is time to express our repudiation and our hope. Long >live life! No more deaths! From sokol@jhu.edu Thu Feb 5 13:38:58 1998 Date: Thu, 05 Feb 1998 15:26:00 -0500 From: Wojtek Sokolowski Subject: Greed: Data To: psn@csf.colorado.edu >To answer your questions about trends in wages, please refer to the posting on this list by Max Sawicky of the EPI (Deep Data). It contaits a refrence to the EPI's web site when your can the data on wages and other compensation. The data show, for example, that while the overall compensation have been increasing, the increase is due mainly to the costs of benefits and taxes, while the wage component has been decreasing - when adjusted for inflation, of course. > >As far as the ABC's program you refered to is concerend, I have only one comment to offer. I grew up in Eastern Europe where I learned that journalists are nothing more than whores on the retainer who would say and do anything their clients demand. The Polish language makes a distinction between a prostitute and a whore: the former is an occupation, the latter is a personality. > >Thus, shows like the one your refer to come to me as no surprise whatosover. > >Regards, > >WS Wojtek Sokolowski Institute for Policy Studies Johns Hopkins University Baltimore, MD 21218 sokol@jhu.edu voice: (410) 516-4056 fax: (410) 516-8233 Opinions expressed above are those of this writer only. They do not represent the views or policies of the Institute for Policy Studies, the Johns Hopkins University, or anyone else affiliated with these institutions. From MGWENG01@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU Fri Feb 6 14:51:58 1998 From: MGWENG01@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU Date: 6 Feb 1998 16:52:20 EST To: Subject: RTequest and comment... First, I would appreciate it if Hal Pepinski would resend a copy of his message on Indiana prisons directly to me. Thanks! Second, as I recall from discussions which took place at the time Marion was "super-maxed," which were similar to those which occurred after the relocation of the Lexington women's "facility" to the new, remote hell-hole in Florida, these nightmarish places were modeled after Long Kesh, the "facility" in the domain of the formerly-existing Princess Di which was created to house political prisoners, particularly those of the IRA persuasion. (Do I have this right, distant colleagues?) Of further interest, the design of these "facilities," pace Orwell, was based on the best of psychological "findings" on the effects of sensory deprivation, including suicide. These "findings" were, as I also distantly recall, some of the goulish harvest from Nazi "mnedical research." I point this out merely to redioscover the obvious, as do all good sociologists: the struggle of one is the struggle of all; the defeat of one is the loss of all. "Criminals" as they may be rendered by bourgeois law, or as they may have been recreated by bourgeois social relations, the courage of those who resist under such circumstances must be applauded, and the example they set should be emulated even by those yet more thoroughly ensnared in manacles of ivy, immured in tombs of red brick, and/or imprisoned by bars of gold. Morton Wenger TELEPHONE: (502) 852-6836 INTERNET: MGWENG01@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU From MGWENG01@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU Fri Feb 6 15:22:29 1998 From: MGWENG01@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU Date: 6 Feb 1998 17:23:28 EST To: Subject: Quibble, quibble, quibble, Dr. Marx... It is so rarely that I disagree with A. Spector, I thought that I should do so publicly first, lest he convince me of the error of my analyses in private, as he sometimes does in the most comradely of fashions... In a recent post to psn, he talked of the presumably arduous struggle to "destroy capitalism." I am a bit puzzled: I thought that Marx's lesson in "Capital" was that capitalism was, like all previous modes of production, burdened with intrinsic contradictions/flaws; e.g., the tendency of the organic composition of capital to rise and the concomitant tendency of the rate of profit to fall, etc. Dialectically speaking. these were "contradictions" precisely because they were intrinsic to the system of social relations. They were not "errors;" indeed, if they were, Marx would have found himself a reformer! Rather, the MORE capitalists did what capitalists had to do to be capitalists; i.e., mindlessly accumulate, accumulate, accumulate, thr worse they made things for themselves. (If you don't love this mode of analysis in Marx, than what IS there to lpve???) HOWEVER, and it is a big qualifier, it seems that Marx's lesson in theory in the German Ideology, the CM, and elsewhere, and his lesson in praxis as seen in his actual life-activities, is that the establishment of COMMUNISM as the resolution (dialectical) of the contradictions of capitalism was that which rewuired arduous struggle. It was not a question of whether the historical baby of humanity would come flying out of the window with the dirty bathwater of the history of class society: rather it was whether someone (communists) would be there to catch it. I believe this was the contingent question for Marx, not that of the survivability of capitalism. N'est-ce pas, Alan? Others? (I intend to elaborate on Marx's treatment of historical contingency in a paper on the CM which will probably be on-line in brief form, and developed in greater depth for an ISA paper this summer.) Morton Wenger TELEPHONE: (502) 852-6836 INTERNET: MGWENG01@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU From Timothy.Mason@wanadoo.fr Fri Feb 6 17:10:53 1998 for Paris Sat, 7 Feb 1998 01:11:10 +0100 (MET) for Paris Sat, 7 Feb 1998 01:12:26 +0100 (MET) Date: Sat, 07 Feb 1998 01:13:17 +0100 From: Timothy Mason To: MGWENG01@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU Subject: Re: RTequest and comment... But how, pray, should we feel about all those who do not resist, whether the brutalities of the prison or the blandishments of the academic paymaster? The great majority of those whose pecadilloes legitimate our prison-building programs, our armed policemen and our surveillance cameras are not the stuff of heroes, but are often sad, bad, mad and dangerous to know. The Left lost heavily from the Romantic dallyings of some with the criminal ; the authors of 'The New Criminology' quoting Dylan to the effect that, to live outside the law you must be honest, only to recant but a decade later, inventing something they named 'Left Realism', after discovering that the bad boys would not hesitate to break into their family saloon cars, and rip off the fruits of their labour - a stolen manuscript can lead to a whole new paradigm. Regards Timothy Mason Timothy.Mason@wanadoo.fr From spector@calumet.purdue.edu Fri Feb 6 17:50:02 1998 Date: Fri, 06 Feb 1998 18:48:31 -0800 From: Alan Spector Reply-To: spector@calumet.purdue.edu To: psn@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Contingency & Necessity? In response to the issue brought up by Mort Wenger, vis. whether we need to "destroy" capitalism or whether it will collapse under its own weight and contradictions....well, it is in continuous collapse in different parts of the world and has been for a hundred or so years, but it still needs to be "destroyed" by conscious human action, or it will continue to revive itself after the various collapses (which generally kill millions of workers and peasants along the way...) ================================================ In response to the more complex issues brought up by Mort Wenger, viz. the "inevitability" of communism or the contingent issue of whether anyone will CREATE communism..... Someone once told me that Engels once said that the question of "Free Will" verus "Determinism" was the most profound question in human society. I don't know if Engels ever said anything like that, but it makes a good introduction to what I'm going to write.... Our language itself moves us towards false dichotomies and mutually exclusive ways of examining questions, and away from looking at things dialectically. Mort brings up an important point. When I was much, much younger, and I had read little of Marx, I was quite impressed by the power of Marxist arguments, which appealed both to the way I understood history and society from an academic viewpoint, and coincided with the way I understood society/human relations from personal experience. The result was to sometimes read things too enthusiastically, too literally and therefore too dogmatically --- without grasping the contradictions that lie even within Marx' writings. I'm sure that still I have much to learn. But I did have a small kind of personal turning point in grappling with this question of "inevitability" versus "contingency" a number of years ago, and I remind myself of this often when I think I'm getting a little too ignorant of the zigs and zags and a little too optimistic about the so-called even flow of historical progress. To the point: In the 1970's, many of us would debate the issue of nuclear war. Would such a war wipe out all life on Earth? I remember often arguing that it would not. After leaving one meeting, I was driving down the road, thinking to myself: "Of course nuclear war can't wipe out all life on Earth, because true, classless communism is inevitable, and the total annihilation theory is saying that communism would not be inevitable. Since communism IS inevitable, any such war would have to leave some human life behind." Then I said to myself: "Boy is that a stupid argument!" "As powerful as Marx' arguments are, he couldn't know if an asteroid might smash into the Earth, for example, and destroy all life. And therefore, it's possible as well, that a war could. Whether it will destroy all life or not is an empirical question, not something that can be determined based on some belief that there is a pre-determined "Logic" to "History". I try to remind myself of that particularly sorry little slide into dogmatism whenever I'm too sure about any conclusion that I haven't seriously investigated. ================ My point is that Morton brings up some important insights. I could "quibble, quibble" over some of the wording. I'm inclined to use words like "probably inevitable" but that makes some folks wince and other smile. But let me push back a little in the other direction. "Probably inevitable" is a kind of cop-out, but as a concept it might help in the quibbling which is necessary to refine the discussion a little more. Was it "INEVITABLE" that humans would learn how to use wheels? Well, yes, and no. It seems pretty obvious that somewhere in ten thousand centuries, someone would drop something and notice that it rolled. From there might come learning to use a log's rolling friction, then a group of logs, then eventually a wheel with an axle. But it wasn't INEVITABLE, because an asteroid might have slammed into the Earth destroying all human life and cut that process short. The same could be said for racism and capitalism. Was it INEVITABLE that capitalism would become so totally inseperable from racism? Well, yes and no. It wasn't INEVITABLE because other kinds of events could have intervened, at least hypothetically. But the core of capitalism is maximizing, or at least, maintaining the rate of profit against downward pressures caused by the internal workings of capitalism. One way to increase profits is to segment the labor market. Was it "inevitable" that capitalist would try to use whatever it could to increase/maintain its profits? Was it "inevitable" that it would segment the labor market in various ways to accomplish that? Sexual division of labor (in a million different ways) is one way to segment it. So is by age. By ability/disability. By slave and (legally) "free" (wage slaves). So is by prison labor vs. non-prison labor and other coerced labor, such as Clinton's plan to force welfare mothers to work for very low pay, versus less coereced labor. So is race/ethnicity --especially people who have observable physical appearance differences, or different languages and especially if they are far from their homelands. It is a powerful way to segment labor and increase profits both by paying the cheaper segment less and also by using the existence of that less costly segment to keep the wages of the other segments lower via competitive pressure. So was it INEVITABLE that capitalism would have to be racist and racism would have to be capitalist? Well, no, -- not INEVITABLE in a way that supercedes the physical world, no...it was only inevitable here on Earth over the past seven centuries. But no, it was not INEVITABLY INEVITABLE in some Biblical sense. Is the triumph of a classless society inevitable? Marxist Proposition One: Such a society would bring about a better life for humankind. Materially, science would be unbound by the profit motive. Wars for profit would be gone. Destruction of the environment for profit would be stopped. Education would be widespread. Alienation, which produces so many social and psychological problems would no longer be created in people by the processes that strip people of their labor, their creative input into society and shape their lives to meet the desires of the profit-masters. None of this would be completed the week after the last capitalist surrenders, of course. It would be many, many, many years, with many, many zigs and zags. But IF it could happen, it would be better. Marxist Proposition Two: People want a better life. This is sometimes confused or intentionally distorted by pro-capitalist propagandists into the over-used cliche "People are inherently greedy." That is the antidote argument against the line that "People are basically Good." But the "basically Good" argument is not what Marxism says. Marxism says that people DO want a better material/social life, but that true communism is what will create it, and that it is an empirical question, not an abstract moral question as to whether capitalism or communism will create the best lives for humanity. Marxist Proposition Three: People will eventually figure out that communism will work better, just as they figured out that wheels work better for some things. ================================================================ But does that make it INEVITABLE? Well,....no...because there are the various contingencies, (and I don't just mean asteroids) that could cut that process short. And in any case, whether or not the process gets totally stopped, it seems obvious that there are many, many, many contingencies that can interfere with the development of communism, delaying it for many, many years. So what we do makes an enormous difference. Would World War II have happened if Hitler had been killed in 1935? Probably. But would the character of that war been very different, if, say, the German Communists had started preparing for this back in the early 1920's, if racism/anti-Jewish ideology had been fought more vigorously early, if the nature of fascism had been better understood by people earlier---IF ORGANIZERS HAD WORKED HARDED AND BETTER, WITH SHARPER CLARITY, to learn and to teach others about what was happening? In that case, there probably would still have been a World War II, but maybe it would have only killed 29 million people instead of 50 million, 70 million, who knows? That's a lof of lives... I guess I'd make the same kind of arguments about the "inevitability" of a truly non-alienated, egalitarion (communist) society, except that WHAT WE DO will make a difference in the lives of HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of people--maybe billions. Talking/thinking about the "inevitability" of a "good world" should never cause someone to get complacent, happy in the knowledge that in their heart they are on the good side of history. There is no "Logic to History" that supercedes the material world and guarantees any kind of philosophical/moral outcome. What we do counts. Alan Spector ============================================================= -- From cdfupdate@cdfig.childrensdefense.org Fri Feb 6 19:53:23 1998 Date: Fri, 06 Feb 98 18:26:22 EST From: "CDFupdate" To: CDFupdate@automailer.com Subject: CDF Update 2-6-98 Sender: owner-cdfupdate@automailer.com Children's Defense Fund Update February 6,1998 In This Issue: -- Child Care -- Child Health -- Conference *** Child Care *** --- CHILD CARE AND DEVELOPMENT BLOCK GRANT (CCDBG) --- The Children's Defense Fund, together with a coalition of state, local, and national organizations, is continuing its effort to pass comprehensive child care legislation this year. Together we are working toward legislation that guarantees at least $20 billion (over five years) in new funding for the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) to help states: 1) make child care affordable for low-income families earning up to $35,000/year; 2) expand structured after-school and summer activities for children and youth; and 3) improve the quality of care and the compensation of the people in whose care we entrust our children. In addition to this needed increase in CCDBG funding, CDF supports tax credits for parents who work outside the home, as well as parents who stay at home. These tax credits should be made available even to families with very low incomes. In addition, a comprehensive early childhood development package should include a major expansion of Head Start and Early Head Start services for our country's neediest children. In order to fund this proposal, the coalition is urging Congress to pass a $1.50 increase in the tobacco tax which would provide funds to a variety of programs, including child care, Head Start, and other children's programs that are essential for children's healthy development. Legislation increasing the tobacco tax should be passed whether or not there is a tobacco settlement. To get involved in the effort to secure funds from a tobacco tax for child care: -- Call your Senators Call the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 to reach your Senators and deliver the following message: "We can afford to help families who need child care by raising tobacco taxes to support children's healthy development. A tobacco tax would generate sufficient funds for at least a $30 billion investment in child care and Head Start. This is a modest part of the total funds that would be raised, and would be an important investment in the healthy development of children." -- Sign a letter to Congress Over 85 national organizations have already signed a letter to Congress urging the passage of a tobacco tax for health child development. If you would like to sign the letter, please visit CDF's web site at . (The letter and a sign-on form are posted on the site...look under "Action Alert!") If you don't have access to the web, email to request a copy of the letter. Please help get other organizations, coalitions, and agencies in your state to sign-on as well. Please sign-on to the letter by Thursday, February 12th. We will continue to accept sign-ons indefinitely but time is of the essence -- these decisions are being made right now. *** Child Health *** --- URGE CONFIRMATION OF DR. DAVID SATCHER --- The United States Senate will vote on Tuesday, February 10th, on whether to end debate on the confirmation of David Satcher, M.D., to be Surgeon General and Assistant Secretary for Health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. 60 votes are necessary to end Senate debate and thus allow a confirmation vote. Please contact Senators Shelby (AL), Specter (PA), Hutchison (TX), Hatch (UT), D'Amato (NY), Bond (MO), G. Smith (WA), McCain (AZ), and Stevens (AK) and urge them to vote to end the Senate debate on the nomination and to support confirmation of Dr. Satcher (U.S. Capitol Switchboard #: 202/224-3121). As Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Satcher has been a champion of efforts to immunize America's children, resulting in the best immunization levels in the history of the United States. *** Conference *** --- EARLY-BIRD REGISTRATION EXTENDED --- This is a reminder that you have one week to take advantage of our special early-bird rates! We have extended our early-bird registration for the 25th Anniversary Children's Defense Fund Conference until February 13,1998! Don't miss this opportunity to benefit from the discounted rates and send your registration forms in now! --- MEDIA TRAINING TRACK --- "Communicating Through The Media" Speaker: Heidi Berenson, Media Consultant 9:00 am to 5:00 p.m., Wednesday, March 25th Return home with the tools you need to be heard in your community as a strong voice for children. Learn to deliver clear, concise and compelling media messages; how to target audiences with specific messages crafted for maximum effectiveness and resonance; how to get the media -- print, radio or television -- to use your information and make you a resource; how to create effective media plans, write press releases, handle interviews and appear on radio and television talk shows. Led by media consultant and former ABC Good Morning America, CBS News and CNN Crossfire producer Heidi Berenson, you will have the opportunity to practice crafting and "pitching" story ideas to the media, and will even be able to watch and critique tapes of yourself, and your classmates, participating in mock television interviews. Get savvy with this not-to-be missed opportunity to hone your media skills. ** Call the CDF Conference Hot-line at 202/662-3684 or visit the CDF Website at: , or for a registration brochure, send an email to: . ****************************************************************** -- OUR STRENGTH IS IN OUR NUMBERS -- SHARE THIS LEGISLATIVE UPDATE WITH YOUR FRIENDS!!! Our typical email is about a page or two long and generally comes once a week. To join our legislative update email list, sign-up on our website or send an email to: and write in the body of the message: subscribe cdfupdate PLEASE NOTE: WHEN SUBSCRIBING OR CANCELING YOUR SUBSCRIPTION, PLEASE DO NOT SURROUND YOUR ADDRESS WITH BRACKETS. Kimberly Taylor Children's Defense Fund 25 E Street, NW Washington, DC 20001 202/662-3540 (fax) CDFupdate@childrensdefense.org "What is done to children, they will do to society." --Karl Menninger From RODRIGUEZ@cui.edu Sat Feb 7 09:42:17 1998 From: RODRIGUEZ@cui.edu Date: Sat, 07 Feb 1998 08:41:49 -0800 (PST) Subject: Marx, racism and probable inevitabilities To: psn@csf.colorado.edu To Alan Spector: I'd like to take you on another path. I like the notion of "probably inevitable" because it does allow for historical contingencies, however with the hindsight of what we know today about the past (with all its murkiness) I still wonder about the two following examples: <> <> Charles Mills, an African American philosopher from the University of Illinois, Chicago has written an important book, "The racial Contract." (1997) which should be obligatory reading for all progressives interested in political theory. He argues, basically that the notion of the "social contract" that has been central to political philosophy (Hobbes, Locke, Kant, Rousseau etc.) is an ideal abstraction that should be substituted with a more rooted notion: the Racial Contract. He sees the "social contract" as a contract between whites that determines the personhood of some and the subpersonhood of others. In other words it created the bi-polar racial structures that we contend with today. The neat thing about the social contract and those who accept it is that the Racial Contract is invisible. But it is not invisible for those who are caught in the trap of subpersonhood. Which is why he also talks about the epistemological contract that is part of this process. Whites see certain things and not others. While Marxism has made significant advances in understanding the experience of race and ethnicity (while post-modern approaches while insightful are political dead ends) it is still blind to this Racial Contract. Your notion of "probably inevitable" is moved closer to the "inevitable" pole because German Marxists did not "see" the racialization of Jews. However, it is interesting how Hitler was clear about this despite not being a Marxist himself. For example, Hitler's grounded his ideology on the history of European white supremacist ideology as it was applied in colonial societies (see some of this speeches). European reaction to his barbarities were (again blinded by their epistemology) "how dare you do what had been only allowable in the colonies" (or the internal colonies in a metaphorical sense)? Kant, the father of European moral theory is also the father of the modern concept of race. His 1775 essay "The Different Races of Mankind" (Von den Verschieden Rassen der Menschen") is a classic pro-hereditarian, anti-environmentalist statement of "the immutability and permanence of race." Ironically, Marxist saw the fissures of race but being themselves socialized in the social contract between whites did not see the racialization process taking place within their body politic. I think that for Marxism being able to reconstitute itself as a viable pole of political resistance against "neoliberalism" today (which Lenin and Marx analyzed so well) it must move from just saying that it is against racism, sexism etc and see these isms not merely as epiphenomena (which they are, but give the epistemology of people they function as real phenomena) but as central to the capitalism mode of exploitation and if not central to any political project will also be central to any future "socialist" form of society (yes socialism can be racist, we have the Russian, Chinese etc experience).. Victor M. Rodriguez Irvine, CA rodriguez@cui.edu http:/ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/VictorMRodriguez From dhenwood@panix.com Sat Feb 7 21:27:30 1998 Sat, 7 Feb 1998 23:27:20 -0500 (EST) Date: Sat, 7 Feb 1998 23:27:18 -0500 To: PEN-L@GALAXY.CSUCHICO.EDU, pkt@csf.colorado.edu, ipe-cafe@csf.colorado.edu, psn@csf.colorado.edu, femecon-l@bucknell.edu From: Doug Henwood Subject: more LBO web updates I've further updated the LBO web site. * U.S. employment and earnings figures through January 1998 - just 18 hours after their release by the BLS! This institutes what we hope will be regular updates of major U.S. economics series as they are released; coming imminently, GDP. See for a gateway. The earnings chart shows a pickup in real earnings over the last year or two sufficient to turn the 1990s average positive. Is this the end of the long slide in real wages? A cyclical blip to be reversed byt he next recession? An artifact of some CPI technical revisions? * Expanded links . Doug -- Doug Henwood Left Business Observer 250 W 85 St New York NY 10024-3217 USA +1-212-874-4020 voice +1-212-874-3137 fax email: web: From MGWENG01@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU Sun Feb 8 18:50:37 1998 From: MGWENG01@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU Date: 8 Feb 1998 20:51:40 EST To: Subject: Haunting spectres... In this time when we observe/commemorate/celebrate the 150th anniversary of the publication of the only really good news the producing classes of history have ever received, we should also note the uncanny timliness of its plangent insights. The first substantive statement in the CM, a prefatory one, notes that a spectre/ghost/phantom haunts the rulers of Europe: that of communism. Despite the terrible defeats of 1848- and the later ones of 1871... and 1919... and 1924... and Spain... and Indonesia... and Chile... and so on, not to mention Gdansk and the Reign of the Fools in Moscow... and the jests of Fukiyama and Buckley. .. the bourgeoisie still cannot sleep well at night. For the latest evidence of this, see the monstrous falsifiction of histpry in the current NYT, in which the chilling rebirth of Nazism is blamed on- what else- communism! The absurdity of the text needs little comment other than gagging noises- it is the subtext of continuing fear which needs to be underlined. Why should the bourgeoisie toss and turn at night? Is their dominion not now secure for all time? Apparently THEY don't think so. All it takes is the heroic struggle of a few people in Chiapas, which sets spark to a movement which, within weeks, sets aflame the whole of Mexico, and the bourgeoisie sends for its jesters and tale-tellers of the cap press and the captive academy to spin bedtime stories of the end of History. All it takes is a sidelong glance at the metaphorical portrait of Dorian Brownshirt, wherein the bourgeoisie apprehends its gibbering self, stripped of velvet gloves of legitimacy, enmailed and begored by mega-violence and mass death, to send for the sedative of pseudohistory. As Marx, Engels- and Lukacs- understood, in the bizarre ideological inversions of the bourgeois epoch, the bourgeoisie sees,in some ways and at some times, through its camera obscura darkly, what the proletariat and its intellectual friends fail to apprehend in their sweetest dreams- reports of our death have been greatly exaggerated! TELEPHONE: (502) 852-6836 INTERNET: MGWENG01@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU From goertzel@crab.rutgers.edu Mon Feb 9 05:35:40 1998 for PSN@csf.COLORADO.EDU; Mon, 9 Feb 1998 07:35:33 -0500 (EST) Date: Mon, 9 Feb 98 7:35:33 EST From: Ted Goertzel To: PSN@csf.COLORADO.EDU Subject: Marcy Obituary I thought psn members might be interested in the following obituary from today's NY Times. I include some excerpts, which remind me of some of the people on psn in their devotion to their ideals under difficult circumstamces. Another interesting Times article is the Sunday book review of The Commanding Heights by Daniel Yergin and Joseph Stanislaw, A new book which details the history of the triumph of "liberal" views over the mixed-economy as well as the state socialist traditions which were dominant after world war II. It is an interesting book, especially its history of the Thatcher revolution (or counterrevolution, whatever term you prefer). I suspect it would be painful reading for many psn'ers, who might prefer to read Sam Marcy. for the full text of the obit, surf to: http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/national/obit-marcy.html By ROBERT McG. THOMAS Jr. New YORK -- Sam Marcy, an unabashed, unreconstructed and uncommonly prolific Marxist-Leninist, died on Feb. 1 at Cabrini Medical Center in Manhattan. He was 86 and as the founder of the Workers World Party had never wavered in his devotion to what he saw as the pure, shining core of an authentic political philosophy tarnished by tyranny and undermined by apostasy. For all his devotion to Marx, Marcy, who belonged to many socialist groups over the years, seems to have been suspicious of the Communist Party from the beginning, blaming German Communists, for example, both for allowing the Nazi takeover, and then for abandoning the class struggle altogether. He had similar misgivings about the Communist Party in the United States, deriding party leaders as bourgeoise fellow travelers. Appalled by Stalin's murderous reign, he was even more appalled by what he viewed as the hand-wringing Communist quislings who used Stalin's crimes as an excuse to temper their support of the Soviet Union. It was not easy for a party to meet Marcy's tough Marxist standards. After helping to organize a Socialist Workers Party branch in Buffalo, Marcy became so disenchanted with the party's direction that in 1959 he, his wife, Dorothy Ballan, and others formed the Workers World Party. Yet he remained an optimist. He reached only a tiny audience, but Marcy took comfort in his belief that he was writing for the ages, that the day would come, perhaps after a resurgent American labor movement had finally routed capitalism, when he would be read with awe and gratitude. From rsaute@email.gc.cuny.edu Mon Feb 9 06:49:54 1998 Date: Mon, 9 Feb 1998 08:49:48 -0500 (EST) From: "Robert Saute, CUNY Grad Center" To: Progressive Sociologists Network Subject: Burch's Two Volumes on Right-Wind Politics Under Bush & Reagan(fwd) The books below are major books by Phil Burch, representing a culmination of years of work on the issues of whom is precisely behind the right-wing networks in the United States. It promises to be a basic reference source. SUPPLEMENT 1 (1997), RESEARCH IN POLITICAL ECONOMY REAGAN, BUSH, AND RIGHT-WING POLITICS: ELITES, THINK TANKS, POWER AND POLICY, by Philip H. Burch, Rutgers University In this multi-volume work the author argues that recently organized right-wing interests rose to power during the Reagan and Bush years, and exerted great influence in these two administration, particularly the former. (Introduction and summary for both Parts appear in Volume 16 of the Research in Political Economy.) --------- PART A: THE AMERICAN RIGHT-WING TAKES COMMAND: KEY EXECUTIVE BRANCH APPOINTMENTS In the first major volume, Burch takes a close look at the economic background and think thank ties of many of the people appointed to high posts in these rightist regimes--officials such as the CIA's William Casey, Reagan's first Secretary of the Interior, James Watt, his second-term Attorney General (and first-term high White House aide) Edwin Meese, and Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger. All of these men were connected to some part of America's new Counter-Establishment, a complex headed by such groups as the American Enterprise Institute, Committee on the Present Danger, Heritage Foundation, Institute for Contemporary Studies, and the (Joseph Coors-backed) Mountain States Legal Foundation. This skewed recruitment pattern also held true for many of the second- and third- level posts in the adminstration of Ronald Reagan and, to a lesser extent, George Bush. Preface and Forward SECTION I: THE REAGAN ADMINISTRATION 1. President Reagan and the Key White House Staff (first term) 2. Reagan's Departments of State, Treasury, and Defense (first term) 3. Reagan's White House Staff and Key Inner Cabinet (second term) 4. Reagan's Department of Justice (and related agencies) 5. Reagan's Departments of the Interior and Energy (and EPA) 6. Reagan's Departments of Commerce, Labor, and Agriculture (and ancillary agencies) 7. Reagan's Departments of Education, Health, and Human Services, HUD, and Transportation SECTION II: THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION 8. The 1998 Election, George Bush, and His White House Staff 9. George Bush's Inner Cabinet (and other related posts) 10. Bush's Outer Cabinet Departments 442 pages, Index, December 1997 --------- PART B: THE AMERICAN RIGHT WING AT COURT AND IN ACTION: SUPREME COURT NOMINATIONS AND MAJOR POLICYMAKING Following the same line of analysis in the second part of this work, the author found that four of the six people appointed to the Supreme Court (or elevated to the top post of Chief Justice) during this period were closely associated, at one time or another, with right-wing think tanks -- namely, William Rehnquist, Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia, and Clarence Thomas. Since "people make policy" (an old axiom), it is not surprising that public policy in the Reagan and Bush years took a sharp turn to the right. This was particularly true in such important files as foreign policy, military spending, and economics and taxation. In the last two chapters of this book, Burch presents detailed case studies of the political and economic forces at work in the Iran-Contra affair and SDI (Star Wars) program. Preface and Forward 1. The Reagan/Bush Supreme Court: A Bench Happily Filled? 2. Reaganomics: Financial Reform or 'Voodoo' Economics? 3. The Reaganite Military Buildup: An American Folly? 4. The 'Red Specter' in the Caribbean: Grenada and the Iran-Contra Affair 305 pages, Index, December 1997 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Submissions: RESEARCH IN POLITICAL ECONOMY Paul Zarembka, General Editor Department of Economics State University of New York at Buffalo Buffalo, New York 14260 E-Mail: zarembka@acsu.buffalo.edu Fax: (716) 645-2127 . . . Tel: 645-2121 ext. 38 Orders: JAI Press, Inc. 55 Old Post Road - No. 2 P.O. Box 1678 Greenwich, Connecticut 06836-1678 E-mail: order@jaipress.com Fax: (203) 661-0792 . . . Tel: (203) 661-7602 JAI Press, Ltd. 38 Tavistock Street Covent Garden London WC2E 7PB, U.K. E-mail: jai@cix.co.uk Fax: +44 171 379 8835 . . Tel: +44 171 379 8834 ********************************************************************** Paul Zarembka, using OS/2 and supporting RESEARCH IN POLITICAL ECONOMY at http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/PZarembka *********************************************************************** From YLPSLL0@cpua.it.luc.edu Mon Feb 9 09:35:48 1998 Date: Mon, 09 Feb 98 10:35 CST From: YLPSLL0@cpua.it.luc.edu To: psn@CSF.COLORADO.EDU Subject: Yes Ted, there remains a Marxist critique and praxis Those who delight in the demise of formerly existing socialism and rejoice in the free market neo-liberalism of global capital in its current phase tend to be quite myopic. The NYT, one of the major cheerleaders of capital recently ran a sorry on Argentina. It document ed in detail what Martha told us last year, Good news, the market and economy are up, good news, global capital and local capitalist elites are doing well, BAD NEWS, many lost jobs, average standard of living has declined, inequality up. But Ted and other cheerleaders, we can look at other countries, and let us stick with Mercosur. I was just in Brazil. I couln't believe how much it changed in the last 4 years. Prices have tripled, on average about 20% higher than US, and Oh yes, a factory worker gets $200 month. Wonder why auto companies are rushing there. In an "unrelated" article, we now see that Latin America is now the crime capital of the world as more and more folks are impoverished, a globalized capitalist media encourages consumption based identities etc. So it may be a bit premature to gloat. If we chart the origins of capital in the 12thC with the expansion of trade with the Levant, or 16th C with the discovery of the New world, it took almost 700 to 400 years for the critique to first emerge, lets just say in 1844 +/- a few years. While I would much deplore all of the abuses of Soviet style communism, the gulags, secret police and genocide, we should also note that Lenin and Stalin moved a rural society into modernity and even yet Russia is a major player in the world scene. But I do not want to dwell on the past. I for one argue that we really need to revise our critique of capitalist domination. In many previous posts I have noted that we no longer live in a 2nd wave economy but a 3d wave in which computers, knowledge and expertise prod uce value, in which the proletariat are being destroyed in the advanced capitalist countries of the world. The information highway leads some to riches, like Gates or Eisner, but for many, far more, a dead end leading nowhere. Marxism is now at a very exciting stage as we better understand how domination becomes insinuated at the levels of identity, how we must rethink value theory considering semiotics in and informat- ion age. (This is an unabashed self promotion encouraging everyone to come to ISA in Montreal to my session in which Gottdiener, Kellner and Postone will be talking on these issues. Further, if you mention this ad and present the coupon below, you will be admitted to the RC 36 cocktail party courtesy of your hosts Devorah Kalekin president and little old me, treasurer.) I could go on an talk about the emerging alternative proferred by advocates of market socialism, ESOPS like United Air Lines, the workers in France, but as most of us know, facts little change interpretations. But dear Ted, there is a difference between Santa and socialism. True, both are rooted in hopes and unfulfilled wishes, but socialism, as a critique of capitalist domination is rooted in the concrete nature of everyday life for millions of workers and indeed billions of folks in the world. Perhaps it is most apt that socialism be critiqued as the movie Titanic is setting record box offices. Remember what they called it, unsinkable. And the latest theory is that it wasn't the iceberg that did her in, but cheap bolts that sheared. And some capitalist made a few bucks selling bolt with slag rather than iron. AS so many on this list note, there are many clouds behind the silver linings that Buffett in buying up. The reports of the death of Marxism may be premature. Lauren Langman From jsalt@alpha.utampa.edu Mon Feb 9 17:17:03 1998 Date: Mon, 09 Feb 1998 19:19:13 -0500 From: Jim Salt To: PROGRESSIVE SOCIOLOGISTS NETWORK Subject: Lit on teaching poor/minority (high school) students PSNers, Can anyone recommend literature on teaching poor/minority (high school) students. A former (excellent) student is now in the classroom in a very poor, mixed ethnicity neighborhood (black, white, and Latino (Mexican, PR, Dominican Republic, and Cuban)), and facing the all too common difficulties. He asked me for references to lit that might help him address the various issues he's facing (his pedagogical training offered nothing to address this!). Any recommendations will be greatly appreciated. -- Jim Salt jsalt@alpha.utampa.edu Box 90F Dept. of History, Political Science, & Sociology University of Tampa 401 W. Kennedy Blvd. Tampa FL 33606-1450 813-253-3333 X3651 "The philosophers have only _interpreted_ the world, in various ways; the point, however, is to _change_ it." --- Karl Marx, Theses on Feuerbach From jnaiman@acs.ryerson.ca Tue Feb 10 08:08:21 1998 Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 10:09:33 -0500 (EST) From: Joanne Naiman To: "progressive sociol.net." Subject: C4ED-L THE FUTURE OF THE MAI... (fwd) FYI __________________________________ Joanne Naiman Department of Sociology Ryerson Polytechnic University 350 Victoria St. Toronto, Ontario CANADA M5B 2K3 Tel: (416) 979 5000, ext. 7047 Fax: (416) 979 5273 E-Mail: jnaiman@acs.ryerson.ca ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 09 Feb 1998 20:37:19 -0500 From: Bob Olsen To: mai-not@flora.org Subject: C4ED-L THE FUTURE OF THE MAI... "Engering is personally putting the heat on Canada, citing them by name as a country that needs to back down on the culture issue." Message from Washington forwarded...... Date: Mon, 9 Feb 1998 16:19:49 -0500 (EST) From: Chantell Taylor Subject: THE FUTURE OF THE MAI... WE CAN MAKE AN IMPACT BY CALLING TODAY!! For international subscribers, call your government representatives and urge them to pull-out of negotiations immediately! In the US, call JEFFREY LANG -- Deputy Trade Representative at the United States PHONE: (202)395-5114 FAX: (202)395-4549 EMAIL: JLANG@USTR.GOV ***TOMORROW, FEBRUARY 10TH IS NATIONAL CALL-IN DAY TO SENATE*** CALL YOUR SENATORS' DC OR DISTRICT OFFICES AND TELL THEM YOU WANT THE US TO PULL-OUT OF MAI NEGOTIATIONS IMMEDIATELY! YOU CAN USE THIS TOLL-FREE NUMBER, 1-800-522-6721 THESE NOTES JUST IN...... Franz Engering, the chairman of the MAI negotiating group, paid a visit to the US last friday and spoke to US Government agencies and some US press. His message was: 1. The future of the MAI is boiling down to whether the US wants the agreement or not. 2. On environmental and labor issues, a compromise is available for a binding clause on not lowering standards to attract investment. 3. For the business community and the United States Trade Representative's office (which are concerned that the MAI does not include much up front liberalization) there can be a committment from countries for another round of negotiations in 2 or 3 years that would lead to roll back of reservations. 4. The US will need to modify its broad reservations on subsidies & government procurement but open ended reservations will likely be allowed. 5. Rumors are that Canada may walk away from the MAI because they are unlikely to get a broad cultural exception. The US and EU are nearing common ground that they don't want to reopen theit fight over audivisual industries. Engering is personally putting the heat on Canada, citing them by name as a country that needs to back down on the culture issue. US agencies were reportedly non-committal to Engering because the US interagency team on the MAI is meeting this wednesday to come up with the governments' position for the high level meetings next week. ***CALL YOUR GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS AND IN THE US, CALL YOUR SENATORS ON TUESDAY FEBRUARY 10TH!*** From rross@clarku.edu Tue Feb 10 08:29:18 1998 id IAA08329; Tue, 10 Feb 1998 08:29:09 -0700 (MST) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 10:17:38 -0500 From: "Robert J.S. Bob Ross" Subject: Poultry violations To: Labor List , Progressive Sociology Network , Campaign for Labor Rights >From New York Times February 10, 1998 Overtime Violations at Poultry Plants By STEVEN GREENHOUSE EW YORK -- Federal inspectors found that more than 60 percent of the nation's poultry processing plants violated overtime laws, the Labor Department announced on Monday. The inspectors, who examined 51 of the nation's 174 poultry plants, also found widespread safety problems, among them frequent back injuries that usually occurred when workers slipped on wet and greasy floors. Deputy Secretary of Labor Kathryn Higgins said that federal inspectors conducted the survey, first, to encourage the industry to improve working conditions and, second, to better understand conditions in plants populated by immigrant, low-wage workers. Federal regulators said the most frequent overtime violations involved the industry's undercounting of the hours worked by chicken catchers, who travel to farms to catch chickens and take them to the plants. These officials said 60 percent of the plants failed to pay the chicken catchers proper overtime, while 51 percent failed to pay workers properly for job-related tasks before and after work, like cleaning up and putting on safety equipment. Greg Denier, a spokesman for the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, said "that 60 percent are not in compliance with the wage-and-hour law shows that they're an outlaw industry." But officials with the National Broiler Council, the industry association, defended the poultry plants by asserting that the level of violations was high mainly because the Labor Department was enforcing the law differently from the way it previously had. David Wylie, a lawyer for the council, said that for 60 years federal officials had regarded chicken catchers as agricultural employees, who are not covered by federal overtime laws, rather than as industrial employees, who are covered. -- Robert J.S. Ross Professor and Chair Department of Sociology Clark University 950 Main Street Worcester, Massachusetts 01610 Voice: 508 793 7376 Fax: 508 793 8816 Webpage: http://www.clarku.edu/~rross From MGWENG01@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU Tue Feb 10 16:07:36 1998 From: MGWENG01@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU Date: 10 Feb 1998 18:08:34 EST To: FROM: Morton G. Wenger, Professor Department of Sociology University of Louisville, Louisville, KY 40292 USA Subject: KENTUCKY COMMONWEALTH POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWS IN THE HUMANITIES Perhaps somebody out there in psn-land might be interested in this... TELEPHONE: (502) 852-6836 INTERNET: MGWENG01@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU *** Forwarding note from MAILER --ULKYVM 02/10/98 15:48 *** ========================================================================= Return-Path: 15:48:29 -0500 release 1.8c) with spool id 4076 for AS-FAC@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU; [136.165.1.20]) by unix1.it-datacntr.louisville.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) asdean-18.art-sci.louisville.edu [136.165.28.58] claimed to be deanoff Approved-By: "David W. Baugh" Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 15:44:46 -0500 Reply-To: "David W. Baugh" Sender: Faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences From: "David W. Baugh" Subject: KENTUCKY COMMONWEALTH POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWS IN THE HUMANITIES To: AS-FAC@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU The University of Louisville and the University of Kentucky announce three joint UK/UofL postdoctoral fellowships in the humanities. These positions are part o f a new Commonwealth Humanities initiative of the two Universities. The joint s earch committee seeks candidates who are creative and show promise for innovativ e and integrative humanities research and teaching, along with disciplinary expe rtise in a humanities field. Each Commonwealth Humanities Fellow will be associated with one or more senior s cholars and will participate in scholarly work leading to publication and presen tation. The Fellow will be expected to design and teach up to two courses per s emester. These courses may include traditional lecture-based or seminar courses and other, novel teaching experiences. The Fellow will be expected to design a nd teach up to two courses per semester. These courses may include traditionallecture-based or seminar courses and other innovative teaching experiences. The teaching assignment will be based on the complexity of the courses, nature of t he research program and unique projects of the Fellow. Courses may be team taught. Each Fellow will have a primary scholar-mentor at either UofL or at UK and be lo cated there. He or she will spend at least one week of each semester teaching s tudents and presenting research seminars at the partner institution. Fellows wi ll be involved also in community-based projects in the humanities. Candidates from the humanities and humanistically-inflected social science disciplines are eligible. The successful candidate will hold the Ph.D. by the time o f appointment. Along with a letter of application, send a vita, evidence of successful teaching, an abstract of the dissertation, a one-page description of aproposed undergraduate course and a one-page description of current and future r esearch interests. Applicants should arrange for three letters of recommendatio n from senior scholars, at least two from their discipline, to be sent to the ad dress below. The Joint Search Committee will begin review of applications on March 1, 1998 an d continue until all positions are filled. The appointments may begin as earlyas August 1998. Fellows will receive $ 29,000 plus benefits (according to the policies of the hiring institution). The program has a travel budget to support Fellows in attending professional meetings to make presentations. The Fellow is evaluated each year, and the appointment may be renewed. Fellows will have two weeks vacation (10 working days), in addition to holidays observed by the hiring institution. Send applications to: Professor Wolfgang Natter UK/UofL Humanities Initiative 201 Gillis Building University of Kentucky Lexington, Kentucky 40506-0033 The University of Louisville and the University of Kentucky are affirmative action/equal opportunity employers. Women and minority members are especially encou raged to apply. For further information contact Philip Alperson (paalpe01@homer.louisville.edu) at the Commonwealth Center for the Humanities and Society. Philip Alperson, Dept. of Philosophy, University of Louisville Tel.: 502.852.0458 JAAC: 502.852.4768 FAX: 502.852.0459 Web: http://www.louisville.edu/a-s/phil osophy E-Mail: paalpe01@homer.louisville.edu David W. Baugh Email: d.baugh@louisville.edu College of Arts & Sciences PHONE: (502) 852-6490 University of Louisville FAX: (502) 852-6888 Louisville, KY 40292 Web: http://www.louisville.edu/~dwbaug01/ From Dave.Byrne@durham.ac.uk Wed Feb 11 02:11:15 1998 Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 09:11:04 +0000 (GMT) From: D S Byrne Subject: Concealed unemployment in US? Both the OECD and various postmodernist European leftists (their politics are respectable left - I'm thinking of Claus Offe etc) argue that advanced industrial economies have a permanent surplus population which is no longer required even as a reserve army of labour. The origins of this account lie in a parallel drawn between productivity gains in agriculture since the late 1700s and recent productivity gains in manufacturing productivity. When challenged by the reality of 'the great American jobs machine' and the existence of virtual full employment in the US, albeit with a base of low pay, they argue that this is concealed unemployment and represents no more than workfare. I think this is wrong and that what we are seeing is a process of the internalization of combined and uneven development, what Goran Therborn has called 'the Brazilianization of advanced capitalism'. A key empirical demonstration of this latter argument depends on the rates of profit obtained from low wage sectors. My understanding is that rates of profit in low paying sectors in the US economy are very high - I know this is true for Health although of course this is a sector with internal divisions (although - am I right here - only Physicians have high pay within it). Any info and / or views on this matter ? Note that European economies generally have much higher rates of formal unemployment than the US, although, with the exception of the UK which seems to have the worst of both systems, this is associated with good job protection and high rates of wage substitution benefits for those with citizenship status. David Byrne Dept of Sociology and Social Policy University of Durham Elvet Riverside New Elvet Durham DH1 3JT 0191-374-2319 0191-0374-4743 fax From gimenez@csf.Colorado.EDU Wed Feb 11 09:35:07 1998 Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 09:35:01 -0700 (MST) From: Martha Gimenez To: PSN@CSF.COLORADO.EDU Subject: ON LINE SEMINAR WITH GARY MARX PSN Seminar on The Search for Meaning in Academic Life Gary Marx has written a thought provoking essay listing 37 moral imperatives for aspiring sociologists which he would like to discuss with others interested in the connections between intellectual endeavours and one's personal life. For that purpose, we have organized this e-seminar, the first of what we hope will be a number of creative and successful discussions around work written by members of PSN, the Progressive Sociologist Network. Date: February 18 - 24, 1998 Format: To participate in the seminar, send mail to LISTPROC@csf.colorado.edu in the message proper write sub psn-seminars firstname lastname Gary Marx will be on line and the discussion will be informal at the beginning. If the number of subscribers is large and the number of daily messages increase accordingly, the seminar will become moderated, so that only the best messages are posted. The proceedings will archived in the PSN archives. Location: you can find the seminar papers at the following url http://csf.colorado.edu/psn/seminars or you can send mail to listproc@csf.colorado.edu with this message: get psn-seminars aspiring-sociologists INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT The careers and lives that shape the work we do as academics are rarely discussed in the classroom or in our writing. There are of course good reasons for this. But in our training of graduate students and mentoring those starting out we need to give greater attention to making explicit the insights and wisdom that we pass on informally. In general, I find the image of the profession presented to our students to be unduly timid, antiseptic, laundered, formal and scholastic. It is important for teachers and mentors to discuss the more personal and professional sides of the discipline, even as we encourage students to find their own answers. We need to see the bigger picture, to locate ourselves within it, to reflect on why and how we do our work and on what gives meaning to our lives. A little anticipatory socialization might prevent many a mid-life crisis. This on-line seminar will discuss the search for meaning in academic lives taking off from a series of papers by Gary T. Marx. It primarily addresses those who have the good fortune to find permanent academic jobs. A core document for the discussion is "Of Methods and Manners for Aspiring Sociologists: 37 Moral Imperatives", The American Sociologist, Spring 1977. Parts of three other relevant papers may also be found on the web page created for the seminar: "Second Thoughts and Enduring Tensions" from "Recent Developments in Undercover Policing" on unresolved issues and choices in finishing a large research project in T. Blomberg and S. Cohen, Punishment and Social Control: Essays in Honor of Sheldon Messinger, 1995 Aldyne de Gruyter); "Seven Characteristics of Success" from "Reflections on Academic Success and Failure Making It, Forsaking It, Reshaping It" in B. Berger, Authors of Their Own Lives, 1990, Univ. of California Press; "Introduction" in Muckraking Sociology Research as Social Criticism, 1972 Transaction Books on social relevance and social research. A full version of the papers can be found at http://socsci.colorado.edu/~marxg/garyhome.html Gary Marx is interested in learning what kinds of mentoring advice others offer and welcomes criticism of this material and suggestions for further reading. ------------------------------ Cut here ------------------------------ ------------------------------ Cut here ------------------------------ From dassbach@mtu.edu Wed Feb 11 09:05:31 1998 Wed, 11 Feb 1998 11:05:07 -0500 (EST) Wed, 11 Feb 1998 11:05:06 -0500 (EST) Wed, 11 Feb 1998 11:05:03 -0500 (EST) From: "Carl H.A. Dassbach" To: Subject: Re: Concealed unemployment in US? Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 11:13:48 -0500 boundary="----=_NextPart_000_009C_01BD36DE.20701D60" This is a multi-part message in MIME format. ------=_NextPart_000_009C_01BD36DE.20701D60 charset="iso-8859-1" -----Original Message----- From: D S Byrne To: PROGRESSIVE SOCIOLOGISTS NETWORK Date: Wednesday, February 11, 1998 9:40 AM Subject: Concealed unemployment in US? David Byrne wrote: >Both the OECD and various postmodernist European leftists (their politics >are respectable left - I'm thinking of Claus Offe etc) argue that advanced >industrial economies have a permanent surplus population which is no >longer required even as a reserve army of labour. The origins of this >account lie in a parallel drawn between productivity gains in agriculture >since the late 1700s and recent productivity gains in manufacturing >productivity. When challenged by the reality of 'the great American jobs >machine' and the existence of virtual full employment in the US, albeit >with a base of low pay, they argue that this is concealed unemployment and >represents no more than workfare. I think this is wrong and that what we >are seeing is a process of the internalization of combined and uneven >development, what Goran Therborn has called 'the Brazilianization of >advanced capitalism'. I don't think that the low paying jobs in the US can be seen as concealed unemployment - this is a fantasy. These people are working although most European would not consider this employment a job, given the conditions under which most Americans work (lack of security, lack of inusrance, lack of vacations, etc). The Brazilianization thesis is new to me but I don't think that is is apporpriate either. Instead, I believe that we are seeing the so-to-speak downside of the development of post-industrial society. (I can't go into all the details here but my observations are based on an exmaination of data and discussions of wage trends in the US) This downside is the displacement of of low skilled or unskilled (non-college educated) workers and even some college educated workers (more specifically, the lower tiers of mental and the upper tiers of manual hieraching in manufacturing) from industry - with high median wage and less extreme polarization of wages - to services, with a low median wage and a far more extreme polarization of wages. This displacement has many sources/causes. Two which I feel are of partricualr importance are the newest forms of computer based automation and offshore manufacturing. Whatever the causes, the result is an attack on middle income groups in the United States (the disappearance of the middle class thesis runs through much of the literature on wages, etc). But, this raises a problem - if the middle class is shrinking/disappearing , who will provide the mass consumption to complete the Regulationist's 'virtuous ciricle", i.e. the linking of mass production and mass consumption. My sense is that this linking may be becoming increasing unnecssary as we move away from mass production (or Fordist) models of industrial organization to post-Fordist models of customized production and what Kenney and Florida call "micro-mass" consumption where producers can still generate substantial profits on far lower volumes. (I am referring to Kenney and Florida's tenative outline of what they call Fujitsuism, as an alternative to the Fordist regulation, at the end of their book BEYOND MASS PRODUCTION - unfortunately, I can't lay my hands on the book at this time but I believe this was the discussion in the last chapter). Hence, post-industrial societies may, in fact, have a far greater ploarization than industrial societies as middle class jobs are eliminated through automation and export and mass consumption becomes far less important in sustaining industry. I am still in the process of thinking through these things but my sense is that industrial society may in fact, be a brief historical interlude where the mass of society was able to experience rising levels of consumption and post-industrial society may more closely resemble an agricultural society (even under conditions of capitalist agriculture) where there was, albeit for different reasons, a fairly small middle income group A key empirical demonstration of this latter >argument depends on the rates of profit obtained from low wage sectors. My >understanding is that rates of profit in low paying sectors in the US >economy are very high - I know this is true for Health although of course >this is a sector with internal divisions (although - am I right here - >only Physicians have high pay within it). Any info and / or views on this >matter ? Unfortunately, as attractive as rates of profit are as a way of analyzing sectors of the economy, I don't really think they tell us much about the actual performance becuase profit is only a small portion of surplus and there is simply no way to measure surplus. Carl Dassbach --------------------------- Carl H.A. Dassbach DASSBACH@MTU.EDU Dept. of Social Sciences (906)487-2115 - Phone Michigan Technological Univ. (906)487-2468 - Fax Houghton, MI 49931 (906)482-8405 - Private ------=_NextPart_000_009C_01BD36DE.20701D60 name="Carl H.A Dassbach.vcf" filename="Carl H.A Dassbach.vcf" BEGIN:VCARD VERSION:2.1 N:Dassbach;Carl;H.A FN:Carl H.A Dassbach ORG:Dept. of Social Sciences TEL;WORK;VOICE:(906)487-2115 TEL;HOME;VOICE:(906)482-8405 TEL;WORK;FAX:(906)487-2468 ADR;WORK;ENCODING=3DQUOTED-PRINTABLE:;;Michigan Tech. = Univ.=3D0D=3D0A1400 Townsend Drive;Houghton;MI;49931;USA LABEL;WORK;ENCODING=3DQUOTED-PRINTABLE:Michigan Tech. = Univ.=3D0D=3D0A1400 Townsend Drive=3D0D=3D0AHoughton, MI = 49931=3D0D=3D0AU=3D SA ADR;HOME:;;500 Quincy St.;Houghton;MI;49931;USA LABEL;HOME;ENCODING=3DQUOTED-PRINTABLE:500 Quincy St.=3D0D=3D0AHoughton, = MI 49931=3D0D=3D0AUSA EMAIL;PREF;INTERNET:dassbach@mtu.edu REV:19980211T161348Z END:VCARD ------=_NextPart_000_009C_01BD36DE.20701D60-- From Hopkinso@psychology.newcastle.edu.au Wed Feb 11 20:33:17 1998 12 Feb 1998 14:30:26 +1100 (EST) Date: Thu, 12 Feb 1998 14:30:01 +1100 From: Shane Hopkinson Subject: Gulf War looming In-reply-to: <19970918.131238.MGWENG01@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU> To: PROGRESSIVE SOCIOLOGISTS NETWORK , MGWENG01@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU Dear PSN'ers I need to do a brief talk on the looming Gulf War II. Does anyone know of any good background material? Any ideas on why the USA wants this war and why now? Shane From Hopkinso@psychology.newcastle.edu.au Wed Feb 11 20:35:24 1998 12 Feb 1998 14:34:53 +1100 (EST) Date: Thu, 12 Feb 1998 14:34:41 +1100 From: Shane Hopkinson Subject: Apologies to Indigenes In-reply-to: <19970918.131238.MGWENG01@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU> To: PROGRESSIVE SOCIOLOGISTS NETWORK , MGWENG01@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU Dear PSN'ers There is a bit of a campaign here in Australia to apologise to Aborigines. This is something the federal government has refused to do (fearing the cost of compensation I guess). There is a 'sorry book' travelling the country so that "we" can all apologise. Personally I think the idea is wrong headed. I understand that the canadian government has issued such an apology and I was curious to know what effect it had (if any), when was it? on what terms etc? Thanks Shane From world-conferences@juno.com Thu Feb 12 01:19:13 1998 id BAA03713; Thu, 12 Feb 1998 01:19:04 -0700 (MST) To: MATHSOC@caligari.Dartmouth.EDU, MedSoc@csf.colorado.edu, MEDSOC@GWUVM.GWU.EDU, OAP585-LIST@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu, psn@csf.colorado.edu, RES-GARD@tamvm1.tamu.edu, restruct@UQuebec.CA, SASH-L@asuvm.inre.asu.edu, scf@catfish.valdosta.peachnet.edu, SCRG@MSU.EDU, sea-l@lmrinet.ucsb.edu, SO010@UMSLVMA.UMSL.EDU, SO200@UMSLVMA.UMSL.EDU, SOC-ECON@unmvma.unm.edu, soc-list@oise.utoronto.ca, soc110@whitman.edu, soc111-l@piper.hamline.edu, SOC180@lists.missouri.edu Subject: IT & Dist Lrng CALL-Papers Proposals Abstracts Moderators Exhibitors X-Juno-Line-Breaks: 0-255 From: world-conferences@juno.com (Int'l Political Science, Development & Info Technology) Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 20:49:30 EST AFRICA * GHANA IT & Dist Lrng CALL-Papers Proposals Abstracts Moderators Exhibitors EVENT: African Information Technology, Distance Learning & Computer Literacy Conference Ghana May 20-22 '98 Invitation to participate ... Please go to the Websites for more info, or PHONE, in the interest of time ____________ Prepared as a courtesy. Dr. J. Thomas-Smith News & Announcements ************* U P D A T E ************* ** WORLD CONFERENCE ANNOUNCEMENT ** CALL-PAPERS, PROPOSALS, ABSTRACTS, MODERATORS, EXHIBITORS, SPONSORS Conference Web site: http://www.ulbobo.com/gdep/ Full program of Pre- & Post-Conference activities being planned Discounted airfares from many cities worldwide, being negotiated Example: Roundtrip NY-GHANA $750 Contact: "Conference Coordinator" for tips on accommodations, travel, activities, etc. +_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+ Your invitation: A list has been set up for attendees, delegates, volunteers and those involved with the staging and fine-tuning of this conference and wishing to explore discount group-rate airfare Please send a msg with "subscribe ghaclad-scope" in the body to: majordomo@igc.org Conference goals, objectives, and subthemes, proposal guidelines, registration procedure, can all be found at the Website: http://www.ulbobo.com/gdep/ http://www.freeyellow.com/members2/african-diaspora/travels.html All ANNOUNCEMENTS will be posted to the Ghaclad-scope List. Please join and stay tuned. __________________ Conference Coordinator: DR. OSEI DARKWA Faculty, University of Illinois PH: 312-996-8508 E-Mail: _____________________________________________ _____________________________________________ Work * Travel * Study AFRICA CUBA BRAZIL Positions: INTERNS - VOLUNTEERS - PROJ DIRS - LEADERS - GUIDES STUDY ABROAD * FIELD STUDY * INTERNSHIPS * WORKCAMPS MULTI-DISCIPLINARY PROJECTS * ACADEMIC CREDIT EcoTOURS * EduTRAVEL Rainforest - Medicine - Health - Agriculture - Comm Dev Farming - Youth Programs - Civilizations, History & Art Multiple trips yr round all 4 seasons * 1 to 7 wks in duration INFO: Send your mailing address to abc@starmail.com For applications & brochures, go to Websites: http://www.freeyellow.com/members2/african-diaspora/index.html http://www.igc.org/oca/ ___________ Dr. J. Thomas-Smith News & Announcements AFRICA * GHANA IT & Dist Lrng CALL-Papers Proposals Abstracts Moderators Exhibitors EVENT: African Information Technology, Distance Learning & Computer Literacy Conference Ghana May 20-22 '98 Invitation to participate ... Please go to the Websites for more info, or PHONE, in the interest of time ____________ Prepared as a courtesy. Dr. J. Thomas-Smith News & Announcements ************* U P D A T E ************* ** WORLD CONFERENCE ANNOUNCEMENT ** CALL-PAPERS, PROPOSALS, ABSTRACTS, MODERATORS, EXHIBITORS, SPONSORS Conference Web site: http://www.ulbobo.com/gdep/ Full program of Pre- & Post-Conference activities being planned Discounted airfares from many cities worldwide, being negotiated Example: Roundtrip NY-GHANA $750 Contact: "Conference Coordinator" for tips on accommodations, travel, activities, etc. +_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+ Your invitation: A list has been set up for attendees, delegates, volunteers and those involved with the staging and fine-tuning of this conference and wishing to explore discount group-rate airfare Please send a msg with "subscribe ghaclad-scope" in the body to: majordomo@igc.org Conference goals, objectives, and subthemes, proposal guidelines, registration procedure, can all be found at the Website: http://www.ulbobo.com/gdep/ http://www.freeyellow.com/members2/african-diaspora/travels.html All ANNOUNCEMENTS will be posted to the Ghaclad-scope List. Please join and stay tuned. __________________ Conference Coordinator: DR. OSEI DARKWA Faculty, University of Illinois PH: 312-996-8508 E-Mail: _____________________________________________ _____________________________________________ Work * Travel * Study AFRICA CUBA BRAZIL Positions: INTERNS - VOLUNTEERS - PROJ DIRS - LEADERS - GUIDES STUDY ABROAD * FIELD STUDY * INTERNSHIPS * WORKCAMPS MULTI-DISCIPLINARY PROJECTS * ACADEMIC CREDIT EcoTOURS * EduTRAVEL Rainforest - Medicine - Health - Agriculture - Comm Dev Farming - Youth Programs - Civilizations, History & Art Multiple trips yr round all 4 seasons * 1 to 7 wks in duration INFO: Send your mailing address to abc@starmail.com For applications & brochures, go to Websites: http://www.freeyellow.com/members2/african-diaspora/index.html http://www.igc.org/oca/ ___________ Dr. J. Thomas-Smith News & Announcements From mkarim@moses.culver.edu Thu Feb 12 07:59:22 1998 12 Feb 98 09:08:08 -600 12 Feb 98 09:07:27 -600 Date: Thu, 12 Feb 98 09:02:59 From: "Manjur Karim" Reply-To: To: psn@csf.colorado.edu, ahs-Talk@ncsu.edu Subject: Fwd: Call to Action About Iraq (fwd) ----- Forwarded message begins here ----- From: hkadhim To: postcolonial-info@jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU Date: Thu, 12 Feb 1998 01:56:17 -0500 (EST) Subject: Call to Action About Iraq (fwd) ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 12 Feb 1998 From: International Action Center To: arabic-info@indiana.edu Subject: Call to Action About Iraq Endorse this call to action. Join hundreds of groups and prominent individuals in supporting the demonstrations against a new bombing of Iraq. Demonstrations have been called from February 17th through February 24. Major demonstrations will happen in cities across the United States. On February 17th there will be mass demonstrations in New York, San Francisco, Boston and Los Angeles. To join the National Emergency Coalition to Stop the War Against Iraq. send your endorsement to the coalition at iacenter@iacenter.org or call 212-633-6646 or fax: 212- 633-2889. Partial List of endorsers: Ramsey Clark, former U.S. Attorney General International Action Center American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, NY, LA Bishop Thomas Gumbleton SF Food Not Bombs Women's Strike for Peace Women for Mutual Security Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney Iraq Action Coalition Voices in the Wilderness Catholic Worker Metro Peace Action NY Emergency Committee Against US Intervention in the Persian Gulf, MN People's Fightback Center, Cleveland, OH Save the Iraqi Children Committee, Los Angeles, CA Michael Tarif Warren, Attorney at Law West Harlem Coalition Iraqi-American Cultural Society National Council on Islamic Affairs Committee in Support of Iraqi People International Relief Association Workfairness War & Peace Foundation All People Congress, Jersey City Dr. Sapphire Ahmed Jessica Smith & Daniel Woulfin, POB-JFK High School Palestinian American Women's Organization Middle East Children's Alliance League of Filipino Students Philippines Information Network Services Workers World Party Global Exchange National Peoples Campaign Andrea Domenici, Pisa, Italy =================================== From the Arabic-Info Mailing List arabic-info@indiana.edu Full Information at http://php.indiana.edu/~hnkadhim/ =================================== --- from list postcolonial-info@lists.village.virginia.edu --- ------ Forwarded message ends here ------ From RPlatkin@aol.com Thu Feb 12 15:11:31 1998 From: RPlatkin@aol.com by imo18.mx.aol.com (IMOv12/Dec1997) id GIKPa25483 Date: Thu, 12 Feb 1998 17:11:21 EST To: psn@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Fwd: Lit on teaching poor/minority (high school) students boundary="part0_887321481_boundary" This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --part0_887321481_boundary This answer was given to me by a friend who is a teacher at an inner city school. It is in response to the questions for advice to beginning teachers in such situations. Dick Platkin rplatkin@aol.com --part0_887321481_boundary From: LindaLuz@aol.com Return-path: To: RPlatkin@aol.com Subject: Re: Lit on teaching poor/minority (high school) students Date: Thu, 12 Feb 1998 11:32:03 EST Organization: AOL (http://www.aol.com) There seem to me to be two kinds of problems someone could be having--how to get control over the classroom and how to address the curriculum to the interests of the students. If you can't do the first, you can't do the second. I recommend for the first, Setting Limits in the Classroom by Robert J. Mackenzie, published by Prima Publishing, I got it from Amazon.com. The broader, more political question, of how to address the question of what to do with a curriculum which attacks students and their families is, of course, a lot harder. People have to be in some kind of network of other teachers talking about how to transform what they do in the classroom into something that relates to students class interests. Rethinking Schools is a good newsletter, but there's no substitute for a support system of like minded people. Linda --part0_887321481_boundary-- From brook@california.com Thu Feb 12 21:52:44 1998 Date: Thu, 12 Feb 1998 20:48:19 -0800 (PST) To: TEACHSOC@poplar.lemoyne.edu, PSN@csf.colorado.edu From: CyberBrook Subject: Cyber-terrorist Against Asian Convicted >Date: Thu, 12 Feb 1998 19:04:39 -0400 >Reply-To: JINGHONG LI >Sender: China-Net >From: JINGHONG LI >Subject: Cyber-terrorist Against Asian Convicted >To: CHINA-NT@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU > >----------------------------------------------------------------------- >Press Release > >February 12, 1998 > > >Cyber-terrorist convicted in Santa Ana > >Richard Machado, an ex-student who could not maintain passing grades at >the University of California, Irvine, was charged with sending death >threats through e-mail to about 60 students of Asian descent. The message >targeted each by name, threatening to make it his "life career" to "hunt >all of you down ....find and kill everyone of you personally". > >Mr. Machado was convicted on February 10 on two counts of interfering >with the federally protected activities of those 60 targeted Asians >students - because of their race, color and national origin. He is >scheduled to appear in court on Friday, February 13. At that time he may >be sentenced. The conviction carries a possible sentence of one year in >federal prison and a fine of $100,000. > >CACRO places primal importance on the first successful conviction of >cyber-terroism. We commends the federal jury for this conviction and >applauds the U. S. Attorney's office for the successful prosecution. > >In view of the increasing hate crimes again Asians and other minorities >in recent years, the federal jury sent a strong and unmistakable signal >that racially motivated crimes will not be tolerated in a pluralistic >society. CACRO hopes that this message will deter the commission of hate >crimes in the future. > >With compassion, we hope that this experience will focus Mr. Machado >towards positive development in his life. > >- end - > >------------------------------------------------------------------------ > >for more information contact, >Ting Huang 310-838-8166 >David Ma 626-288-0688 >Chinese American Civil Rights Organization >CACRO >108 N. Ynez Ave., Suite 200, Monterey Park, Ca. 91754 > > From hadjicosta_j@utpb.edu Fri Feb 13 09:54:57 1998 Date: Fri, 13 Feb 1998 09:54:48 -0700 (MST) To: jsalt@alpha.utampa.edu From: Joanna Hadjicostandi Subject: Re: Lit on teaching poor/minority (high school) students Hi Jim, Of the top of my head I can think of Jonathan Kozol's book SAVAGE INEQUALITIES. Also, the Bowles and Gintis's book SCHOOLING IN CAPITALIST AMERICA may be useful. If you need full citations let me know. Freire's work EDUCATION FOR CRITICAL CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE PEDAGOGY OF THE OPPRESSED are also useful tools in at least understanding the issues and methods of dealing with oppression. Cheers Joanna >At 07:19 PM 2/9/98 -0500, you wrote: >>PSNers, >> >>Can anyone recommend literature on teaching poor/minority (high school) >>students. A former (excellent) student is now in the classroom in a >>very poor, mixed ethnicity neighborhood (black, white, and Latino >>(Mexican, PR, Dominican Republic, and Cuban)), and facing the all too >>common difficulties. He asked me for references to lit that might help >>him address the various issues he's facing (his pedagogical training >>offered nothing to address this!). >> >>Any recommendations will be greatly appreciated. >> >>-- >>Jim Salt >>jsalt@alpha.utampa.edu >>Box 90F >>Dept. of History, Political Science, & Sociology >>University of Tampa >>401 W. Kennedy Blvd. >>Tampa FL 33606-1450 >>813-253-3333 X3651 >> >>"The philosophers have only _interpreted_ the world, in various ways; >>the point, however, is to _change_ it." >> --- Karl Marx, Theses on Feuerbach ________________________________________ Joanna Hadjicostandi, Ph.D. Sociologist University of Texas of the Permian Basin Department of Behavioral Science 4901 East University Boulevard Odessa, TX 79762-0001 Fax #: (915)552-3325 E-mail: hadjicosta_j@utpb.edu Tel. #: W (915)552-2362 H (915)368-0981 ________________________________________ From gimenez@csf.Colorado.EDU Fri Feb 13 15:56:48 1998 Date: Fri, 13 Feb 1998 15:56:42 -0700 (MST) From: Martha Gimenez To: PSN@CSF.COLORADO.EDU Subject: SPOON-ANN: Focus on the Corporation announcement (fwd) ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 9 Feb 1998 15:51:38 -0700 From: Robert Weissman To: spoon-announcements@jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU Subject: SPOON-ANN: Focus on the Corporation announcement NEW LISTSERVE ANNOUNCEMENT: FOCUS ON THE CORPORATION Corp-Focus is a moderated listserve which distributes the weekly column "Focus on the Corporation," co-authored by Russell Mokhiber, editor of Corporate Crime Reporter, and Robert Weissman, editor of Multinational Monitor magazine. To subscribe to Corp-Focus, send an e-mail message to listproc@essential.org with the following all in one line: subscribe corp-focus Focus on the Corporation scrutinizes the multinational corporation -- the most powerful institution of our time. Once a week, it reports and comments critically on corporate actions, plans, abuses and trends. Written with a sharp edge and occasional irreverency, Focus on the Corporation covers: * The double standards which excuse corporations for behavior (e.g., causing injury, accepting welfare) widely considered criminal or shameful when done by individuals; * Globalization and corporate power; * Trends in corporate economic blackmail, political influence and workplace organization; * Industry-wide efforts to escape regulation, silence critics, employ new technologies or consolidate business among a few companies; * Specific, extreme examples of corporate abuses: destruction of communities, trampling of democracy, poisoning of air and water; * Issues, such as tort reform, of across-the-board interest to business; and * The corporatization of our culture. Please post this notice on relevant lists, and accept our apologies for cross-posting. From jreardon@igc.apc.org Fri Feb 13 13:58:54 1998 From: jreardon@igc.apc.org Fri, 13 Feb 1998 11:36:22 -0800 (PST) Fri, 13 Feb 1998 11:29:33 -0800 (PST) Date: Fri, 13 Feb 1998 11:29:33 -0800 (PST) To: (Recipient list suppressed) Subject: update on InfoMed-USA > >If you wish to be removed from this list let us know. > >*************************************************************************** ***** > >Your support is needed to lift the blockade of Cuba. > >Call your congress representative to encourage further action on bill HR 1951, > > No to the embargo of food and medicine . > >******************************************************************************* > > InfoMed-USA: Who Are We? > > Most Recent Update: February 13, 1998: >---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > 800 computers sent to Cuban hospitals & clinics!!! > >---------------------------------------------------------------------- > >InfoMed-USA is dedicated to the support of public health >development in the third world and the Republic of Cuba in >particular through the Cuban medical information network >(InfoMed). InfoMed-USA emerged from efforts in 1995 and >1996 to provide Cuba's Ministry of Public Health >(MINSAP) with computers and other materials needed to >sustain and expand its medical information network. > >As of February 1998 a cumulative total of 800 computers >has been sent to Cuba's InfoMed by InfoMed-USA through >various means and routes with the help and support of >many individuals and organizations. > >InfoMed-USA has also assisted Cuban health professionals >by providing spare parts, books, other specially requested >materials and various types of consultation. InfoMed-USA >strives to reach health and information professionals. > > We aspire to: > > * Increase awareness about health achievements in Cuba > and the impact of US policies on the health of the > Cuban people; > > * Increase communication between health professionals > of our two countries; > > * Increase solidarity with Cuba's public health efforts in > the form of material contributions, technical > assistance and joint projects; > > * Build opposition to the US embargo of Cuba. > > > >With the collaboration of the Cuban Ministry of Public >Health, InfoMed-USA participated in the 1996 annual >meeting of the American Public Health Association (New >York, November 17-21) with a booth to exhibit Cuba's >achievements to visiting public health professionals >InfoMed-USA > >On May 30th 1997 in San Jose, California, InfoMed-USA >representatives presented a paper about Cuba's InfoMed at >the Spring Meeting of American Medical Informatics >Association (AMIA). The paper's title was "Supporting >Medical Informatics in the Developing World. Cuba's >InfoMed: A case study" > >On November 4-7, 1997 InfoMed USA/Cuba facilitated the >participation of a Cuban InfoMed representative in the >"International Conference on Medicine and the Internet, >MEDNET-97, (Brighton, England) where the following >paper was presented: "Is it possible to Create Medical >Information Networks in the Developing World? Cuba's >Response: INFOMED" by P. Urra Gonzalez, J.Hernandez >Ojito, J. Reardon, A. Magrans de Cardenas. . The British >Cuba Solidarity Campaign from London and Brighton was >instrumental in making the Cuban presence at this >conference possible. > >On November 24-25, InfoMed USA/Cuba was invited and >participated in the international conference on "Resource >Mobilization for the Health Sector" in Havana, Cuba, >organized by the Cuban Ministry of Public Health >(MINSAP) and sponsored by the World Health >Organization (WHO) and PAHO. At this conference a >diagnosis of the Cuban health system was presented and >areas of priority need were identified. As one of the >signatories of the Declaration of the International >Conference Resource Mobilization for the Cuban Health >Sector, InfoMed USA/Cuba invites and encourages >everyone to join in this effort by MINSAP and the Cuban >people to recover the ground lost in these years. Many >specific projects are presented as "Options For Solidarity >And Friendship." > >In its January 1, 1998 edition, the Silicon Valley based >computer industry magazine, MicroTimes, included Project >InfoMed USA/Cuba and its founders Dave Wald and Juan >Reardon in its 11th annual year end list of the >"MicroTimes 100 -- High Tech's High Achievers -- Famous >and Not So Famous."Here's what they had to say "We're >happy to applaud this endeavor and hope >it inspires others to recycle old equipment where it will do >the most good." > >Project InfoMed USA/Cuba hosts the "Cuba Solidarity Web >Site" (http://www.igc.apc.org/cubasoli). This medium >allows the publication and posting of news related to health >in Cuba and solidarity efforts to support it. > >The Cuba Solidarity Web Site has been useful in promoting >support for the Cuban Humanitarian Relief Act: H.R. 1951, >to lift the U.S. restrictions on food and medicine. The bill >presently has 99 co-sponsors in the U.S. congress. The web >site connects with the InfoMed Web page in Cuba and with >the Republic of Cuba's Web page. > >The web site has been recommended by the Cuban Interest >Section in Washington as a source of accurate news on >Cuba. It is also a place where members of the movement of >solidarity with Cuba can connect and exchange information. >We invite all groups working toward the end of the embargo >to visit and make use of the Cuba Solidarity Web site. > >InfoMed USA/Cuba continues to work towards the above >mentioned goals and encourages other organizations >standing for justice and fairness on all issues to oppose the >blockade of Cuba. > >In Solidarity, > >David Wald >dwald@igc.apc.org > >Juan Reardon, MD, MPH >jreardon@igc.apc.org > >---------------------------------------------------------------------- >How To Contact InfoMed-USA ! > >National David Wald dwald@igc.apc.org >East Bay Juan Reardon jreardon@igc.apc.org >San Francisco Rita Barouch Baro1597@wonder.cdc.gov >Sacramento Marisa Perez stonetiger@igc.apc.org >Los Angeles Will Anderson walfand@juno.com >Seattle Roger Lippman terrasol@igc.apc.org >Boston, Chester King 7422.1040@compuServe.COM >Washington, DC Bert Stiller bstiller@CapAccess.org >New Orleans, Carrie Dougherty carolyn@accesscom.net >NY, R. Garfield garfield@cuson-sph.cpmc.columbia.edu >WWWeb Dana Simon dsimon@igc.apc.org >Sth. Carolina Daniel Ross ely98@aol.com > > > http://www.igc.apc.org/cubasoli/ > >>--------------------------------------------------------------------------- >> > > From cdfupdate@cdfig.childrensdefense.org Fri Feb 13 20:30:30 1998 Date: Fri, 13 Feb 98 17:49:20 EST From: "CDFupdate" To: CDFupdate@automailer.com Subject: CDF Update 2-13-98 Sender: owner-cdfupdate@automailer.com Children's Defense Fund Update February 13,1998 In This Issue: -- Child Care -- Family Income -- Conference *** Child Care *** --- TOBACCO AND OTHER CHILD CARE BILLS INTRODUCED --- On Wednesday, February 11, 1998, Senator Kent Conrad (D-ND) announced the Democratic tobacco proposal. Co-sponsored by several other Democrats, the proposal earmarks $14 billion for child care. In other Congressional activity, Senators Christopher Dodd (D-CT), John Chafee (R-RI), and Orrin Hatch (R-UT) introduced child care bills. The Dodd bill, Child Care A.C.C.E.S.S. (Affordable Child Care for Early Success and Security Act) was introduced on February 4th and is co-sponsored by 25 other Democratic Senators. The legislation provides an additional $7.5 billion in guaranteed funds to states over five years for the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) to improve the affordability of child care. In addition, the bill increases the availability and quality of school-age care, and expands the Dependent Care Tax Credit (DCTC)-- supporting family choice in child care by including stay at home parents. The Chafee bill, the Caring for Children Act, introduced on January 30th and co-sponsored by five Republican Senators, gives Congress the option of increasing spending of the CCDBG from $1 billion to $2 billion per year, phased in over five years. The bill also extends eligibility of the tax credit to families with a stay-at-home parent, provides tax credits to employers, and creates a small business child care grant program. For more information about the new child care bills and other child care legislation pending in Congress, please visit CDF's web site at: . * The Children's Defense Fund continues to work with a broad coalition of local, state, and national organizations to pass comprehensive child care legislation to improve the quality and affordability of child care and school-age programs. Please continue to communicate to your Members of Congress that comprehensive child care legislation should be passed this year. There is a Congressional recess February 13 - February 20, when your Representatives and Senators will be home. This is an opportune time to talk or meet with your Members of Congress in their office or at public events around the state. *** Family Income *** --- PRESIDENT AND DEMOCRATIC LEADERS BACK MINIMUM WAGE INCREASE --- President Clinton announced support for an increase in the minimum wage in his State of the Union message January 27th. This week, the President and House and Senate Democratic leaders agreed to back an increase of 50 cents a year for two years. (The minimum wage would rise to $5.65 an hour in January 1999 and to $6.15 an hour in January 2000.) The new bill will be filed the week of February 23rd. (Watch this space for the House and Senate bill numbers.) An earlier minimum wage bill, sponsored by Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) and House Minority Whip David Bonior (D-MI), called for three years of minimum wage increases followed by indexing the minimum wage to increases in inflation. The newer, more modest, version has succeeded in attracting additional support. ** MORE SUPPORT IS NEEDED FOR MINIMUM WAGE INCREASE ** -- Call your Senators and Representative and ask them to co-sponsor the minimum wage increase (U.S. Capitol Switchboard - # 202/224-3121). Minimum Wage Facts: * Working families need it: The current $5.15 minimum wage leaves full-time, year-round workers at only 82 percent of the 1998 poverty line for a family of three. In 1996, 38% of those seeking emergency food aid held jobs--up from 23% in 1994, according to a survey conducted by the U.S. Conference of Mayors. * The people support it. A January 21, 1998 Washington Post-ABC poll found that 76% of Americans support an increase in the minimum wage. *** Children's Defense Fund Annual Conference *** The Children's Defense Fund Annual National Conference is scheduled for March 25-28, 1998, in Los Angeles, California at the Los Angeles Convention Center. The theme, Celebrating 25 Years Of Standing For America's Children, build's on CDF's quarter-century anniversary of advocacy and service on behalf of children and young people. The conference is an opportunity to learn new skills, to network, and to be inspired by the work advocates are doing around the country. Conference participants will be able to choose from more than 100 workshops and twelve all-day skills-building sessions covering topics including working with the media, welfare implementation, non-profit management, and technology training. And this year, for the first time ever, continuing education credits are available to attendees. Each week, until the conference, the CDF Update will highlight one of the intensive day-long, concentrated skills-building training sessions for child advocates that will be offered during conference. -- CHILDREN'S HEALTH TRAINING SESSION -- "Protecting Our Children's Health: The New State Child Health Insurance Program" Wednesday, March 25 On August 5, 1997, President Clinton signed into law the largest gain for children's health since the creation of Medicaid: The State Child Health Insurance Program (CHIP). Now states have the challenge of implementing the program and ensuring that children get the healthy start they need. Join us in this training track session to learn how to work with state officials in designing and implementing your state's new child health insurance program. In this training track, designed for state-level advocates with intermediate and advanced knowledge of the program, participants will learn more about the law and what steps states have taken to implement it. Panel discussions will center around key issues surrounding implementation, such as increasing outreach to families eligible for state programs, and ensuring that a full range of health benefits are provided to children. Advocacy techniques will be discussed using sample materials from selected states. Advocates participating in this training session will leave with a more complete understanding of the federal law and administrative interpretation of its statutes. They will also learn about substantive policy directions that are good for children, and arguments to support adoption of these policies. And finally, participants will cultivate the tools needed to effectively educate their state officials and the general public on this exciting new program for children's health. ********************************************************************** -- OUR STRENGTH IS IN OUR NUMBERS -- SHARE THIS LEGISLATIVE UPDATE WITH YOUR FRIENDS!!! Our typical email is about a page or two long and generally comes once a week. To join our legislative update email list, sign-up on our website or send an email to: and write in the body of the message: subscribe cdfupdate PLEASE NOTE: WHEN SUBSCRIBING OR CANCELING YOUR SUBSCRIPTION, PLEASE DO NOT SURROUND YOUR ADDRESS WITH BRACKETS. Kimberly Taylor Children's Defense Fund 25 E Street, NW Washington, DC 20001 202/662-3540 (fax) CDFupdate@childrensdefense.org "What is done to children, they will do to society." --Karl Menninger From eric@stewards.net Sun Feb 15 10:28:28 1998 Sun, 15 Feb 1998 12:30:03 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from eric@stewards.net) Date: Sun, 15 Feb 1998 12:30:03 -0500 (EST) To: PROGRESSIVE SOCIOLOGISTS NETWORK From: eric@stewards.net (Eric Sommer) Subject: Re: (Fwd) M I D - E A S T R E A L I T I E S >> M I D - E A S T R E A L I T I E S >> News, Information, & Analysis That Governments, Interest Groups, >> and the Corporate Media Don't Want You To Know. >>------------------------------------------------------------------- >> For information about the weekly TV program email to: >> INFOMERTV@MiddleEast.Org >>____________________________________________________________________ >>THE STENCH OF ANGLO-AMERICAN HYPOCRISY >AND HUMAN CARNAGE IN THE MIDDLE EAST > >>MER - Washington - 13 February: >> The stench of war in the Middle East, past and >>present, has American fingerprints all over it. Few >>in the press today have reminded us that it was the >>U.S. and allies (along with the Arab client regimes) >>that egged Iraq on just a few years ago, providing >>Saddam Hussein's Bathist Government the money and >weapons to build up Iraq's once powerful forces. >> This article by Robert Fisk, one of the world's >>most seasoned, courageous, and passionate journalists, >>provides some of the vitally important context that is >>so missing from the American media. This article >>from yesterday's THE INDEPENDENT is must reading. >> Too bad we can't reprint it in The Washington Post >>and The Congressional Record! The American public, >> and their representatives in the American Congress, >> should be reading this! >> >WHAT MADNESS IS SEIZING MESSRS >CLINTON AND BLAIR TODAY? >By Robert Fisk >THE INDEPENDENT > >I have been reminded of some familiar odours these past few >>days. The first is the terrible, nauseous stench I endured >>for hours on the overnight train from Ahwaz to Tehran back >>in the Eighties, as I shared a carriage with dozens of >young Iranian soldiers. All of them were coughing up Saddam >>Hussein's poisons from their lungs into blood-red swabs and >>bandages. And the mustard gas that was slowly killing them >>permeated the whole great 20-carriage train as it thundered >>up from the desert battlefields of the first Gulf War, >>through the mountains to the city where almost all these >>men would soon die and be buried. After only an hour into >>the journey, I was forced to throw open the carriage window >>to avoid vomiting. > >>No sooner had I filed a series of reports to London on this >>new and terrible war crime of Saddam Hussein than a British >>diplomat, lunching with one of my editors in London, >>remarked that "Bob doesn't seem to understand the >>situation." True, he said, gas was a terrible weapon. But >>Saddam was fighting the West's war against Iranian >>fundamentalism - a danger which might set the whole Middle >>East ablaze and which could threaten the entire world. >>Wasn't The Times - the paper for which I then worked - >>putting a little too much emphasis on Saddam's sins? > >>So the other smell I recall this week is the stink of >hypocrisy when - in 1990 - the world's statesmen began to >>whip their people into line for war against the man they >>had supported in his conflict against Iran. The French had >>sold Saddam Mirage jets. The Germans had provided him with >>the gas that had me almost wretching on the train from >>Ahwaz. The Americans had sold him helicopters for spraying >>crops with pesticide (the "crops", of course, being human >>beings). The British gave Saddam bailey bridges. And I >>later met the Cologne arms dealer who flew from the >>Pentagon to Baghdad with US satellite photos of the Iranian >>front lines - to help Saddam kill more Iranians. > >>And oddly enough, whenever I mentioned this back in 1990, >>after Saddam had invaded Kuwait, I was admonished by >>diplomats. There's no point in dwelling on the past, I was >>told. The only way to deal with Saddam now was war. Did I >>have any better ideas? And within a few weeks, Saddam - and >>yes, he is a venal, cruel, wicked, evil man - was being >>transformed into the Hitler of Iraq, just as the Israelis >>had called Yasser Arafat the Hitler of Beirut in 1982, and >>just as Eden has called Nasser the Mussolini of the Nile in >>1956. Normally quite rational individuals became >cheerleaders for war, shouting hysterically when I >>suggested that the results of this war might not quite >>match the expectations. Serious newspapers began to >>advocate the occupation of Baghdad and a war crimes trial for Saddam. > >>And once that battle was over and Saddam was expelled from >>Kuwait, we were told by our leaders that Saddam had been >>"defanged". Our smart bombs and guided missiles had >>destroyed his army, our Patriot missiles had protected us >>from his Scuds - and at little cost to the Western >>alliance. Then it turned out that all this was untrue. But >>at least we never claimed then that he was capable of >>harming more than the Middle East. > >>So what madness is seizing Messrs Clinton and Blair today? >>After seven years of inspections - seven years, for >>heaven's sake - UN arms inspectors have not been able to >>find all of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction. Thousands >>were dying of malnutrition and lack of medicine, a million >>if you believe some UN officials. Mass funerals for babies >>(70 in one cortege on the last count) made their way >through Baghdad. Propaganda for the odious Saddam, of >>course; but few thought the coffins were empty. And then >>Saddam - shrewdly appreciating that America's craven >>surrender to Israel's settlement building had convinced >>Arab leaders that the "peace process" was a betrayal of the >>Palestinians - decided to ban the UN inspectors from his palaces. > >>And what happened? Our masters informed us that Saddam was >>even worse than he was before we beat him the first time. >>Far from just threatening the oil rich Gulf, the chief UN >>inspector informed us that the Iraqis had enough anthrax >>"to wipe out Tel Aviv" (note the city he chose - not >>Dhahran or Riyadh but Tel Aviv, although all three had been >>rocketed in 1991). And then our own trustworthy Foreign >>Office announced that Saddam now posed a threat to "the >>whole world". In Washington, Mr Blair repeated this, saying >>that he had enough weapons "to wipe out the world's >>population". > >>The whole world? Is this true? In Beirut these past few >>days, I have been trying to remember where I last heard >these words. It took me some time before I recalled where. >>I last read them when I was at school, reading the Eagle >>comic, wherein a space hero called Dan Dare - a kind of >>1950s version of Tom Cruise - would regularly do battle >>with the Mekon, a green and ectoplasmic alien creature who >>had the ability to wipe out the entire world (unless he was >>first destroyed/defanged/put back into his box or >>whatever). Has it really descended to this? The Middle >>East, with all its complexities and dangers and religious >>tension - yes, and its evils - is being turned into a comic >>strip in which Dan Dare will launch his space-age high-tech >>at the Mekon of Baghdad. > >>Perhaps the American public and its pro-Israeli >>representatives in Congress and the Senate accept this >>nonsense? But do we, whose Prime Minister is chanting all >>this at Bill Clinton's side? British readers should be >>aware of what US columnists are demanding. In The New York >>Times, William Safire has been recommending "sustained >>bombing of all suspected weaponry sites, including palaces >>occupied by civilians used as hostages", while in The >>Washington Post, Richard Cohen has been saying of Saddam: > >"He is not . a mole but a rat. It would be best to >>exterminate him ." And last weekend, when I recalled the >>1991 war and its rhetoric to an American radio commentator, >>I heard the same weary response. "Let's not talk about the >>past, Bob. What do we do now?" > >>Well, the world might, after all, demand that all Middle >>Eastern states apply all UN security council resolutions - >>which include an Israeli withdrawal from occupied Arab land >>as well as the disarming of Saddam Hussein. It could insist >>that within five years, all weapons of mass destruction in >>the region - not just Iraqi weapons but Syrian missiles and >>Israeli nuclear weapons and possible Iranian rockets - be >>destroyed. It could offer a real peace in the Middle East, >>based on human rights, justice and a Palestinian homeland. > >>But no, like Dan Dare we prefer to do battle with monsters. >>And we are beating the old 1991 drums of war, our claims so >>preposterous that they bury the real viciousness of the >>real Saddam. For war is not primarily about victory or >>defeat. It is about death. It represents the total failure >>of the human spirit. And if we really are going to >participate in this obscenity again, is it not possible to >>do so with the humility of men who know what we are doing? >__________________________________________________________________ > > > >___________________________________________________ >NUEVO AMANECER PRESS- N.A.P. >_________________________________ >Non Profit organization translating and distributing information >in support of the work in defense of human rights. >General Director: Roger Maldonado-Mexico >Assistant Director: Susana Saravia (Anibarro) >Director Spain: Darrin Wood > > amanecer@aa.net > > From tell@acsu.buffalo.edu Sun Feb 15 12:55:57 1998 Date: Sun, 15 Feb 1998 14:55:47 -0500 (EST) From: "Shawgi A. Tell" To: Progressive Sociologists Network Subject: Quebec, B.C. Suffer Most Job Losses As Official Unemployment Rate , Increases Greetings, Unemployment is the fellow-traveler of capitalism. It is rooted in the fundamental contradiction of capitalism, the contradiction between the social nature of production and the private nature of ownership. This contradiction is reflected in a divide in society between two antagonistic and irreconcilable classes, the exploiters and the exploited. The forces and relations of production will remain contradictory and incongruent so long as the means of production are not owned and controlled by society as a whole. Serious social, political, economic, cultural and ideological problems willl persist so long as private ownership of the means of production and subsistence prevails. The only force in society capable of and willing to change the direction of the economy is the proletariat, the product of modern industry. The working class must become an independent political force in order to extricate society from its all-round deepening crisis and usher in the next, higher stage of society, socialism. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Statistics Canada reports the official unemployment rate increased by 0.3 percent in January to 8.9 percent - roughly 1.45 million workers. There were 54,000 more Canadians who officially became unemployed in January, 30,000 of them in Quebec, where the unemployment rate was 11.3 percent, and 19,000 in B.C., where the unemployment rate rose to 9.3 percent. This rate does not include the hundreds of thousands of Canadians who have given up looking for work or who are 'underemployed' - working in part-time jobs because they cannot find full-time employment. People who are self-employed but without work and most social assistance recipients are also excluded from the official unemployment rate. TML Weekly, 2/8/98 Shawgi Tell Graduate School of Education University at Buffalo tell@acsu.buffalo.edu From hoov@freenet.tlh.fl.us Sun Feb 15 05:33:10 1998 Subject: Sincronia: electronic journal (fwd) To: psn@csf.colorado.edu Date: Sun, 15 Feb 1998 07:37:09 -0500 (EST) From: "hoov" forwarded by Michael Hoover Forwarded message: > Date: Sat, 14 Feb 1998 16:15:42 -0500 (EST) > From: Spoon Collective > To: spoon-announcements@jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU > > CALL FOR PAPERS: HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES > > _Sincronia_ is an electronic journal of articles in the humanities and > social sciences maintained at the University of Guadalajara. We welcome > submissions (via email) of articles in philosophy, lit crit, > linguistics, sociology and anthropology. > > We are entering our second year of publication, and would like to > receive articles from a broader readership. We publish in both English > and Spanish. > > _Sincronia_ http://fuentes.csh.udg.mx/CUCSH/Sincronia/index.html > > Thank you, > Stephen Gilbert, > University of Guadalajara > Depto de Letras > Guadalajara, Jal. > sgilbert@udgserv.cencar.udg.mx From gimenez@csf.Colorado.EDU Mon Feb 16 09:18:45 1998 Date: Mon, 16 Feb 1998 09:18:39 -0700 (MST) From: Martha Gimenez To: PSN@CSF.COLORADO.EDU Subject: Call for Nominations Dear PSNers, The Nominations Committee of the Section on Marxist Sociology needs to fill the following positions: Chair Elect, and two Council Members. If you are interested in running for any of those offices, please write to us and let us know. If you are not a Section Member, but have been thinking about it, this would be a great opportunity for you, to join the Section and run for office at the same time. If you think someone you know would be a terrific candidate, send your nominations by private mail to Valerie or to me. We need to send our information to the ASA by March 1, so let us hear from you ASAP. in solidarity, Martha E. Gimenez gimenez@csf.colorado.edu Valerie Scatamburlo valeries@yorku.ca From thall@DEPAUW.EDU Mon Feb 16 12:02:40 1998 Date: Mon, 16 Feb 1998 14:02:03 -0500 (EST) From: "Thomas D. [Tom] Hall, THALL@DEPAUW.EDU" Subject: Reagan airport To: Sociology Network Progressive , Network World-Systems I received this from a colleague, thought it worth passing a long. tom Thomas D. [tom] Hall thall@depauw.edu Department of Sociology DePauw University 100 Center Street Greencastle, IN 46135 765-658-4519 HOME PAGE: http://www.depauw.edu/~thall/hp1.htm ------------------ > In keeping with the renaming of National Airport to Ronald Reagan > National Airport, the FAA has required the following changes to be > made on all flights: > > 1. A portion of all ticket sales must be routed to Iran > > 2. Vegetarian meals will consist only of ketchup > > 3. I don't recall > > 4. First class seating will drastically improve, while coach class > will be moved to the baggage section. > > 5. No flights will depart between the hours of 1-4pm for "naptime" > > 6. Should quality concerns arise, baggage handlers are required to > invade Dulles to distract critics. > > 7. Ticket prices for wealthy passengers will be slashed to increase > air travel by the poor. > > 8. All passengers are required to shred all travel documents before > boarding. > > 9.I don't recall > > 10. Sleeping accommodations on all flights should include: pillow, > blanket, and a chimp named "Bonzo" From spector@calumet.purdue.edu Mon Feb 16 17:09:00 1998 Date: Mon, 16 Feb 1998 18:10:00 -0800 From: Alan Spector Reply-To: spector@calumet.purdue.edu To: psn@csf.colorado.edu Subject: You can help save 100,000 lives! It looks pretty definite that Clinton is planning to bomb Iraq. They are even talking, this time, about casualties among U.S. troops, which means that the casualties among the Iraqi people will be very heavy, not to mention how many more will die from "collateral" damage (after-effects of the bombing.) While many think that that Marxist analysis is outdated and believe that capitalism was the lesser of two "evils", we are now being treated to witnessing, AGAIN, how capitalism needs, becomes imperialism, and resorts to mass murder to defend its profit system. What to do: 1) NOW is the time for people to organize protests against this. Organize something on your campus--if you can't get a protest together, get the school newspaper to sponsor a debate or a forum or a teach-in, or something. Don't worry if it is small. There were plenty of tiny protests, that looked like failures, during the Vietnam War, but they all added up, and added to the momentum that inspired others. So plan something! 2) According to the media, the Secretary of Defense (Cohen), the Secretary of State (Albright) and a National Security Advisor will all be in Columbus, Ohio on Wednesday, at noon (?) for a town meeting to "drum up support among students and youth for the war effort." How about "drumming up some major opposition? If ten thousand, or even 500 people hold a noisy, impolite demonstration, that will inspire people all over to do the same. If the "town meeting" comes off with little or no protest, it will embolden them to kill and kill again. In particular, I would like to hear from all those people who insisted that we had to vote for Clinton because Dole would be worse. Maybe Dole would also want to carry out this war, but Clinton is doing it with more confidence because of his high popularity ratings, thanks to those who encouraged others to support him. I don't "blame" honest, rank-and-file folks who voted for him, but NOW is the time to take a stand to stop what truly will rank with Guernica and other acts of mass murder. Can any of you out there get to Columbus on Wednesday? Can you organize something locally? Alan Spector P.S.--I haven't tried to argue that the bombing by the U.S. is unjustified. If anyone on this list thinks it is justified, let them say so. Iraq's neighbor, Saudi Arabia, is very weak militarily, and has massive wealth vulnerable to attack by Iraq. Saudi Arabia is not calling for the air attack. If they are not afraid of Iraq, does anyone out there really think that the U.S. population is at risk? It's about $$$$$$$$$. -- From josephal@muohio.edu Mon Feb 16 19:07:34 1998 Date: Mon, 16 Feb 1998 21:28:46 -0500 From: josephal@muohio.edu (Alfred Joseph) Subject: the slaughter To: psn@csf.colorado.edu I totally agree with the message posted by Alan about the upcoming slaughter in Iraq. The latest on the "town meeting" at the Ohio State University: It is scheduled from 2:00 PM - 3:30 PM at St. Johns Arena, the basketball arena. Apparently the University is handing out anywhere from 5 - 6,000 tickets. The place holds just under of 14,000, so they definitely don't want to run the risk of having too many unfriendly voices in the arena. As of now plans are not definite but there will most certainly be oppositional forces gathering around the arena to stage a protest. I will keep people updated as I get information. alfred @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ When I gave food to the poor, they called me a saint. When I asked why the poor were hungry, they called me a communist. **************************************************************************** **************************************** From metraux@sas.upenn.edu Mon Feb 16 18:25:46 1998 by mail1.sas.upenn.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8/SAS.04) id UAA05933 for psn@csf.colorado.edu; Mon, 16 Feb 1998 20:25:40 -0500 (EST) From: metraux@sas.upenn.edu (Stephen Metraux) Subject: Re: Reagan Airport To: psn@csf.colorado.edu Date: Mon, 16 Feb 1998 20:25:40 -0500 (EST) Tom Hall omitted one key feature of the proposed Reagan airport -- There will be no air traffic controllers -- they all will have been fired. Steve Metraux U. of Pennsylvania From e.swank@morehead-st.edu Tue Feb 17 06:15:49 1998 Date: Tue, 17 Feb 1998 08:13:57 -0500 (EST) From: ERIC SWANK To: psn@csf.colorado.edu Dear Listers: It seems that we going into another Gulf War. I have just finished my dissertation on the antiwar protests on the 1990-1991 Gulf War (E. Swank "Marching on the Storm" - Ohio State University). I expect another round of protests if Clinton's war becomes a reality. Hence, I was wondering if people on this list want to join a research team? That is, we can share information on your local protests and perhaps construct and distribute a survey/interview? If this sounds good, please email or call. Eric Swank Morehead State University Department of Sociology and Social Work Morehead, KY 40351 (606) 783-2190 From m.hoover@csu-e.csuohio.edu Tue Feb 17 07:30:10 1998 Date: Tue, 17 Feb 1998 09:30:02 -0500 To: psn@csf.colorado.edu From: Matthew Hoover Subject: Re: You can help save 100,000 lives! At 06:10 PM 2/16/98 -0800, you wrote: RE: bombing of Iraq: >While many think that that Marxist analysis is outdated >and believe that capitalism was the lesser of two "evils", we are now >being treated to witnessing, AGAIN, how capitalism needs, becomes >imperialism, and resorts to mass murder to defend its profit system. I have been a member of PSN for a few years now, and even though I do not consider myself a Marxist, my political leanings are in the liberal side of the spectrum. However, this situation is clearly not about "capitalism" and "imperialism". It is about making Saddam comply with the UN weapons inspections. Hussein has repeatedly lied about his cache' of chemical and biological weapons and he has built massive "presidential palaces" while his people has suffered from the trading sanctions. I often hear from this list about the evils of the capitalist system and the "oppression" that it causes. However, can anybody give me an example of a communist/socialist country that has ever existed without forcing mass compliance through torture and political imprisonment? Matt Hoover From porporad@duvm.ocs.drexel.edu Tue Feb 17 08:00:53 1998 Date: Tue, 17 Feb 1998 10:00:12 -0400 To: PROGRESSIVE SOCIOLOGISTS NETWORK From: Doug Porpora Subject: Perplexed on world exploitation Can anyone on this list help me understand a puzzle about world trade? I was originally won over to Marxism years ago when I became convinced of the connection between affluence here in the northern hemisphere and poverty in the southern hemisphere -- that our affluence depends on their poverty. I have no doubt that's true with regard to colonial history -- Europe's primitive accumulation and the South's de-accumulation. Much of the South's problems still seem to me a matter of dependent accumulation. My question concerns the US. I have seen figures that world trade accounts for only about 10% of US GDP -- and only about half of that involves trade with less developed nations in the south. It could be argued, therefore, that, demonstrably, US affluence does not largely rest on an exploitative extraction from less developed countries. US "affluence" -- if you will allow me to call it that for the moment -- is largely homegrown. Can anyone help with the following questions: Is this 10% figure a misleading underevaluation? If imported goods from less developed countries are seriously undervalued, then is the true dependence of the US economy on less developed countries actually greater? Is GDP perhaps an inappropriate base of comparison as it includes consumption as well as production? Is 10% GDP already a sufficiently substantial contribution to our quality of life? Are there more appropriate ways to examine the benefit the North derives from the South? Am I just wrong that whatever affluence we enjoy here is dependent on the continued poverty of the South? Thanks. doug doug porpora dept of psych and sociology drexel university phila pa 19104 USA porporad@duvm.ocs.drexel.edu From KELLEY@platte.unk.edu Tue Feb 17 12:16:56 1998 From: KELLEY@platte.unk.edu Date: Tue, 17 Feb 1998 12:39:35 -0600 To: psn@csf.colorado.edu Subject: job listing Please feel free to distribute. University of Nebraska at Kearney. SOCIOLOGY, Assistant Professor. (Tenure- track). Teach 9 hours per semester including: introduction to sociology, social problems, criminology, and juvenile delinquency; engage in departmental governance; advise sociology majors; pursue scholarly activities; and participate in community research. Required: Ph.D. in Sociology, Justice Studies or related field; demonstrated competence in teaching and research. Preferred: Sociology Ph.D.; teaching experience; computer program proficiency. Starting date August, 1998. Salary and benefits are competitive. Applications received by March 16, 1998 will receive full consideration. Send letter of application, vita, and three letters of reference to: Daryl Kelley, Chair, Department of Sociology, UNK, Kearney, NE 68849. (308) 865-8762, FAX: (308) 865-8980 kelley @ platte.unk.edu. http://www.unk.edu/ AA/EO/ADA From smrose@mailhub.exis.net Tue Feb 17 16:21:16 1998 From: "Steve Rosenthal" To: PSN@CSF.COLORADO.EDU Date: Tue, 17 Feb 1998 18:18:56 +0000 Subject: Why U.S. is threatening to bomb Iraq again Matt Hoover wrote of the impending U.S. bombing of Iraq: ============================================= > this situation is clearly not about "capitalism" and "imperialism". > It is about making Saddam comply with the UN weapons inspections. > ============================================== Certain stubborn facts make it impossible to accept this argument. (1) The same Iraqi government headed by Saddam during the 1980s used chemical and biological weapons against Iran with the approval and asistance of U.S. Gov't intelligence agencies. Iraq's "weapons of mass destruction" were mostly acquired from the U.S. and its European and Arab "allies" during that period, and no atrocity Saddam committed led the U.S. to call for any punishment. Are we to believe that the utterly amoral U.S. policy of the 1980s somehow morphed into high humanitarian impulses in the 1990s? (2) It is impossible to list all of the U.S. backed governments that have employed weapons of mass destruction either obtained from the U.S. or with U.S. assistance and used in mass killing of people, without U.S. military assault, sanctions, or other condemnation. Israeli terror against Palestinians and citizens in Israeli-occupied Arab countries is the first example that must be listed in the Middle East. From there we should recall the campaigns of extermination of indigenous populations in Guatemala, Mexico, and El Salvador in Central America over the past three decades. We should recall the U.S. planned and backed slaughter of half a million Indonesians in 1965 by the Suharto coup government, and the depredations of the Mobutu coup government in Zaire. The U.S. backed these regimes for 30 years and profited immensely from their raw materials and cheap labor. When the U.S. government not only tolerated but was mainly responsible for crimes in these nations that compare with or even exceed Saddam's butchery, how can we believe in the sincerity of U.S. opposition to Saddam's "weapons of mass destruction?" (3) The U.S. stood by while hundreds of thousands of people were slaughtered in the past decade in Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia, and Somalia. It intervened in the latter two countries only after most of the killing and dying were over. Whose lives does the U.S. really care about in the Middle East? (4) Two-thirds of the known global oil reserves are in the Persian Gulf region, and it is the highest grade, easiest to pump oil in the world. That oil fuels the energy needs of much of East Asia, Europe, and the Third World. U.S. corporations such as Exxon and Mobil refine, market, and profit from this oil and also thereby keep Asian and European capitalist competitors of the U.S. under the constraints of the U.S. "protection racket." Iraqi bosses would like to grab a major piece of this action. France, Russia, Japan, China, etc., would also like to cut their own deals with oil suppliers. (5) The economic downturn in Asia signals a deepening global crisis of overproduction, which will cause capitalist competition to grow much sharper. U.S. business and government leaders are already talking quite openly of the idea of invading Iraq on the ground to occupy the oil fields and threatening to use even nuclear weapons. The hundreds of thousands of deaths the U.S. has already caused in Iraq will pale alongside the consequences of the third world war that the U.S. as the declining hegemon may launch against some combination of upstart imperialist rivals. U.S. imperialism deservedly earned the intense hatred of millions in the Arab world for the 1991 Desert Massacre. It will alienate millions more with this next round of bombing, that even Saddam's neighbors adamantly oppose. "Progressives" in the United States must as their first duty oppose the imperialist wars unleashed by the U.S. Government. Steve Rosenthal From spector@calumet.purdue.edu Tue Feb 17 15:49:03 1998 Date: Tue, 17 Feb 1998 16:46:45 -0800 From: Alan Spector Reply-To: spector@calumet.purdue.edu To: porporad@duvm.ocs.drexel.edu Subject: The Whole is Greater than the Sum of Its Parts Doug Porpora raises some important questions that are often raised by people examining the relationship between "capitalism" and "imperialism." Many of us are trained to think about things in a pseudo-scientific way---a way that looks scientific but is actually very narrow. In particular, traditional social science often trains us to use mechanical models that measure quantitative change but do not see how the quantitative parts fit together to create a "whole greater than the sum of its parts", and furthermore, how the quantitative changes can lead to qualitative changes. ("straw that broke the camel's back", "Point of No Return", "critical mass", etc.) I like the language of dialectics, but others use different terminology for this epistemology. I'm not now going to give serious data to try to prove that capitalism needed imperialist profits so badly that capitalism became imperialism (which it did.) Rather, we can look at a few metaphors to, at least, open up the investigation and ask different types of questions. Suppose that only 10% of the US GDP came from international investments. Even then, there are important questions. 1) If the RATE OF PROFIT is much higher on those international investments, then they would be especially important. If Boeing can pay workers in Mexico 12% of what they pay U.S. workers, then the international investments become especially important. In some cases, domestic production has actually lost money, and companies have only maintained their profitability because of the international investments. 2) The international investments might be in areas especially crucial to the economy. Cheap sources of bauxite, chromium, (and oil----) obviously play important roles in the economy. 3) How important the 10% of the GDP is will also be dependent on the general health of the overall system. If your body temperature dropped 10%, you'd be in big trouble. If you need a certain amount of water to survive, and you can only consume 90% of that amount, you will die. If you were to lose 10% of your brain or your heart....well, you get the point. And in economics, if your income is $7,000 per year, and you lose an extra $700, that can drop you below a critical minimum you need to sustain your family. None of this proves that capitalism needs imperialism---that capitalism had to evolve into imperialist-capitalism (imperialism). To establish that one would have to bring out the numbers. But the numbers are quite convincing. All that was intended with the above discussion was to critique the line of arguing that simply adds up numbers without examining the context of the numbers and the changing nature of those numbers. There have been many good books that explain this, starting with Lenin's "Imperialism--the Highest Stage of Capitalism." Perhaps someone on PSN would recommend some up-to-date readings that can provide more current data. Alan Spector From klockeb@ucsub.Colorado.EDU Tue Feb 17 15:02:23 1998 Date: Tue, 17 Feb 1998 15:02:09 -0700 (MST) From: Klocke Brian V To: Doug Porpora Subject: Re: Perplexed on world exploitation In-Reply-To: Doug: I am sure other people will answer the rest of your questions. One thing to consider in the extraction of labor from developing nations by the US, is US owned sweatshops in developing countries. Their output would not be included in the 10% figure. ############################ ############################## #### #### ##### BRIAN KLOCKE ##### ###### klockeb@colorado.edu ###### ##### 303-543-9518 ##### #### #### ############################## ############################ On Tue, 17 Feb 1998, Doug Porpora wrote: > Can anyone on this list help me understand a puzzle about world trade? > > I was originally won over to Marxism years ago when I became convinced of > the connection between affluence here in the northern hemisphere and > poverty in the southern hemisphere -- that our affluence depends on their > poverty. > > I have no doubt that's true with regard to colonial history -- Europe's > primitive accumulation and the South's de-accumulation. Much of the > South's problems still seem to me a matter of dependent accumulation. > > My question concerns the US. I have seen figures that world trade accounts > for only about 10% of US GDP -- and only about half of that involves trade > with less developed nations in the south. It could be argued, therefore, > that, demonstrably, US affluence does not largely rest on an exploitative > extraction from less developed countries. US "affluence" -- if you will > allow me to call it that for the moment -- is largely homegrown. > > Can anyone help with the following questions: > > Is this 10% figure a misleading underevaluation? If imported goods from > less developed countries are seriously undervalued, then is the true > dependence of the US economy on less developed countries actually greater? > > Is GDP perhaps an inappropriate base of comparison as it includes > consumption as well as production? Is 10% GDP already a sufficiently > substantial contribution to our quality of life? > > Are there more appropriate ways to examine the benefit the North derives > from the South? > > Am I just wrong that whatever affluence we enjoy here is dependent on the > continued poverty of the South? > > Thanks. > > doug > > > > > > > > > > > doug porpora > dept of psych and sociology > drexel university > phila pa 19104 > USA > > porporad@duvm.ocs.drexel.edu > > From dredmond@gladstone.uoregon.edu Tue Feb 17 17:19:52 1998 Date: Tue, 17 Feb 1998 16:19:44 -0800 (PST) From: Dennis R Redmond To: PROGRESSIVE SOCIOLOGISTS NETWORK Subject: Re: Perplexed on world exploitation In-Reply-To: On Tue, 17 Feb 1998, Doug Porpora wrote: > Is this 10% figure a misleading underevaluation? If imported goods from > less developed countries are seriously undervalued, then is the true > dependence of the US economy on less developed countries actually greater? It's not that those goods are "undervalued", it has to do with how the world economy constructs value in the first place. Capitalism is all about squeezing surplus-value out of workers, Nature, or whatever precapitalist social formations are handy (e.g. slavery in the American South), only on a global scale; less developed countries are basically raw materials or energy producers for the metropoles. So oil or tin or whatever gets exchange for machinery, cars, and tools -- an exchange which is really an unequal exchange, because a car involves a massive amount of science, technology, an extended division of labor, and vast amounts of capital relative to, say, the operations of a tin mine or Third World agribusiness. The labor-intensive commodities of the latter can't compete, over the long term, with the capital-intensive commodities of the former; what happens is that capital vampirically transfers value out of Third World stuff into First World financial accounts. The average labor-time required to dig tin out of the ground with peasant labor is higher than the average labor-time required to build a car -- something glossed by most academics as the whole "productivity" paradox, namely that the goods produced by high-wage countries are actually cheaper than those produced by low-wage countries. The point is, the world market puts these labor-times into direct competition with one another -- they get exchanged, sooner or later, via the world economy, and it doesn't matter if 5% of your GNP is made of trade, or 15% or whatever -- as long as you have even one or two percent, you have significant long-term effects on your economy. I know the whole transfer-of-value thing sounds counterintuitive, but it was really one of Marx's most brilliant insights, this idea that exchange-value is garnered globally, through the world exchange-net -- which then explains things like, say, American slavery, which was all about producing cheap cotton for New England and British textile firms, or indeed the whole triangular trade in molasses, rum, tobacco and whatnot in the Caribbean, which powered British accumulation in the 17th century. Modern versions of the same process are the ecological despoliation of the Indonesian and Brazilian rainforest by cattle and raw materials barons, timber companies and whatnot -- products which are sold in First World markets, to earn hard currency to pay off foreign debts to invest in more cattle plantations, etc. etc. This is also the Marxist explanation of the Third World debt crisis, or the $1.5 trillion which the Second and Third World collectively owes the rich First World; poor regions have been forced since the 1600s to buy metropolitan goods, mine machinery, fertilizers, or whatever to try to compete with the rich countries. Some do, via powerful developmental states or sheer luck, e.g. South Korea and Taiwan, which got lots of money from the US in the Fifties and then rode the Pacific Rim boom for all it was worth; but most countries aren't this lucky, and end up like Argentina or sub-Saharan Africa, i.e. in chronic debt, and ruled over by thievish comprador elites in thrall to Wall Street, who invest in Swiss bank accounts rather than their country's industrial base. -- Dennis From wally@cats.ucsc.edu Tue Feb 17 16:50:47 1998 From: wally@cats.ucsc.edu Date: Tue, 17 Feb 1998 15:50:38 -0800 To: psn@csf.colorado.edu Subject: more on doug p's question two considerations: (1) let's not neglect labor migration here. the ostensibly "domestic" us economy benefits from mexican farm workers, filipino nurses, indian software engineers, dominican shortstops, russian mathematicians, etc etc, all of whose reproduction costs are borne elsewhere. (2) massively more important than all current arrangements are the cumulative advantages accruing from the epoch of primitive (or better translated "primary") accumulation and built upon since. of course, the current structures cannot be understood apart from this history of value transfer via conquest, slavery, labor migration, colonialism, military intervention, profit repatriation, etc, etc. w From dredmond@gladstone.uoregon.edu Tue Feb 17 17:36:34 1998 Date: Tue, 17 Feb 1998 16:36:23 -0800 (PST) From: Dennis R Redmond To: PROGRESSIVE SOCIOLOGISTS NETWORK Subject: Re: You can help save 100,000 lives! On Tue, 17 Feb 1998, Matthew Hoover wrote: > I often hear from this list about the evils of the capitalist system and > the "oppression" that it causes. However, can anybody give me an example > of a communist/socialist country that has ever existed without forcing mass > compliance through torture and political imprisonment? Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Norway, West Germany, Austria, for starters. Italy and France also have a lot of socialism (and socialists) in their systems; Japan says its capitalist, but its social structure of accumulation is intricately socialized and oriented towards collective accumulation, and its distribution of wealth looks positively Danish. This idea that socialism is somehow identical with Stalinism is kind of like the orthodox Leninist position, that Social Democracy was the equivalent of Fascism; it makes for a great soundbite, but it misses the point. The history of the Left is much more complicated, rich and diverse than the Cold War stereotypes. -- Dennis From Herejobs@aol.com Tue Feb 17 17:40:23 1998 From: Herejobs@aol.com by imo12.mx.aol.com (IMOv12/Dec1997) id 1LACa28419 Date: Tue, 17 Feb 1998 19:39:58 EST To: Herejobs@aol.com Subject: "Beating the Odds" Dear Friends, I would like to post recent news on several successful campaigns of the Hotel Employees & Restaurant Employees Union (HERE), along with current job openings with HERE on these and other campaigns. We appreciate your posting and circulating this information. Circulating our job announcements has really helped attract excellent applicants in the past ---thanks! Pat Lamborn, HERE International Union **************************************************************************** JOB OPENINGS ORGANIZERS: CONNECTICUT HERE is seeking organizers for Local 34, the Clerical/Technical Union at Yale University and for Local 217, a statewide hotel and gaming local in Connecticut. Must have the commitment to organizing the unorganized and demonstrated ability to develop and recruit leaders in internal and external organizing drives. Salary depends on experience and includes complete benefit package. Send Resume to East Coast HERE Recruiter: Ellen Thomson, P.O. Box 322, Granby, CT 06035, FAX (860)251-6049. ORGANIZERS: BILINGUAL - NATIONWIDE HERE, is also seeking organizers bilingual in Spanish/English for organizing campaigns in California (Oakland and Los Angeles), Washington D.C. and Hartford, CT. HERE seeks an organizer bilingual in Haitian Creole/ English for Stamford, CT. HERE has an excellent training and leadership development program for both staff and members, entry level and experienced organizers encouraged to apply. Salary depends on experience and includes benefit package. For East Coast Positions Send Resume to: Ellen Thomson, HERE, P.O. Box 322, Granby, CT 06035 FAX: (860)251-6049. For West Coast Positions Send Resume to: Pat Lamborn, HERE , 548 20th St. Oakland, CA 94612, FAX (510)893-5362 RESEARCH ANALYSTS: NATIONWIDE HERE is also recruiting campaign research staff for positions in CONNECTICUT, BOSTON, LOS ANGELES, LAS VEGAS, WASHINGTON DC and the SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA, and hires researchers elsewhere occasionally. Staff in HERE's growing Research Department conduct in-depth investigations of companies and develop and implement strategic campaigns for organizing in the hotel, food service, and gaming industries. Ideal candidates will have activist experience: demonstrated research skills; excellent writing and speaking ability; familiarity with basic financial concepts; and ability to work in a team environment. Salary negotiable on the basis of experience; excellent benefits. Send resume and cover letter to: Recruitment, HERE Research Department, 1219 28th St., NW, Washington, DC 20007-3389, FAX: (202)333-6049. *****************************************************************************C AMPAIGN UPDATES !!! HERE ORGANIZING AND STRIKE VICTORIES IN RECENT WEEKS. JAN. 12, 1998: ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI Workers on the Admiral President Riverboat Casino chose to join HERE Local 74 by a 171-103 in an NLRB Election. HERE has organized and won contracts for three Illinois Riverboats and all four Northern Indiana riverboats. JAN. 20,1998, NEW LONDON, CONNECTICUT HERE International Union launched an organizing effort among the 12,000 casino workers at the Foxwoods Resort Casino, the most profitable casino in the Western Hemisphere which is owned by the Mashantucket Pequot Indians. Initial surveys and interviews indicate that workers are concerned about cutbacks in raises and bonuses, co-payments on the company health plan and poor air quality resulting in the "Foxwoods Flu". An organizing victory here would be a first for tribal casinos nationwide. JAN. 31, 1998: LAS VEGAS, NEVADA At the stroke of midnight, 258 strikers returned to their jobs at the Frontier Hotel--after seven years on the picket line -- winning the longest running strike in present day labor history. During the strike, HERE Local 226 organized 20,000 new hotel-casino workers in Las Vegas, including those at the MGM Grand Hotel, which signed a first contract in November 1997. JAN. 22, 1998, NEW ORLEANS , LA HERE Local 166 won an organizing victory with a 237-75 NLRB vote for the union in a unit of 450 ARAMARK employees at the New Orleans Convention Center. Another election is scheduled for Feb. 6-7 in a similar sized unit of ARAMARK employees at the Superdome. The union's campaign has featured extensive house visiting, with up to 70 people making house calls. FEB. 4, 1998, NEW YORK CITY HERE Local 100 announced an important, milestone victory at the Box Tree Restaurant -Hotel where the workers have been on strike for a first contract since 1993. The union has negotiated a strong contract including employer paid health insurance for all employees working 25 or more hours per week. From r.palat@auckland.ac.nz Tue Feb 17 18:15:29 1998 Date: Wed, 18 Feb 1998 14:14:45 +1300 From: Ravi Arvind Palat Reply-To: r.palat@auckland.ac.nz To: psn@csf.colorado.edu Subject: CFP: ISA Meeting in Montreal I am posting a message from Hagen Koo....Please reply directly to him at:hagenkoo@hawaii.edu or to his snail-mail address or FAX below. Ravi Palat > Dear Colleagues: > > I am organizing a session on "Industrial Relations and Labour Politics > in Asian Industrialization," for the International Sociological > Association's World Congress, to be held in Montreal, July 26 - Aug.1, > 1998. The official deadline has just passed but I received surprisingly > very few paper submissions. If you would like to present a paper, please > let me know immediately. Or if you know of any colleagues who would be > interested in attending this Montreal meeting, please pass this > information to them. My session is relatively open in terms of paper > topics as long as they address important issues concerning contempoary > labor relations or the labor movement in Asia. A paper on changing labor > relations in the context of globalization would be particularly welcome. > If you are interested in, please send me the title and one-paragraph > abstract of the paper. I would appreciate your suggestion of other > prospective participants. Thank you very much. > > Hagen Koo > Professor, Department of Sociology > University of Hawaii, Honolulu, H 96822 > FAX: (808) 956-3707 > From Gonzalo_Santos@firstclass1.csubak.edu Tue Feb 17 18:26:22 1998 From: Gonzalo_Santos@firstclass1.csubak.edu (Gonzalo Santos) To: PSN@CSF.COLORADO.EDU Date: Tue, 17 Feb 1998 17:20:49 -0800 Subject: job opening X-Gateway: NASTA Gate 2.0 beta 3 for FirstClass(R) Folks, Below is a tenure-track job announcement (short version) for someone teaching social work. Please feel free to circulate as widely as possible, especially if you're subscribed to relevant listservers that might benefit from reciving this job announcement. The college just approved developing a masters' program in social work, initially working with CSU-Long Beach's established program, meaning more new lines will open in subsequent years, but THIS line is the key one; whom ever fills it will direct the program and give it its character. I'm interested in getting a progressive faculty to fill this position. The service area is the Southern San Joaquin Valley of California, home of the late Cesar Chavez's UFW. If anybody wishes to inquire further and privately, please email me at gsantos@csubak.edu (in English or Spanish) saludos, Gonzalo Santos CSUB - Sociology ==== California State University-Bakersfield. The Department of Sociology/Anthropology is establishing an accredited degree program in Masters of Social Work and seeks a founding faculty member and director of the proposed program. DSW degree, with MA in either Sociology or Anthropology preferred, OR MSW degree, with Ph.D. in either Sociology or Anthropology, and at least 2 yrs. teaching experience in accredited MSW program, is required. Rank/salary open. Application review will begin April 15, 1998, and continue until position is filled. Send vita, letter of application, and 3 letters of reference to Kenneth L. Nyberg, Chair, Search Committee, Sociology/Anthropology Dept., California State University, Bakersfield, 9001 Stockdale Hwy., Bakersfield, CA 93311-1099. CSU, Bakersfield is an AA/EOE. Applications from women, ethnic minorities, veterans and individuals with disabilities are welcome. From josephal@muohio.edu Tue Feb 17 18:58:13 1998 Date: Tue, 17 Feb 1998 20:57:59 -0400 (EDT) From: alfred joseph Subject: Get real To: psn@csf.colorado.edu Mr. Hoover, I am sorry, but what world have you been living on for the past century or so? A cursory glance at recent US foreign policy and mass murder makes any UN protestations a sick joke. While the Reagan/Bush butchers were organizing and unleashing the mass-murdering-baby-killing-raping-moral-equivalent-of-"our"-founding-father Con tras on the Nicaraguan people, the world court and UN passed meaningless resolutions. The US was condemned by several "international" bodies. NO one enforced shit. Tens of thousands of civilians paid with there lives because the revisionist Sandinistas were trying to bring a very little bit of what they considered socialism to Nicaragua. Given the sparse population of that country and the number of people who were MURDERED by the US government and the Contras, we are talking about genocide on a significant scale. I won't go into the genocidal Vietnam war that the US took over from the French, what was the last count? 3-4 million dead, countless injured, landscape destruction, etc.. for anybody to think that the world's leading IMPERIALIST countries (France, England and the US) give a hoot about weapons of mass destruction and the lives of anybody except their bankers has got to be on something that should be illegal to smoke or inject. What ever blood Saddam has on his hands (partly with the help of hypocritical western countries) PALES, and I mean PALES in comparison to the blood-soaked hands of uncle sam. Just a couple of other points: 1) that the US, France, England should object to ANYONE who wants to "gain territory by force" is really a very sick joke. The humor of which has been lost on the western "journalists" of the world. 2) If my memory serves me correctly, the US was the first country to un-necessarily drop weapons of "mass destruction" on a CIVILIAN population!! How any thinking person could get caught up in this dog and pony show being run from Washingtona and the UN is beyond me. Good night. **************************^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^**************** ************** When I gave food to the poor, they called me a saint. When I asked why the poor were hungry, they called me a communist. --Dom Helda Camara šššššššššššššššššššššššššššššššššššššššššššššššššššššššššššššš šššššš From jrford@sbcc.sbceo.k12.ca.us Tue Feb 17 21:01:57 1998 From: "Jan Ford" To: "progressive sociology network" Subject: Re: You can help save 100,000 lives! Date: Tue, 17 Feb 1998 20:00:49 -0800 charset="us-ascii" A more relevant question might be what capitalist country has ever existed without forcing mass compliance through torture and political imprisonment? Certainly not the United States. Slavery, indentured servitude, armed suppression of labor movement, lynchings, Jim crow, murder of civil rights, student protest and black power activists. Want more? Imperialist intervention in Nicaragua, Dominican Republic, Cuba, Philippians, Soviet Union, Viet Nam, Panama, Greneda, Chile, etc. etc. -----Original Message----- From: Matthew Hoover To: PROGRESSIVE SOCIOLOGISTS NETWORK Date: Tuesday, February 17, 1998 1:32 PM Subject: Re: You can help save 100,000 lives! > >I often hear from this list about the evils of the capitalist system and >the "oppression" that it causes. However, can anybody give me an example >of a communist/socialist country that has ever existed without forcing mass >compliance through torture and political imprisonment? > >Matt Hoover > > From j9470388@wlv.ac.uk Wed Feb 18 06:10:19 1998 by ccug.wlv.ac.uk with smtp (Exim 1.80 #3) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 1998 13:08:27 -0800 From: Alan Harrison To: m.hoover@csu-e.csuohio.edu Subject: Re: You can help save 100,000 lives! Matthew Hoover wrote: > > However, this situation is clearly not about > "capitalism" and "imperialism". It is about making Saddam comply with > the UN weapons inspections. Two remarks about this: 1. A linguistic observation: Matthew's language follows what has generally been the practice of Clinton and his supporters, pitting "us" against "Saddam Hussein". The personalisation of Hussein, in this way, obscures the fact that the victims of any bombing will be ordinary Iraqi people. 2. A political observation: the actions of the USA and its hangers-on, most notably Little Sir Echo in Downing Street, are certainly going to appear imperialist and grotesquely lacking in even-handedness to Arab people. Clinton is surrounded by a staff of alleged "experts" in Arab affairs. Have none of them explained to him that his actions have no support among surrounding Arab nations? Has nobody taken him gently to one side and explained that a message is sent to every Arab by an American government which turns a blind eye to Zionist expansion and contempt for UN resolutions, and which puts up as its front man a defence minister called, errr, Mr Cohen? Are the American bombers going to give a smack to Jerusalem over this, or will they take out Ankara over Turkey's continued occupation of northern Cyprus? Of course they won't, and herein lies the imperialism - in the decision that those UN resolutions will be enforced which coincide with the interests of the American ruling class, while those which conflict with it will be cheerfully ignored. > > I often hear from this list about the evils of the capitalist system and > the "oppression" that it causes. However, can anybody give me an example > of a communist/socialist country that has ever existed without forcing mass > compliance through torture and political imprisonment? If "socialist" means those countries which have a government which so describes itself, how about Sweden? Alan Harrison From MGWENG01@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU Wed Feb 18 09:43:41 1998 From: MGWENG01@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU Date: 18 Feb 1998 11:41:41 EST To: Subject: 100,000 lives, etc. Perhaps Alan Harrison could elaborate on what the NAME of SoD William Cohen has to do with politics in the "Arab world?" I simply can't wait to hear the forthcoming theory of nomenclature AH will provide, and what attendant practice he would recommend... Morton Wenger TELEPHONE: (502) 852-6836 INTERNET: MGWENG01@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU From gimenez@csf.Colorado.EDU Wed Feb 18 11:26:13 1998 Date: Wed, 18 Feb 1998 11:26:07 -0700 (MST) From: Martha Gimenez To: PSN@CSF.COLORADO.EDU Subject: ON LINE SEMINAR WITH GARY MARX Dear PSNers, I am writing to remind you that the seminar starts today. I am forwarding the information which includes instructions for joining and retrieving the papers. Best, Martha ---------- Forwarded message ---------- PSN Seminar on The Search for Meaning in Academic Life Gary Marx has written a thought provoking essay listing 37 moral imperatives for aspiring sociologists which he would like to discuss with others interested in the connections between intellectual endeavours and one's personal life. For that purpose, we have organized this e-seminar, the first of what we hope will be a number of creative and successful discussions around work written by members of PSN, the Progressive Sociologist Network. Date: February 18 - 24, 1998 Format: To participate in the seminar, send mail to LISTPROC@csf.colorado.edu in the message proper write sub psn-seminars firstname lastname Gary Marx will be on line and the discussion will be informal at the beginning. If the number of subscribers is large and the number of daily messages increase accordingly, the seminar will become moderated, so that only the best messages are posted. The proceedings will archived in the PSN archives. Location: you can find the seminar papers at the following url http://csf.colorado.edu/psn/seminars or you can send mail to listproc@csf.colorado.edu with this message: get psn-seminars aspiring-sociologists INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT The careers and lives that shape the work we do as academics are rarely discussed in the classroom or in our writing. There are of course good reasons for this. But in our training of graduate students and mentoring those starting out we need to give greater attention to making explicit the insights and wisdom that we pass on informally. In general, I find the image of the profession presented to our students to be unduly timid, antiseptic, laundered, formal and scholastic. It is important for teachers and mentors to discuss the more personal and professional sides of the discipline, even as we encourage students to find their own answers. We need to see the bigger picture, to locate ourselves within it, to reflect on why and how we do our work and on what gives meaning to our lives. A little anticipatory socialization might prevent many a mid-life crisis. This on-line seminar will discuss the search for meaning in academic lives taking off from a series of papers by Gary T. Marx. It primarily addresses those who have the good fortune to find permanent academic jobs. A core document for the discussion is "Of Methods and Manners for Aspiring Sociologists: 37 Moral Imperatives", The American Sociologist, Spring 1977. Parts of three other relevant papers may also be found on the web page created for the seminar: "Second Thoughts and Enduring Tensions" from "Recent Developments in Undercover Policing" on unresolved issues and choices in finishing a large research project in T. Blomberg and S. Cohen, Punishment and Social Control: Essays in Honor of Sheldon Messinger, 1995 Aldyne de Gruyter); "Seven Characteristics of Success" from "Reflections on Academic Success and Failure Making It, Forsaking It, Reshaping It" in B. Berger, Authors of Their Own Lives, 1990, Univ. of California Press; "Introduction" in Muckraking Sociology Research as Social Criticism, 1972 Transaction Books on social relevance and social research. A full version of the papers can be found at http://socsci.colorado.edu/~marxg/garyhome.html Gary Marx is interested in learning what kinds of mentoring advice others offer and welcomes criticism of this material and suggestions for further reading. ------------------------------ Cut here ------------------------------ ------------------------------ Cut here ------------------------------ From kenichol@wazoo.com Wed Feb 18 11:43:01 1998 Date: Wed, 18 Feb 1998 11:41:14 To: PSN@csf.colorado.edu From: Kenneth Nicholson Subject: Query I am a masters student doing thesis work on third party (specifically Green Party) issues. I'm looking for quantitative or qualitative studies on voting behavior of third party and major party supporters. IVs could include race, sex, age, and income. I would be grateful for any guidance from you folks out there. Ken Nicholson =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= The government of an exclusive company of merchants is, perhaps, the worst of all governments for any country whatsoever. -Adam Smith, from The Wealth of Nations- ________________________________________________________________________ 28 John Drive (505) 434-6511 Alamogordo, NM 88310 kenichol@wazoo.com ________________________________________________________________________ From LMILLER@umassd.edu Wed Feb 18 11:53:47 1998 From: LMILLER@umassd.edu Date: Wed, 18 Feb 1998 13:53:20 -0500 (EST) Subject: North South (reply to Porpora) To: psn@csf.colorado.edu Doug- You ask whether the affluence that we enjoy is conditional on the underdevelopment or exploitation of "the south". As tonto said to the lone ranger. " what do you mean 'we'"? It is easy enough 1:17 PM argue that the current development of western metropolitan economies is rooted in the exploitation of the third world - primitive accumulation and all that. It is also pretty clear that one part of the current high level of profitability, stock market boom plus low inflation etc. is made possible by the globalization of production. The fear, real or not (often real) that aggressive demands by labor will lead producers to relocate in lower wage cost venues. This has been going on for decades of course - textiles and shoes from New England to Carolina to Haiti etc. It is also the case that the relative market value of trade with "the south" is only one dimension of the importance of the trade since some of it consists of vital raw materials like middle eastern oil . (And more developed trading partners of the US e.g. the E. U.. and Japan are more dependant on those oil supplies than we, even.) All this tends to reinforce the importance of the north south divide for the structure of the world economy but could be interpreted as having a deleterious effect upon working class living standards rather than as a support for an aristocracy of labor approach. Furthermore - it can be argued, as the Braun Commission, funded by the German Social Democrats did back in the seventies or early eighties, that a re equilibration of the North South economic structures that put more purchasing power in the hands of the South would , in a Keynesian fashion, stimulate growth for the northern economies, creating new markets and bouying up northern wages. So while the existing inequalities may be supportive of the existing distribution of benefits/privileges that is not the same as saying that our comforts are inevitably tied to the existing balance of political and economic power. Depends on who "we" are, and which comforts you are talking about. Larry Miller From jrford@sbcc.sbceo.k12.ca.us Wed Feb 18 14:01:27 1998 From: "Jan Ford" To: "progressive sociology network" , "Bob Whittenbarger" Subject: Re: Mr. Hoover's question Date: Wed, 18 Feb 1998 13:01:11 -0800 charset="iso-8859-1" Bob: Thanks for your response to my post. I felt that many people answered Hoover's question so, instead of repeating info I just threw in one cluster of thinking on the issue. All societies use both internal and external means of social control. Certainly they can differ in degree and kind depending on the degree of consensus and control the ruling class has at any period of its history. Both the dictatorship of the proletariat and the dictatorship of the bourg. have used suppression of political opponents. I would argue for example that China under Mao, and based to a great degree theoretically upon Mao's writings on the subject, tended to use persuasion to the degree possible. For example, when Kuomontang soldiers were captured, a great deal of time and effort was put into educating them and trying to win them over to the side of the revolution. In the cultural revolution Mao expressly forbid the army from using armed force against the students even when the students provoked them with violence. However, "revolution is not a dinner party" and when elements of the old society attempt to overthrow the new it is sometimes necessary to use violence and repression. [Just as a capitalist society would.] The real questions are in whose interest is repression being conducted and who is it aimed toward. If you are acting in the interest of the people, and you are building a society based upon justice, equality and democracy for all, it is foolish to let the forces of oppression and exploitation waltz back in and restore their society of misery and terror. If Chiang Kai Chek had set foot on the mainland, he would have been arrested and charged with serious crimes, and rightly so. On the other hand, the suppression of the students at Tien an Mien was an inexcusable and unjustifiable act that should be denounced. However, imho, this was an act committed not by a socialist state, but by a restored capitalist [social fascist] regime directed against a democratic movement. ----Original Message----- From: Bob Whittenbarger To: jrford@sbcc.sbceo.k12.ca.us Date: Wednesday, February 18, 1998 7:14 AM Subject: Mr. Hoover's question >Dear Dr. Ford, > >I don't entirely disagree with your response to Mr. Hoover. >But, you didn't answer his question. > >Bob > >-- >+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ > Bob Whittenbarger Eastern Illinois University > cfrlw01@eiu.edu Department of Sociology & Anthropology > (217) 581-3620 Charleston, IL 61920 >+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ > From pengle@wce.wwu.edu Wed Feb 18 15:12:44 1998 Date: Wed, 18 Feb 1998 14:12:37 -0800 To: "progressive sociology network" , jrford@sbcc.sbceo.k12.ca.us From: Paul Englesberg Subject: persuasion in China? Jan Ford's discussion of China's use of persuasion, and in particular during the Cultural Revolution, is a great distortion of history. Yes, Mao did advocate the use of re-education and persuasion. But by all accounts, millions of people (yes, misslions of peasants, workers, intellectuals -- "the people") were killed, tortured, starved, or driven to suicide, during the cultural revolution and Mao's Great Leap Forward in the late '50's. Labeling the 1989 suppression of the Tiananman protests as the work of a "restored capitalist" state hardly addresses the historical and political realities behind the power of CCP leaders such as Deng Xiaoping, Li Peng, et al. Judging from the suppression of protest from 1950-76, Mao most likely would have suppressed it sooner and more brutally. After all, Deng then was a leading Communist Party official too. Failure to acknowledge the terrible tragedies of "socialist" states and to learn how and why this happened is dangerous and immoral. Why perpetuate myths about China? Why make excuses for socialist states that we would harshly condemn otherwise? - Paul Englesberg Jan Ford wrote: >I would argue for example that >China under Mao, and based to a great degree theoretically upon Mao's >writings on the subject, tended to use persuasion to the degree possible. >For example, when Kuomontang soldiers were captured, a great deal of time >and effort was put into educating them and trying to win them over to the >side of the revolution. In the cultural revolution Mao expressly forbid the >army from using armed force against the students even when the students >provoked them with violence. >On the other hand, the suppression of the students at Tien an Mien was an >inexcusable and unjustifiable act that should be denounced. However, imho, >this was an act committed not by a socialist state, but by a restored >capitalist [social fascist] regime directed against a democratic movement. Paul Englesberg Woodring College of Education Western Washington University Bellingham, WA 98225 ph: (360) 650-7527 email: pengle@wce.wwu.edu From mkoc@acs.ryerson.ca Wed Feb 18 17:35:44 1998 Date: Wed, 18 Feb 1998 19:35:24 -0500 (EST) From: Mustafa Koc To: PROGRESSIVE SOCIOLOGISTS NETWORK , International Sociological Association Subject: Emigre sociologists at the ISA International Sociological Association Research Committee on Social Practice and Social Transformation is organizing a session and a panel titled EMIGRE SOCIOLOGISTS: Globalization of Knowledge and Cultural Boundaries at the 14th World Congress of Sociology going to be held in Montreal, Canada on July 26-August 1, 1998. We want to hear from those who consider themselves as "emigre sociologists" or who have studied emigre sociologists. We will be happy to hear from you. Send your abstracts no later than February 25, 1998 to Mustafa Koc, Department of Sociology, Ryerson Polytechnic University, 350 Victoria Street, Toronto, Ontario, M5B 2K3, Canada E-mail: mkoc@acs.ryerson.ca Fax: (416) 979 5273 From m.hoover@csu-e.csuohio.edu Wed Feb 18 17:54:34 1998 Date: Wed, 18 Feb 1998 19:54:12 -0500 To: psn@csf.colorado.edu From: Matthew Hoover Subject: Iraq bombing thread PSN'ers, I appreciate all the posts that I have received on this, and I am glad that the moderators posted my original email. Since I don't subscribe to the unmoderated list, if you want to reply to this post please put my email address (m.hoover@popmail.csuohio.edu) in the "cc" line to make sure that I get you email if this is not posted. Instead of sending seperate replies out, I thought I would reply to several points that were made: Steve Rosenthal mentioned that we have equipped Saddam with weapons during the eighties, and that we (the USA) share a responsibilty for the situation. It is true that during the Iran/Iraq war, we supplied weapons to Iraq. The US clearly took the Iraq side in this conflict, since the Iranians were responsible for the hostage crisis, and were engaged in state sponsored terrorism, we decided to help out the Iraqi side. The expression that "my enemy's enemy is my friend" was used to justify our taking sides in this conflict. However, I don't believe that we ever shipped him chemical and biological weapons. I agree that our we should not have been silent when Saddam used these weapons in the war and against the Kurds, but our silence then does not mean that we should be silent now. Many people have made the argument along the lines of "look what the US has done" ie the contras etc. This line of reasoning is specious, I am not going to argue about what positions the US has taken in the past. The current decision about weather or not we should force Iraq to comply with the UN resolutions is what we are talking about. The argument seems to be that "we done bad things, so we should let Saddam do them as well". After the first Gulf War, the Iraqi position was that it had no biological and chemical weapons. The UN inspectors subsequently found and destroyed tons of these types of weapons. Saddam Hussein has since built many "presidential palaces" while his people are nearly starving because of the trade sanctions. We know that he has used these types of weapons against Iran and his own people, and are we supposed to take his word that he has no more of these weapons? The ball is in Saddams court right now, let the UN inspectors back in the country and finish their work, and the trading sanctions will be lifted. Saddam's strategy has been to try to divide the international community and avoid inspections, he thinks that he can get around the UN resolutions. We should not allow this man to dictate terms of lifting the embargo. I agree with what Alan that the victims of all of this is the Iraqi people. My personalization of Saddam, and using "us" and "them" is appropriate, it is solely Saddam's actions that determine the fate of the Iraqi citizens. Saddam has a history of putting civilians around military targets thus insuring that many innocent people will be killed, but the actions of Saddam - ie throwing out the UN weapons inspections and lying about his chemical and biological arsenal - have placed the responsibility for the killings directly in his hands. If our motivation was "imperialism" would'nt we not be for the lifting of sanctions so that we could buy his oil cheaply? In regards to the "forcing compliance", it does not matter what one calls itself, but weather or not they fit the definition of socialist/communist. Swedon etc. are clearly capitalist countries that have a more extensive social safety net, the government does not own the means of production and they have private industries. I may have lost some posts that were sent to the unmoderated list, if that is the case, could someone please forward them to me. Thanks, Matt Hoover From RPlatkin@aol.com Wed Feb 18 23:01:39 1998 From: RPlatkin@aol.com by imo25.mx.aol.com (IMOv12/Dec1997) id GZUHa29118 Date: Thu, 19 Feb 1998 01:01:23 EST To: psn@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Fwd: The Stench of American Hypocrisy & Carnage boundary="part0_887868089_boundary" This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --part0_887868089_boundary PSN: Some compelling historical context follows for Mr. Hoover and others who use their confessed lack of information about the Iraq-Iran war to justify a round of U.S.-British bombing over the next few weeks. In addition to this article, I will also try to post two others. The first is an extract of a U.S. Senate report identifying exactly which biochemical warfare elements the U.S. provided to Iraq during 1985-1988. The second is a detailed article from the Monday, Feb. 16, 1998, L.A. Times which gives enormous detail on exactly how much the U.S. knew about Iraqi use of poison gas in the Iraq-Iran war (alot!), what it did to stop these weapons (nothing!), and how the U.S. provided detailed intelligence to the Iraqis so they would know exactly when and where Iranian front-lines would be for the most effective use of gas. A third article, which perhaps others on PSN have, is from the 1-18-98 Wall Street Journal which inventories all of the countries in the Middle East which have similar weapons of mass destruction, and none of whom (except Libya) have ever gotten even a rap on the knuckles from the U.S. The same issue of the WSJ also mentions that Egyptian opposition to Desert Thunder is based on Israel's weapons of mass destruction (nuclear, biological, and chemical) and the complete lack of U.S. pressure on Israel to sign international treaties regarding these weapons. In the Egypian view Iraq, which was once bombed by Israel, needs some biochemical weapons to maintain a balance of terror in the Middle East. Dick Platkin rplatkin@aol.com --part0_887868089_boundary Return-Path: by relay30.mail.aol.com (8.8.5/8.8.5/AOL-4.0.0) Fri, 13 Feb 1998 17:46:49 -0500 (EST) Sender: owner-mer-L@middleeast.org Reply-To: mer-L@middleeast.org Date: Fri, 13 Feb 1998 16:51:52 -0500 From: MID-EAST REALITIES Subject: The Stench of American Hypocrisy & Carnage - _______ ____ ______ / |/ / /___/ / /_ // M I D - E A S T R E A L I T I E S / /|_/ / /_/_ / /\\ Making Sense of the Middle East /_/ /_/ /___/ /_/ \\ www.MiddleEast.Org THE STENCH OF ANGLO-AMERICAN HYPOCRISY AND HUMAN CARNAGE ___________________________________________________________________ TO RECEIVE MER REGULARLY EMAIL TO: INFOMER@MiddleEast.Org ------------------------------------------------------------------- M I D - E A S T R E A L I T I E S News, Information, & Analysis That Governments, Interest Groups, and the Corporate Media Don't Want You To Know. ------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about the weekly TV program email to: INFOMERTV@MiddleEast.Org ____________________________________________________________________ THE STENCH OF ANGLO-AMERICAN HYPOCRISY MER - Washington - 13 February: The stench of war in the Middle East, past and present, has American fingerprints all over it. Few in the press today have reminded us that it was the U.S. and allies (along with the Arab client regimes) that egged Iraq on just a few years ago, providing Saddam Hussein's Bathist Government the money and weapons to build up Iraq's once powerful forces. This article by Robert Fisk, one of the world's most seasoned, courageous, and passionate journalists, provides some of the vitally important context that is so missing from the American media. This article from yesterday's THE INDEPENDENT is must reading. Too bad we can't reprint it in The Washington Post and The Congressional Record! The American public, and their representatives in the American Congress, should be reading this! WHAT MADNESS IS SEIZING MESSRS CLINTON AND BLAIR TODAY? By Robert Fisk THE INDEPENDENT I have been reminded of some familiar odours these past few days. The first is the terrible, nauseous stench I endured for hours on the overnight train from Ahwaz to Tehran back in the Eighties, as I shared a carriage with dozens of young Iranian soldiers. All of them were coughing up Saddam Hussein's poisons from their lungs into blood-red swabs and bandages. And the mustard gas that was slowly killing them permeated the whole great 20-carriage train as it thundered up from the desert battlefields of the first Gulf War, through the mountains to the city where almost all these men would soon die and be buried. After only an hour into the journey, I was forced to throw open the carriage window to avoid vomiting. No sooner had I filed a series of reports to London on this new and terrible war crime of Saddam Hussein than a British diplomat, lunching with one of my editors in London, remarked that "Bob doesn't seem to understand the situation." True, he said, gas was a terrible weapon. But Saddam was fighting the West's war against Iranian fundamentalism - a danger which might set the whole Middle East ablaze and which could threaten the entire world. Wasn't The Times - the paper for which I then worked - putting a little too much emphasis on Saddam's sins? So the other smell I recall this week is the stink of hypocrisy when - in 1990 - the world's statesmen began to whip their people into line for war against the man they had supported in his conflict against Iran. The French had sold Saddam Mirage jets. The Germans had provided him with the gas that had me almost wretching on the train from Ahwaz. The Americans had sold him helicopters for spraying crops with pesticide (the "crops", of course, being human beings). The British gave Saddam bailey bridges. And I later met the Cologne arms dealer who flew from the Pentagon to Baghdad with US satellite photos of the Iranian front lines - to help Saddam kill more Iranians. And oddly enough, whenever I mentioned this back in 1990, after Saddam had invaded Kuwait, I was admonished by diplomats. There's no point in dwelling on the past, I was told. The only way to deal with Saddam now was war. Did I have any better ideas? And within a few weeks, Saddam - and yes, he is a venal, cruel, wicked, evil man - was being transformed into the Hitler of Iraq, just as the Israelis had called Yasser Arafat the Hitler of Beirut in 1982, and just as Eden has called Nasser the Mussolini of the Nile in 1956. Normally quite rational individuals became cheerleaders for war, shouting hysterically when I suggested that the results of this war might not quite match the expectations. Serious newspapers began to advocate the occupation of Baghdad and a war crimes trial for Saddam. And once that battle was over and Saddam was expelled from Kuwait, we were told by our leaders that Saddam had been "defanged". Our smart bombs and guided missiles had destroyed his army, our Patriot missiles had protected us from his Scuds - and at little cost to the Western alliance. Then it turned out that all this was untrue. But at least we never claimed then that he was capable of harming more than the Middle East. So what madness is seizing Messrs Clinton and Blair today? After seven years of inspections - seven years, for heaven's sake - UN arms inspectors have not been able to find all of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction. Thousands were dying of malnutrition and lack of medicine, a million if you believe some UN officials. Mass funerals for babies (70 in one cortege on the last count) made their way through Baghdad. Propaganda for the odious Saddam, of course; but few thought the coffins were empty. And then Saddam - shrewdly appreciating that America's craven surrender to Israel's settlement building had convinced Arab leaders that the "peace process" was a betrayal of the Palestinians - decided to ban the UN inspectors from his palaces. And what happened? Our masters informed us that Saddam was even worse than he was before we beat him the first time. Far from just threatening the oil rich Gulf, the chief UN inspector informed us that the Iraqis had enough anthrax "to wipe out Tel Aviv" (note the city he chose - not Dhahran or Riyadh but Tel Aviv, although all three had been rocketed in 1991). And then our own trustworthy Foreign Office announced that Saddam now posed a threat to "the whole world". In Washington, Mr Blair repeated this, saying that he had enough weapons "to wipe out the world's population". The whole world? Is this true? In Beirut these past few days, I have been trying to remember where I last heard these words. It took me some time before I recalled where. I last read them when I was at school, reading the Eagle comic, wherein a space hero called Dan Dare - a kind of 1950s version of Tom Cruise - would regularly do battle with the Mekon, a green and ectoplasmic alien creature who had the ability to wipe out the entire world (unless he was first destroyed/defanged/put back into his box or whatever). Has it really descended to this? The Middle East, with all its complexities and dangers and religious tension - yes, and its evils - is being turned into a comic strip in which Dan Dare will launch his space-age high-tech at the Mekon of Baghdad. Perhaps the American public and its pro-Israeli representatives in Congress and the Senate accept this nonsense? But do we, whose Prime Minister is chanting all this at Bill Clinton's side? British readers should be aware of what US columnists are demanding. In The New York Times, William Safire has been recommending "sustained bombing of all suspected weaponry sites, including palaces occupied by civilians used as hostages", while in The Washington Post, Richard Cohen has been saying of Saddam: "He is not . a mole but a rat. It would be best to exterminate him ." And last weekend, when I recalled the 1991 war and its rhetoric to an American radio commentator, I heard the same weary response. "Let's not talk about the past, Bob. What do we do now?" Well, the world might, after all, demand that all Middle Eastern states apply all UN security council resolutions - which include an Israeli withdrawal from occupied Arab land as well as the disarming of Saddam Hussein. It could insist that within five years, all weapons of mass destruction in the region - not just Iraqi weapons but Syrian missiles and Israeli nuclear weapons and possible Iranian rockets - be destroyed. It could offer a real peace in the Middle East, based on human rights, justice and a Palestinian homeland. But no, like Dan Dare we prefer to do battle with monsters. And we are beating the old 1991 drums of war, our claims so preposterous that they bury the real viciousness of the real Saddam. For war is not primarily about victory or defeat. It is about death. It represents the total failure of the human spirit. And if we really are going to participate in this obscenity again, is it not possible to do so with the humility of men who know what we are doing? __________________________________________________________________ MID-EAST REALITIES is published a number of times weekly and the MERTV Program shows weekly on Cable TV. Email to INFOMER@MIDDLEEAST.ORG to receive MER regularly. For past MER articles go to: http://WWW.MiddleEast.Org. M I D - E A S T R E A L I T I E S (c) Copyright 1998 MER may be freely distributed by email and on the Internet so long as there is no editing of any kind. For any print publication, permission in writing is required. MER@MiddleEast.Org / Fax: 202 362-6965 / Phone: 202 362-5266 --part0_887868089_boundary-- From RPlatkin@aol.com Wed Feb 18 23:13:04 1998 From: RPlatkin@aol.com by imo15.mx.aol.com (IMOv12/Dec1997) id GCMZa05261 Date: Thu, 19 Feb 1998 01:12:54 EST To: psn@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Documentation on U. boundary="part0_887868775_boundary" This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --part0_887868775_boundary Attached is a post from MER quoting a U.S. Senate report identifying exactly which biological warfare agents the United States exported to Iraq during the Iraq-Iran war. No big deal, I suppose, from the same country which dropped nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and which inundated Vietnam with Agent Orange. These two little historical footnotes might be of interest to Madeline Albright who, at Ohio State today -- over the din of anti-war chants -- said Iraq is different from other countries because it has used weapons of mass destruction and therefore the U.S. is justified in another attack on Iraq. She ought to bone up on a little American history, perhaps going back to the 19th century, when the U.S. cavalry gave blankets infected with the small pox bacteria to Native Americans, before examing the two cases I identified above. --part0_887868775_boundary Return-Path: by relay09.mail.aol.com (8.8.5/8.8.5/AOL-4.0.0) Tue, 10 Feb 1998 09:10:02 -0500 (EST) Sender: owner-mer-L@middleeast.org Reply-To: mer-L@middleeast.org Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 08:10:38 -0500 From: MID-EAST REALITIES Subject: Author condemns U.S. policies toward Iraq - _______ ____ ______ / |/ / /___/ / /_ // M I D - E A S T R E A L I T I E S / /|_/ / /_/_ / /\\ Making Sense of the Middle East /_/ /_/ /___/ /_/ \\ www.MiddleEast.Org M E R E X C L U S I V E : AUTHOR CONDEMNS U.S. POLICIES TOWARD IRAQ __________________________________________________________________ TO RECEIVE MER REGULARLY EMAIL TO: INFOMER@MiddleEast.Org ------------------------------------------------------------------- M I D - E A S T R E A L I T I E S News, Information, & Analysis That Governments, Interest Groups, and the Corporate Media Don't Want You To Know from Independent Middle East Experts Around the World. ____________________________________________________________________ MER EXCLUSIVE: T H E U N I T E D S T A T E S V S . I R A Q A S T U D Y I N H Y P O C R I S Y By William Blum* Author of - Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II "Far and away the best book on the topic" - Noam Chomsky "I enjoyed it immensely" - Gore Vidal "We have heard that a half million children have died," said "60 Minutes" reporter Lesley Stahl, speaking of US sanctions against Iraq. "I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And -- and you know, is the price worth it?" Her guest, in May 1996, U.N. Ambassador Madeleine Albright, responded: "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price -- we think the price is worth it." Today, Secretary of State Albright travels around the world to gather support for yet more bombing of Iraq. The price, apparently, is still worth it. The price is of course being paid solely by the Iraqi people -- a million or so men, women and children, dead from the previous bombings and seven years of sanctions. The plight of the living in Iraq, plagued by malnutrition and a severe shortage of medicines, is as well terrible to behold. Their crime? They have a leader who refuses to cede all sovereignty to the United States (acting under its usual United Nations cover) which demands that every structure in Iraq, including the presidential palaces, be available for inspection for "weapons of mass destruction". After more than six years of these inspections, and significant destruction of stocks of forbidden chemical, biological, and nuclear weapon material, as well as weapons research and development programs, the UN team still refuses to certify that Iraq is clean enough. Inasmuch as the country is larger than California, it's understandable that the inspectors can not be certain that all prohibited weapons have been uncovered. It's equally understandable that Iraq claims that the United States can, and will, continue to find some excuse not to give Iraq the certification needed to end the sanctions. It can be said that the United States has inflicted more vindictive punishment and ostracism upon Iraq than upon Germany or Japan after World War 2. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * "In the not too distant future, when Iran begins to flex its muscles a bit more, in ways not to Washington's pleasure, it may then be their turn for some good ol' American "diplomacy"." * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * The Saddam Hussein regime must wonder at the high (double) standard set by Washington. Less than a year ago, the U.S. Senate passed an act to implement the "Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on Their Destruction" (Short title: Chemical Weapons Convention), an international treaty which has been ratified by more than 100 nations in its five-year life. The Senate act, Section 307, stipulates that "the President may deny a request to inspect any facility in the United States in cases where the President determines that the inspection may pose a threat to the national security interests of the United States." Saddam has asked for no more than this for Iraq. Presumably, under the Senate act, the White House, Pentagon, etc. would be off limits, as Saddam insists his presidential palaces should be, as well as the military unit responsible for Saddam's personal security, which an American colonel demanded to visit. Section 303 further states that "Any objection by the President to an individual serving as an inspector ... shall not be reviewable in any court." Again, this echoes a repeated complaint from the Iraqis -- a recent team of 16 inspectors included 14 from the US and Britain, Saddam's two principal adversaries, who are -- even as you read this -- busily planning new bombing raids on Iraq. The team was led by a U.S. Marine Corps captain, a veteran of the Gulf War, who has been accused of spying by Iraq. But the Iraqis do not have a corresponding right of exclusion. The same section of the Senate act provides, moreover, that an FBI agent "accompanies each inspection team visit". The wishes of the Iraqi government to place certain sites off limits and to have less partisan inspectors have been dismissed out of hand by U.S. government spokespersons and the American media. "What do they have to hide?" has been the prevailing attitude. The hypocrisy runs deeper yet. In his recent State of the Union address, President Clinton, in the context of Iraq, spoke of how we must "confront the new hazards of chemical and biological weapons, and the outlaw states, terrorists and organized criminals seeking to acquire them." He castigated Saddam Hussein for "developing nuclear, chemical and biological weapons" and called for strengthening the Biological Weapons Convention. Who among his listeners knew, who among the media reported, that the United States had been the supplier to Iraq of much of the source biological materials Saddam's scientists would require to create a biological warfare program? According to a Senate Report of 1994: From 1985, if not earlier, through 1989, a veritable witch's brew of biological materials were exported to Iraq by private American suppliers pursuant to application and licensing by the U.S. Department of Commerce. Amongst these materials, which often produce slow and agonizing deaths, were: Bacillus Anthracis, cause of anthrax. Clostridium Botulinum, a source of botulinum toxin. Histoplasma Capsulatam, cause of a disease attacking lungs, brain, spinal cord and heart. Brucella Melitensis, a bacteria that can damage major organs. Clotsridium Perfringens, a highly toxic bacteria causing systemic illness. Clostridium tetani, highly toxigenic. Also, Escherichia Coli (E.Coli); genetic materials; human and bacterial DNA. Dozens of other pathogenic biological agents were shipped to Iraq during the 1980s. The Senate Report pointed out: "These biological materials were not attenuated or weakened and were capable of reproduction." The United Nations inspectors have uncovered evidence that Iraq was conducting research on pathogen enhancement and biological warfare-related stimulant research on many of the identical types of biological agents shipped to the country from the United States. These shipments continued to at least November 28, 1989 despite the fact that Iraq had been reported to be engaging in chemical warfare and possibly biological warfare against Iranians, Kurds, and Shiites since the early 80s. During the Iraq-Iran war of 1980-88, the United States gave military aid and intelligence information to both sides, hoping that each would inflict severe damage on the other, in line perhaps with what Noam Chomsky has postulated: It's been a leading, driving doctrine of U.S. foreign policy since the 1940s that the vast and unparalleled energy resources of the Gulf region will be effectively dominated by the United States and its clients, and, crucially, that no independent, indigenous force will be permitted to have a substantial influence on the administration of oil production and price. Indeed, there is evidence that Washington encouraged Iraq to attack Iran and ignite the war in the first place. This policy, as well as financial considerations, were likely the motivating forces behind providing Iraq with the biological materials. (Iran was at that time regarded as the greater threat to the seemingly always threatened U.S. national security.) As the American public and media are being prepared to accept and cheerlead the next bombing of the people of Iraq, the stated rationale, the official party line, is that Iraq is an "outlaw" state (or "rogue" state, or "pariah" state -- the media obediently repeats all the White House and State Department buzz words), which is ignoring a United Nations Security Council resolution. Israel, however, has ignored many such resolutions without the U.S. bombing Tel Aviv, imposing sanctions, or even cutting back military aid. But by some arcane ideological alchemy, Israel is not deemed an "outlaw" state by Washington. Neither does the United States regard itself so for turning its back on a ruling of the U.N.'s World Court in 1984 to cease its hostile military actions against Nicaragua, nor for the numerous times the U.S. has totally ignored overwhelming General Assembly resolutions, or for its repeated use of chemical and biological agents against Cuba since the 1960s. The bombing looks to be inevitable. The boys are busy moving all their toys into position; they can already see the battle decorations hanging from their chests. Of course, no one knows what it will accomplish besides more death and destruction. Saddam will remain in power. He'll be more stubborn than ever about the inspections. There may be one consolation for the Iraqi people. The Washington Post has reported that Secretary of Defense William Cohen has indicated that "U.S. officials remain wary of doing so much military damage to Iraq as to weaken its regional role as a counterweight to Iran." In the not too distant future, when Iran begins to flex its muscles a bit more, in ways not to Washington's pleasure, it may then be their turn for some good ol' American "diplomacy". * William Blum is the author of: Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II. See: http://members.aol.com/bblum6/American_holocaust.htm __________________________________________________________________ MID-EAST REALITIES is published a number of times weekly and the MERTV Program shows weekly on Cable TV. Email to INFOMER@MIDDLEEAST.ORG to receive MER regularly. For past MER articles go to: http://WWW.MiddleEast.Org. M I D - E A S T R E A L I T I E S (c) Copyright 1998 MER may be freely distributed by email and on the Internet so long as there is no editing of any kind. For any print publication, permission in writing is required. MER@MiddleEast.Org / Fax: 202 362-6965 / Phone: 202 362-5266 --part0_887868775_boundary-- From RPlatkin@aol.com Thu Feb 19 00:15:38 1998 From: RPlatkin@aol.com by imo25.mx.aol.com (IMOv12/Dec1997) id GFCNa29117 Date: Thu, 19 Feb 1998 02:15:18 EST To: psn@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Additional background information on Iraq PSN: This fact sheet should be useful information for rebutting the claim that the U.S. government should bomb Iraq because of the dreadful treatment which Saddam Hussein has dished out to the Iraqi population. In this case, the cure of military attacks and more severe sanctions appears to be much worse than the disease of the Iraqi dictatorship. In fact, if these U.N. based statistics are correct, it means the United States is responsible for more Iraqi civilian deaths resulting from Desert Storm and its 7 years of aftermath, than the conservative estimate of the number of Vietnamese (1,000,000) the U.S. government killed during the 10 years of the Vietnam War. Just as the Vietnam war was totally bipartisan -- except for the early and principled opposition to the war by Sen. Ernest Gruening of Alaska and Sen. Wayne Morris or Oregon -- the U.S. attacks on Iraq are also bipartisan. Pres. Bush got the Senate to vote 100 to 0 for Desert Storm, with the Democrats dragging their feet for months. Now, the Democrats -- the so- called lesser evils -- are in the lead, with the Republicans dragging their feet, albeit for the wrong reasons. Senators Gruening and Morris were not snookered by the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, nor did their moral sense cave. As for Republican opposition to 1998's Desert Thunder, it seems to focus mostly on Clinton's wishy-washy effort to build up a war hysteria. They are begging to be snookered by some Johnsonesque provocation, so they can save face with their constituents and their corporate backers. Dick Platkin rplatkin@aol.com P.S. 1) Does anyone think Clinton's case of Iraq militarily threatening the U.S. will fly, including Madeline Albright's claims to this effect today at Ohio State? Despite tens of billions in agricultural aid, financial aid, military supplies (including the biochemical weapons the U.S. government is now upset about!), and military intelligence, Iraq -- at its prime -- couldn' t defeat an isolated Iran. A few years after that they folded in 3 days during Desert Storm. They have never been able to vanquish the Kurds in northern Iraq? What could they credibly do to threaten the United States? 2) Like Alan Spector, I also am curious how PSN members who advocated voting for Clinton and other Democrats as a lesser evil several years, now view their position. Is it really still possible to maintain that we can develop a peaceful, progressive version of capitalism if we just get the right politicians in power? In fact, given the reluctance of many Republicans to support Clinton, maybe the lesser evil advocates should "hold their nose" and vote Republican in the next election? ----------------- Forwarded Message: Subj: Facts About What Has Been Done To Iraq Date: 98-02-17 01:59:26 EST From: MER@middleeast.org (MID-EAST REALITIES) FACTS AND STATISTICS ABOUT WHAT THE 7-YEAR BLOCKADE AND SANCTIONS AGAINST IRAQ HAVE WROUGHT Over 1.2 million people, the majority children, have died as a result of medical shortages during more than seven years of U.N. trade sanctions against Iraq. - U.N. Report, September 1997. "One out of every 4 young Iraqi children is malnourished. More than 750,000 children are suffering from malnutrition."- UNICEF and WFP, '97 "More than 4,500 children under the age of 5 are dying each month from hunger and disease."-UNICEF, October 1996. "Since the onset of sanctions, there has been a six-fold increase in the mortality rate for children under five and the majority of the country's population has been on a semi-starvation diet." - World Health Organization (WHO), March 1996. "More than one million Iraqis have died-567,000 of them children-as a direct consequence of economic sanctions... As many as 12% of the children surveyed in Baghdad are wasted, 28% stunted and 29% underweight."-UN FAO, December 1995. "Famine threatens four million people in sanctions-hit Iraq -- one fifth of the population -- following a poor grain harvest... The human situation is deteriorating. Living conditions are precarious and are at pre-famine level for at least four million people. The deterioration in nutritional status of children is reflected in the significant increase of child mortality, which has risen nearly fivefold since 1990." - FAO, September 1995. "Alarming food shortages are causing irreparable damage to an entire generation of Iraqi children". -FAO and WFP, September 1995. "Sanctions are inhibiting the importation of spare parts, chemicals, reagents, and the means of transportation required to provide water and sanitation services to the civilian population of Iraq. ... What has become increasingly clear is that no significant movement towards food security can be achieved so long as the embargo remains in place. All vital contributors to food availability - agricultural production, importation of foodstuffs, economic stability and income generation, are dependent on Iraq's ability to purchase and import those items vital to the survival of the civilian population" - UNICEF, 1995 From jnaiman@acs.ryerson.ca Thu Feb 19 07:09:44 1998 Date: Thu, 19 Feb 1998 09:10:59 -0500 (EST) From: Joanne Naiman To: psn@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Nonviolence Web: Iraq Crisis and Antiwar Homepage (fwd) FYI Joanne Naiman Ryerson, Toronto ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 13 Feb 1998 23:22:41 -0500 From: Eric Fawcett To: s4p all lists , s4pont@physics.utoronto.ca, s4potht@physics.utoronto.ca, s4ptor@physics.utoronto.ca Subject: Nonviolence Web: Iraq Crisis and Antiwar Homepage A number of U.S. peace movement groups have pulled together a site to track on the Iraq Crisis and provide weekly commentary and opinions. Hosted on the Nonviolence Web, home to dozens of U.S. peace organizations, it is linked to background pieces, action alerts, a "what you can do" section, and a discussion board. Perhaps most importantly, there's a section where participants can list local demonstrations and start building a grassroots movement against military action in the Gulf. The "Iraq Crisis Antiwar Homepage" is located at: http://www.nonviolence.org/campaigns/iraq.htm Please get the word out far and wide about this resource and email me with suggestions as to how to make it even more useful! ________________________________________________ The Nonviolence Web Web address: http://www.nonviolence.org/ Email: nvweb@nonviolence.org P.O. Box 30947, Phila., PA 19104, (215) 724-4633 ***************************************************************** _________________________________________________________________________ if you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything patti hartnagel 12203 39 avenue edmonton, alberta, T6J ON1 canada ph: (403) 435-7051 fax: (403) 437-2925 From gimenez@csf.Colorado.EDU Thu Feb 19 12:43:17 1998 Date: Thu, 19 Feb 1998 12:43:08 -0700 (MST) From: Martha Gimenez To: PSN@CSF.COLORADO.EDU Subject: Iraq in Columbus, Washington, New York et al (fwd) ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 19 Feb 1998 13:18:58 -0500 (EST) From: Gunder Frank To: H-NET List for World History Michael Perelman , "Lev S. Gonick" , Martha Gimenez , agf Subject: Iraq in Columbus, Washington, New York et al It is difficult to comprehend the premises of this h-world net posting that says that Koffi Aman going to Bagdhad evoke soemthing about appeasing Quadaffi and/or putting the USA in the position of perhaps turning 'imperialist'. The fact is that the whole Iraq thing has been a US run and manged show from the very beginning, which already in 1990- 1991 violated at least a half dozen sections of the UN Charter and which its then Secretary Genral Perez de Cuellar denounced as being 'not a UN war but a US war." That was one of its most troubling aspects already then, and a fortiori it is now that 3 permanent members of the Security Council are opposed, not to mention most of the rest of the world including the US allies. At it has been one of the most troubling aspects of the 'debate', including especially the town meeting yesterday in Colombus, that the vital issue of US vs. UN is never even raised. CNN [which after President Bush, whom it just interviewd egain to drum up support for war] already was the worst war monger in 1990, is at it again including its sponsorship and airing of the Columbus spectacle. Note that CNN showed in its opinion poll citations - and the discussants at Ohio State talked about - US opinion ONLY, as thought that were all that matters. Even the US sabre/missile [not to mention nuclear] rattling is in violation of the UN Charter. Any use of force by one or more member states against another violates the very UN Charter Article 42 and various of its sections under whose cover resolution 678 about 'all necessary means' was made in 1990 and used to make war in 1991. Since according to the Charter - 1. before these means are used, several sections of Articles 41 and 42 are to be complied with that were not last time around and even less this time [only one of which is to also satisfy Article 27 Clause 3 that requires athat all five permanent members of the Security Council must cast an AFFIRMATIVE vote, which they failed to do last time and certainly will not do this time] - 2. It is the Security Council that must DECIDE if and when what means are necessary, and no member state can decide that on its own within the Charter, but the US does not want even a Security Council meeting, since it knows that it would veto US policy, and -3. It is the United Nations under its Charter, and NOT any member state/s, that must implement any such Security Council decision, which was not done in 1991, and is not even contemplated this time, vide that there has been NO mention of the Security Council deciding anything or the UN doing anything or not and any US [and or UK or any other member] decision to act violently against another member state is in total VIOLATION of the UN Charter, no matter what resolutions may have been passed by the Security Council even if there were such a resolution, which there is not [and that is why US argues that the old resolution 678 which violated international law then is still in force [not to mention il/legal] now -precisely because the US knows that it can no longer ram through any similar resolution now]. 4. so the entire 'debate' is beside the point of the UN and outside of international law and the UN. The US government spokesmen' and women's 'appeal' to any and all UN resolutions as an alledged cover for US policy is nothing more than the height of cynicism and alas the denigration of the very UN whose mantle the US seeks to use. So whether the US Congress and/or public supports or not military action vs Iraq is totally beside the point of the respect for and implementation of international law and the UN Charter, to which the US formally subscribes while it actively circumvents and emasculates it [and does not even PAY for it!] [another verysignificant case was the transfer of decision making about the former Yugoslavia and Bosnia from the UN Security Council to NATO]. Now the transfer of world decision and military action is to be simply to the White House, with or without congressional War Act approval [which makes even the US constitutionality more than dubious] - and the total DISregard for all UN Charter and international conventions, which no longer even receive any public mention in Columbus, Washington, the media or anywhere. Beyond the long suffering people of Iraq, it is the people of the whole world, including those of the United States, that do and will SUFFER this loss of international law, which is as great as the deadly silence about it. respectfully submitted andre gunder frank On Thu, 19 Feb 1998, whitney howarth wrote: Date: Thu, 19 Feb 1998 11:36:53 -0500 > From: whitney howarth > Reply-To: H-NET List for World History > Subject: Is Saddam Pulling a "Qaddafi"? > > From: Edward Brown II > Digital-Diary@classic.msn.com > > UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's trip to Iraq gives me great concern. The > reason is the Iraqi Government is using him. Annan's trip reminds me of > the Libyan situation of the mid-eighties, Muammar al-Qaddafi, during his > confrontation with the lame-duck Reagan Administration, invited Rev. Jesse > Jackson (Mr. "Keep Hope Alive") to negotiate a peace treaty amongst the two > countries. The US media criticized Jackson for "embarrassing the > President." Political analysts opined that Qaddafi was hoping to use > Jackson's Rainbow Coalition race politics to drum up support against > "arrogant Anglo-(American) imperialism." The much-hyped Qaddafi/Jackson > situation was diffused by American spin-doctors that said "that Jackson was > playing partisan politics" (which could not be denied since Jackson was > campaigning for the next Presidential election). > However, Annan has not any apparent hidden agendas similar to Jackson, > therefore Saddam can and will exploit the racial/cultural situation (masked > by the issue concerning weapons of mass destruction), a situation Qaddafi > so much wanted to exploit. Since the UN is an international/global > institution that is in the interest of protecting human rights, and is > looking to broker successfully an diplomatic agreement with Saddam, the > Iraqi Government may decide to bow to Annan (the UN) with conditions that > are just short of US demands. Saddam, by bowing to the UN, will expect the > "arrogant Western power" to do the same. The soon-to-be lame-duck > President Clinton has already played his cards by saying (as Reagan did), > "No compromise!" > Hoping that Annan will play his "part" in brokering peace, Saddam will be > successful in his standoff with the US if he can make the Clinton > Administration bow to the UN (thus the creation of a NOW, placing the UN as > the leader of global peace). If the Clinton Administration does not bow to > the UN, Saddam hopes that those countries that have invested interest in > the UN will then begin to question the actions of the US (especially if > bombing occurs). Then the US has placed itself in the imperialistic role > of "World Police" (thus the creation of a NOW, placing the US in an > imperialistic role). With the US already dominating popular culture in the > west (with a tentative acceptance in the east), Saddam hopes to rally a > (counter-culture) regime against the US, regardless of whether the > counter-culture is pro Iraqi or not. In these two scenarios, Saddam has > obtained a win-win situation. > > Saddam Hussein just wants to go into the history books as being the David > that slew the 21st century Goliath-not with weapons of mass destruction, > with the stone-throwing masses. > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Andre Gunder Frank University of Toronto 96 Asquith Ave Tel. 1 416 972-0616 Toronto, ON Fax. 1 416 972-0071 CANADA M4W 1J8 Email agfrank@chass.utoronto.ca My home Page is at: http://www.whc.neu.edu/whc/resrch&curric/gunder.html ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From sokol@jhu.edu Thu Feb 19 09:43:46 1998 19 Feb 1998 11:41:44 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 1998 11:30:51 -0500 From: Wojtek Sokolowski Subject: Re: Iraq bombing thread To: m.hoover@csu-e.csuohio.edu Matt: As a sociologist studying the influence of the collective on human cognition, I read your response with certain amusement. It can be cited as a textbook example of a I point I made elsewhere, about the captivating power of metaphors, morality play drama and the imagery of heroic cosmic battle between good and evil on the understanding of geopolitical reality. In my view, people with college degrees are particulary guilty of such mythological thinking. After all, higher education is, for the most part, a ritual of socializing young minds into the culture of the narrative concocted by pundits. Take, for example, your line that I cite verbatim: "The ball is in Saddams court right now," My first reaction was "What have you been inhaling, kiddo? It ain't a tennis game at your State U, but a policy course with heavy historical baggage, multiple interests, diberated by hundreds of political leaders, thousands of experts, military commanders and what not." But then, of course, I realized that this sporting contest narrative have been spoon fed to the public by the media, at least since the Persian Gulf war, and you and many other just swallowed it raw -- canned speech, like canned food, it is and tastes what the label on it says it does. Or take your anothgr statement which, again, I cite verbatim: >My personalization of Saddam, and using "us" and "them" is appropriate, it >is solely Saddam's actions that determine the fate of the Iraqi citizens. Two thoughts come immediately to mind. First, this statement, if taken literally is absurd on its face. No sane person can seriously argue that a single man can control the actions of millions. Governance is a two way street, Mr. Hussein might be a dictator, but he cannot rule without substantioal concent of the governed. That consent may vary from group to group, or might be nonexistent in some cases, but that's different than saying that the fate of a nation is solely determined by a single strongman. Thus, that statement can be only interpreted as another metaphor from the canned speech variety dispensed by the media supermarkets. Second, even if that statement had some factual, empirical meaning, a crtical mind would ask: "how do you know that?" Your writing does not give any evidence on your expertise in Middle east policy, they are more reminiscent of the opinions ciculated in the media. As I laways say, only a college-processed mind can uncritically believe that what's been printed must be true. Finally, your statement: >In regards to the "forcing compliance", it does not matter what one calls >itself, but weather or not they fit the definition of socialist/communist. Whose definition, kiddo? In my earlier reply to your missive, which you conveniently chose to ignore, I indicated to you that many theoreticians practitioners of socialism, such as Marx or anarcho-syndicalist movements in France, Spain, or Russia renounced the state as th einstrument of oppression. This was not their ideological declaration, but it logically followed from their doctrines. It is clear to me that you did not bother to consult these sources, but instead relied on another canned opinion served to you by the fast-food-for-thought industry. Given that you have not indicated a way of empirically defining a socialist/communist country without prior knowledge that it has been labeled as such, your statement is absurd: it means "it does not matter what one labels itself, buth whether or not they fit the label of socialist/communist." Please do not take these comments personally, it is not your fault that you have been thoroughly brainwashed. The teams of fast-food-for-thought industry experts worked very hard to make sure that there are millions more like you. I must admit that I was myself exactly like that, naive and arrogant, pushing canned opinions down people's throats. What changed my attitude was travel, coming to contact with real people and listening to what they think, instead of accepting canned opinions handed down by the media. I can even pinpoint the exact moment of that turning point, a conversation between me and a working-class female US Army sergeant at an army training facility I used to work: She: "Tell me, what was the life like in the Soviet Bloc countries." Me (a bit ironically): "Didn't you read the country manuals available in your course materials?" She (a bit angrily): "I know what government propaganda says, and now I want to hear from someone who's actually been there." To date, this is one of the most intelligent things on the subject of foreign relations I've heard from the mouth of an American -- not coincidently a working class female with a high school diploma. You have a lot to learn from her, kiddo. Regards, Wojtek Sokolowski Institute for Policy Studies Johns Hopkins University Baltimore, MD 21218 sokol@jhu.edu voice: (410) 516-4056 fax: (410) 516-8233 Opinions expressed above are those of this writer only. They do not represent the views or policies of the Institute for Policy Studies, the Johns Hopkins University, or anyone else affiliated with these institutions. From tell@acsu.buffalo.edu Thu Feb 19 09:49:09 1998 Date: Thu, 19 Feb 1998 11:49:01 -0500 (EST) From: "Shawgi A. Tell" To: Progressive Sociologists Network Subject: Opposition To U.S. Imperialism Greetings, U.S. imperialism cannot reconcile itself to the fact that there is widespread opposition to its criminal activities. It even acts shocked that people here and worldwide are actually opposed to reactionary violence and one violation of international law after another. Some in the highly monopolized bourgeois media are even pushing the absurdity that broad opposition to U.S. imperialism is the result of Saddam Hussein's ability, and his ability alone, to somehow manufacture opposition to U.S. imperialism, as if opposition to U.S. imperialism were in short supply and needed Saddam Hussein's efforts. It simply does not sit well with the people when a country, and a superpower at that, operates according to the fascist logic of Might Makes Right and acts like it can do anything it wants, any time it wants, and without even being held accountable for its actions. This is why justice-loving and freedom-loving people are opposed to U.S. imperialism. U.S. imperialism is prepared to be as aggressive as necessary to establish a unipolar world under its dictate, to expand its hegemony. If this means violating the sovereignty of a nation, so be it. But all this is only further intensifying inter-imperialist contradictions and the possibilities for more wars in the future. The working class and people stand to gain everything from opposing U.S. imperialism. In fact, the creation of a world fit for all humans is directly tied to the struggle against U.S. imperialism. Shawgi Tell Graduate School of Education University at Buffalo tell@acsu.buffalo.edu From m.hoover@csu-e.csuohio.edu Thu Feb 19 10:51:55 1998 Date: Thu, 19 Feb 1998 12:51:17 -0500 To: Spectors@mail.netnitco.net From: Matthew Hoover Subject: Re: Iraq bombing thread you wrote: >The question >is whether the U.S. government can be TRUSTED to enforce ANYTHING >relating to social justice anywhere in the world. THE SAME PEOPLE THAT >COMMITTED MASSIVE WAR CRIMES AND GENOCIDE FROM VIETNAM AND INDONESIA TO >CHILE AND EL SALVADOR ARE THE ONES WHO WANT TO ATTACK IRAQ. The level of distortion in this statement has reached an all time high. I love it when people throw around terms like "genocide" and "war crimes" without having the slighest idea of what the facts are. The point that I was making is that consuming this debate with an argument about our role in the past has no bearing on the actions of Hussein. If you want to engage in an argument about Vietnam, the contras, etc. go ahead, but it does not have anything to do with this situation. If you don't trust the US, thats fine, but does that mean what is happening in Iraq is okay? >2) Your argument that: " I don't believe that we ever shipped him >chemical and >biological weapons." is not very convincing. "You don't believe it" >doesn't answer the charge. Do you seriously believe that we shipped chemical and biological weapons to Saddam? >But the main point is point #1 above. The U.S., in VERY RECENT TIMES AND >TODAY, has been involved in the worst kinds of genocide imaginable. A discussion about our role in this situation has degenerated into a discussion about weather on not we have committed "genocide". That is the fundamental point of disagreement. The use of the word "genocide" in totally inappropriate. Matt Hoover From Spectors@mail.netnitco.net Thu Feb 19 11:33:09 1998 Thu, 19 Feb 1998 12:34:23 -0600 (CST) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 1998 12:30:09 -0800 From: Spectors Reply-To: Spectors@mail.netnitco.net To: Matthew Hoover Subject: Re: Iraq bombing thread Presumably Mr. Hoover believes that the USSR committed crimes in the 1930's. Would he then say that the Nazi invasion of the USSR was an act to be supported, because, well, some time had passed since the Nazis invaded Czechoslovakia, and in any case, that would have nothing to do with the issue of stopping the USSR? If that is too extreme, one can think of many other examples---such as allying with BIGGER drug dealers than Noriega in order to get Noriega out of office (and killing several thousand Panamanians along the way.....) Saddam should be stopped, as should Clinton, Blair, and the ruling classes of Egypt, India, Canada, China---every capitalist controlled country in the world. This should be, and will be done by an organized working class movement committed to building a world free of exploitation. (If this seems far-fetched, keep in mind that it is at least as far fetched to believe that this creaky, brutal capitalist system can continue to rule the world based on its unstable profit system, depressions, and wars.) Yes, the brutal dictators should be stopped. But to rely on the U.S. government to do it is, in fact, like relying on Nazis. Unless Mr. Hoover would like to refute the overwhelming evidence--from El Salvador and Chile to Central Africa. Alan Spector Alan Spector From josephal@muohio.edu Thu Feb 19 08:40:32 1998 Date: Thu, 19 Feb 1998 10:40:11 -0400 (EDT) From: alfred joseph Subject: You just don't get it To: psn@csf.colorado.edu Mr. Hoover mentioned in his message titled the "Iraq bombing thread" that "I am not going to argue about what positions the US has taken in the past." That is an amazing statement and mindset. That is analagous to saying "I don't care what the last several EKGs showed, I am going to continue eating butter for breakfast". Look, if a country 1) has a history of foreign adventure (Guatemala 1954, Vietnam war, Greneda, Panama, etc..) that has caused hundreds of thousands of lives, 2) if the same country can back Indonesia that has waged a GENOCIDAL war against East Timor, openly supported the Nazi-Apartheid regime in South Africa, the various juntas in Latin America, etc.. 3) continues to supply arms to just about anybody with cash and maintains its own arsenal of mass destruction One reasonable question has to be why all the huff and puff about Saddam? What are the real motives? Is it the safety of "innocent people", there are probably hundreds of thousands of widows, widowers and orphans around the world who would question that. Think about the 5,000 people in Panama who paid with their lives so that the US could "arrest" one of their former employees for supposedly selling drugs. Later the GAO (?) released a report that said that drug trafficking has increased from Panama since the arrest. I would argue that a reasonable person would have to question the real motives behind the "arrest". The same is true for the upcoming bombing of Iraq. Mr. Hoover, you can dismiss the trail of blood of your heroes in DC by not arguing "about what positions the US has taken in the past". Those "positions" are key to having a real underdstanding of what is likely to take place in the immediate and extended future. Those were real people in Panama, Guatemala, Iran, Vietnam, East Timor, ETC... Those are real people in Iraq. One of the keys to understanding this whole situation is having a grasp of the past. Ignore it and you will continue to be fooled into thinking that this is the way to ensure peace. They don't want peace, they want a piece of the oil pie. Don't end up like the good Germans who denied the stench of the camps and then said "we didn't know". alfred. **************************************************************************** When I gave food to the poor, they called me a saint. When I asked why the poor were hungry, they called me a communist. --Dom Helda Camara **************************************************************************** Alfred Joseph Dept. of Family Studies and Social Work Miami University Oxford, OH 45056 phone 513 529 4902 fax 513 529 6468 **************************************************************************** From Spectors@mail.netnitco.net Wed Feb 18 23:50:57 1998 Thu, 19 Feb 1998 00:52:22 -0600 (CST) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 1998 00:48:13 -0800 From: Spectors Reply-To: Spectors@mail.netnitco.net To: m.hoover@csu-e.csuohio.edu, psn@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Re: Iraq bombing thread Michael Hoover's recent post has many misconceptions, erroneous facts, and faulty logic. I do not mean to "flame" him or criticize him, only his arguments. I don't want to respond to all of them; I suspect others on PSN have much to say. But a couple of points come to mind: 1) Most important, if someone mugs you, and you catch him 5 minutes later, and he says: "Hey, that's old history. Why are you living in the past?", I assume you would not accept this logic. The question is not whether the U.S. once did some bad things a long time ago. The question is whether the U.S. government can be TRUSTED to enforce ANYTHING relating to social justice anywhere in the world. THE SAME PEOPLE THAT COMMITTED MASSIVE WAR CRIMES AND GENOCIDE FROM VIETNAM AND INDONESIA TO CHILE AND EL SALVADOR ARE THE ONES WHO WANT TO ATTACK IRAQ. 2) Your argument that: " I don't believe that we ever shipped him chemical and biological weapons." is not very convincing. "You don't believe it" doesn't answer the charge. 3) The U.S. oil companies would not control Saddam's oil. So if he sells that oil on the world market, it would depress the prices that the U.S. could get for its own oil as well as depress the prices of the oil which the U.S. resells on the world market. It would enable Russia, China, Japan, and Germany to have another, independent source of oil. But the main point is point #1 above. The U.S., in VERY RECENT TIMES AND TODAY, has been involved in the worst kinds of genocide imaginable. They don't mind if their friends in Pakistan, Israel, and other places have weapons of mass destruction. If Saddam became friends with Standard Oil, the U.S. government wouldn't care about his brutal regime. They would be arming him as they arm fascist mass murderers all over the world. alan spector From j9470388@wlv.ac.uk Thu Feb 19 04:58:27 1998 by ccug.wlv.ac.uk with smtp (Exim 1.80 #3) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 1998 11:56:35 -0800 From: Alan Harrison To: David Morgan Subject: Re: 100,000 lives! and advisors David Morgan wrote: > > In several of these US escapades (1991,93,etc) there appears always to be a young > "expert" / "advisor", appearing on our TVs with an Old Testament vehemence to teach > somebody a 'lesson.' This leads to the following correlation (irrespective of > which party is in office) > lower age of expert = more hawkish policy prescription > > Is this just my imagination? or are there older more balanced "experts" around > who we don't see? I don't know about this, although the extreme youth of some British policy wonks has been heavily satirised (e.g. Blair shown in cartoons with babies wielding mobile phones). What is interesting is that a recent public opinion poll in the UK has shown that enthusiasm for the current Iraq adventure declines with age, with about 80% (if I remember rightly) of 18-24 year olds favouring bombing, falling to just 51% of over 65s. Most obviously perhaps, older people in Britain have a rather greater understanding of what it's like to be bombed. Some commentators have suggested that the greater belligerence of young people arises from the "video game" presentation of the previous Gulf war. I suspect that what has been happening as a result of the two "easy" wars in the Falklands and the Gulf is that younger British people are beginning to take an "American" view of war as something to which our boys go and from which we hope that most of our boys will come back. While I was born after the Second World War, I remember bomb sites in Walsall and Birmingham, and I remember rationing (although not the occasion when my pram was the vehicle used to convey some black market bacon!). Enthusiasm for war comes more easily to those who haven't got a clue what war means. Alan Harrison From j9470388@wlv.ac.uk Thu Feb 19 05:21:19 1998 by ccug.wlv.ac.uk with smtp (Exim 1.80 #3) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 1998 12:19:45 -0800 From: Alan Harrison To: MGWENG01@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU Subject: Re: 100,000 lives, etc. MGWENG01@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU wrote: > > Perhaps Alan Harrison could elaborate on what the NAME of SoD William Cohen > has to do with politics in the "Arab world?" I simply can't wait to hear > the forthcoming theory of nomenclature AH will provide, and what attendant > practice he would recommend... Cohen is a surname which normally implies Jewish origin. Another list member tells me that the US defence minister is not Jewish, although some of his family were. He is certainly portrayed as a Jew by Iraqi propagandists, and believed to be a Jew by many Arabs, who also point to the Jewish origins of Madeleine Albright. (In an interesting confusion of "ethnic" Jewishness and Judaism as a religion, one British newspaper has recently reported that Ms Albright had believed herself to be a Catholic, but had recently discovered that she was a Jew.) I think that Morton is probably being deliberately obtuse here. I thought that the point I was making was fairly obvious - that US foreign policy is blatantly slanted in favour of Zionism, ignoring or defending the Zionist regime's aggression and defiance of UN resolutions, and that putting up spokesmen/women who are identifiably "Jewish" to justify bombing Arabs is a propaganda gift to Saddam Hussein. OK, we all know that "Jew" doesn't mean the same as Zionist, but I fear that the distinction is likely to be lost on people in Baghdad when Bibi's chums Bill and Tone start bombing them. I suspect that the distinction may be equally lost on those voters of Jewish origin in America whose line on domestic politics is based on governmental atttitudes towards Zionism. Alan Harrison From tell@acsu.buffalo.edu Thu Feb 19 20:02:02 1998 Date: Thu, 19 Feb 1998 22:01:57 -0500 (EST) From: "Shawgi A. Tell" To: Progressive Sociologists Network Subject: Stage-Managed Evidence Greetings, Anglo-American imperialism really believes that it can dupe the people with the massive disinformation campaign it is cramming down their throats. The level of irrationalism pushed by these big powers is an indication of their utter degeneracy and decline. It finds that it has to distort and conceal the truth more and more in order to stem the tide of opposition. It is acting in the Old way way even though real life conditions are demanding a totally new way of thinking and acting. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- On February 5, the British government released, in the most stage-managed manner, documents of the UN Special Commission (UNSCOM) which they presented as their "evidence" that Iraq has built up "an appalling stock" of "weapons of mass destruction." These are said to include nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, together with ballistic missiles. The "evidence" the British Foreign Office so dramatically produced is completely fraudulent and shows the bankruptcy of British Prime Minister Tony Blair. It lists weapons which UNSCOM has destroyed and then goes on to say that because of "Iraq's obstructionism" UNSCOM needs to continue to monitor its facilities. "Given the chance," it was said, "Iraq would undoubtedly resume WMD (weapons of mass destruction) production." It goes on to list what Iraq "could" produce. The British government then turns truth on its head by claiming that Iraq is trying to "dictate" to the United Nations. Despite all the claims of the Anglo-American imperialists, they have not been able to produce a shred of evidence of Iraq's "arsenal" of weapons of mass destruction. In fact, at the end of January the Chinese Ambassador to the UN Qin Huasun called on the UN to shut the nuclear file on Iraq, pointing out that repeated inspections carried out by the International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA) had come up with the same results - Iraq is not engaged in developing nuclear weapons. The U.S. and Britain are both trying to suggest they have "evidence" which "proves" that Iraq is producing and stockpiling biological and chemical weapons. On the basis of this claim they are "justifying" their criminal war preparations against Iraq. TML Weekly, 2/8/98 Shawgi Tell Graduate School of Education University at Buffalo tell@acsu.buffalo.edu From sokol@jhu.edu Fri Feb 20 09:25:50 1998 20 Feb 1998 11:23:43 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 1998 11:12:47 -0500 From: Wojtek Sokolowski Subject: Re: Iraq To: Matthew Hoover Thanx for your response. Let me quickly address the points you raised. Re: >If I am guilty of using cliches so be it, but I am interested in your >conception of the media. Clearly all sources of second-hand information >from books, televison, radio, newspapers, even the internet would be the >media, correct? There is not one "media" viewpoint on this subject, and >those opposing the use of force also rely on the "media" for information. >It seems that only those who have a different view are thinking in this >"canned food" fashion. Because I have a different viewpoint, my thoughts >are not "original" but *media* inspired? Two points: 1. On your view point: I did not question your viewpoint, I questioned how you argued it. It is one thing to have an opinion on a foreign country and its leadership (whether informed or not is not the main issue here), and quite a different thing to speak of that country and its leadership in a condescending way that has clear connotation to the culture of ethnocentrism, racism and bigotry (in theis country and elsewhere). If the New York Times wrote "Marion must go" or "Nelson must go" in reference to the DC mayor or South Africa's president - that would create an uproars of racism and bigotry, and justifiably so, for this country has a long tradition of this form of condescention toward minorities. The same pertains to using sporting event metaphor in reference to killing foreign nationals. Some people call shooting animals 'sport' too. I found your using that kind of language objectionable. As far as the evaluation of Mr. Hussein's moral posture and leadership style is concerned, the only point I would make is 'by whose standards?' It is very likely that such an evaluation would be rather pejorative, if Mr. Hussein were judged by the same standards as Western European politicians. But I am not sure if that would be the case, if we compared him to other leaders in the region or is some other US-client states. Moreover, I do not advocate what 'we' (who is we anyway?) should or shouldn't do with Saddam Hussein. First, I do not have enough knowledge to form an informed opinion on that issue, and I find the US media reports notoriously unreliable. Second, the phrasing implying that 'we' (whoever that is) should "do something with people we do not like" reminds me too much of the discourse surrounding the "Final Solution" which, where I come from, people still remember rather than reading about it in the books. 2. On my views on the media. There is immense research literatrure on the so-called bias in the media claiming different, oft contradicting, results. However, the form of bias that most seem to accept, is the agenda setting, ie. the capability of the media to determine not only what is newsworthy, but how the newsworthy issues are to approached. As Herbert Gans convincingly argued, one specifc form of agneda setting involves the portrayal of foreign events within the cognitive framework of small-town morality that focues on the struggle between "good" and "evil" characters. Another issue relevant to the case is the relationship between formal and informal discourse. As many media researchers outside the US (esp. in Israel) pointed out, the media message must be considered within the context of the informal discourse in a society that determines the meaning and the interpretation of the media message. Let me illustrate that with an example: a news message is broadcast over the radio, people hear it in barber shops, cafes, and other public places, or perhaps in their homes, but then they meet other people in public places and start discussing the message they just heard. They may accept the message as trustowrthy or not, they may re-nterpret its meaning by placing it in different contexts, they may disregards some of its parts or add part that were not really there - but one thing is certain, the final message that 'sinks' in is substantially affected by that informal discourse. In the US, however, the situation is diffrent for two reasons: (i) the atomisation of the society (cars, suburbs) that reduces the level of informal interaction found in other countries, and (ii) the saturation of the airwaves by amedia messages. The net result is that people in the US are more likely to listen to the media alone, without the intermediation of the informal discourse. Since the media is their only source of information that is socially constructed as 'reliable' (as opposed to 'gossip') -- their influence on individual's view is much more powerful than in cases when their message is mediated through informal discourse. A third poitn is the virtual absence of partisan media in the US (e.g. as in Europe). The presence of quality partisan media makes the diversity of different view points legitimate. A Left view point is as legitimate as a Right view point (provided both are rationally argued), and an informed person would consult both before makeing his or her judgment. In the nonpartisan, supposedly 'objective' US press, the evaluation of different view points, at least in theory, is made not by the reader, but by the journalist or the editor. The end result is the pre-processed pre-digested information sold to the public as 'objective,' 'synoptic' or 'neutral.' hence my metaphor fast-food-for thought, pre-processed product mass fed to passive audience, instead of the audience making the judgment for themselves. >You are correct, you did not mention ideology. However, you did say that the >media (whom many believe to be controlled by the ruling class) were the >originators of my opinion and belief, and that I was essentially a puppet. >The notion that my belief, "ideology", was not my own but the media's is >what I was explaining. I think my remarks above clarify that issue. The Marxist notion that one's personal opinion and >thoughts are not them, but a reflection of capitalist hegemony, seems a >rather convienent way to deflect any criticism. I believe you when you >say that you do not engage in this circular reasoning and rely on empirical >findings. As with everything else, there is good Marxist analysis and there is bad Marxist analysis. I find the Marxist notion that intellectual discourse is determined (to an important degree) by how it was produced and that, in term is dertermined by the social relations of production in general (cf. _The German Ideology_) a rather fruitful framework that offers a healthy antidote to all kinds of relativistic drivel and story telling that passes for science nowadays. But the main point, of course, is to translate that analytic framework into emprically falsifiable hypotheses. Not to mention the fact that this framework most likely will not explain every aspect of intellectual discourse. You are quite correct that using the notion of "false consciousness" to explain away inconvenient facts is bad analysis, but Marxism is hardly a monopolist in this respect. On the contrary, comparing to psychoanalysis, or ne-classical economics, Marxist analyses appear to be relatively free of circular reasoning. But that, of course, does not mean they are totally free, or that such reasoning should be tolerated. >I did not receive your posting, it was not my ignoring you. Was you >post sent to the regular PSN, or to the "cafe"? I am only a member of >the moderated PSN and if it was not distributed there than I did not >recieve it. Perhaps you could forward this post to me so that I can >take your advice? The way the messages are posted to the moderated and unmoderated lists is beyond me. Sometimes messages I post to the unmoderated lists appear in the moderated lists as well, sometimes do not. I'm not sure if the reverse is also true. OTOH, I try to avoid cc'ing the messages I post to the list to the original writers because I often receive three copies of the same missive from this list and I sometimes think it may be annoying to some. Regards, Wojtek Sokolowski Institute for Policy Studies Johns Hopkins University Baltimore, MD 21218 sokol@jhu.edu voice: (410) 516-4056 fax: (410) 516-8233 Opinions expressed above are those of this writer only. They do not represent the views or policies of the Institute for Policy Studies, the Johns Hopkins University, or anyone else affiliated with these institutions. From jreardon@igc.apc.org Fri Feb 20 12:25:28 1998 From: jreardon@igc.apc.org Fri, 20 Feb 1998 10:48:04 -0800 (PST) Fri, 20 Feb 1998 10:40:00 -0800 (PST) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 1998 10:40:00 -0800 (PST) To: (Recipient list suppressed) Subject: Don't Bomb Iraq Petition >>People of the World-- >> >> If appearances hold true, there will soon be another military >>attack under United Nations auspices on Iraqi territory. The following >>petition is a modest effort to encourage and focus opposition to the use >>of violence against Iraq. It is directed to the United States >>government,and particularly to President William J. Clinton, because of the >>leading role played by the United States in encouraging a military attack. >> >> If you support this effort, please add your name, home city, and >>home nation to the list and forward it to others. Should you happen to >>be the 100th, 200th, ..., or millionth person to sign, please forward a >>copy to peace@appleseed.spi.net. The assembled names will be forwarded >>electronically to President Clinton and other US government officials. >>They will not be printed nor will they be used for any other purpose. >> >> Should you wish to communicate with President Clinton, try any >>of the following: >> >>Address: The White House >> 1600 Pennsylvania Ave >> Washington, DC 20500 >>Phone: 202-456-1414 >>Email: president@whitehouse.gov >> >> US citizens may also wish to advise their Congressional >>representatives of their positions. Congressional representatives may >>be reached via mail by writing: >> >>Representative Senator >>US House of Representatives US Senate >>Washington DC 20515 Washington DC 20510 >> >>The phone number of the Capitol switchboard is 202-224-3121; from there, >>you can reach the office of any Congressperson. If you don't know who >>your Congressional representatives are, try >> >>http://www.house.gov/writerep/ for Representatives and >>http://www.senate.gov/senator/state.html for Senators. >> >> Thank you for your help. >> >> Brought to you by People Just Like You. >>=================================================== >>ONE MILLION NAMES FOR PEACE >> >>To President William J. Clinton and other officials of the government of >>the United States of America: >> >>We, the undersigned world citizens, strongly oppose any further military >>attacks against the nation of Iraq. Past military campaigns have >>already wrought unconscionable destruction that has primarily affected ordinary >>citizens of Iraq and not personnel of the Iraqi government. The rubric >>of the United Nations should not be employed to justify further such >>destruction. Please desist in your efforts to execute another military >>strike. We desire that you commit yourself to peaceful resolution of >>existing conflicts with the government of Iraq. >> >>1. Jamie Pehling, Garden Grove, USA >>2. Kelly Rittenhouse, Palo Alto, USA >>3. Tom Warner, Seattle, USA >>4. Charles Scheiner, White Plains, NY USA >>5. Lynn Fredriksson, Washington DC, USA >>6. Ben Terrall, San Francisco, CA, USA >>7. Thomas Johnson, San Francisco, CA, USA >>8. Clare Campbell, San Francisco, CA, USA >>9. John Fitzgerald, San Francisco, CA, USA >>10. Hiram Kato, San Francisco, CA, USA >>11. George Fox, San Francisco, CA, USA >>12. David Politzer, Altadena, CA, USA >>13. Adam Politzer, Altadena, CA, USA >>14. Noah Politzer, Altadena, CA, USA >>15. Joan Terrall, Altadena, CA, USA >>16. Mary Terrall, Altadena, CA, USA >>17. Susan T. Simon, New York, NY, USA >>18. Lee Simon, New York, NY, USA >>20. Molly Simon, New York, NY, USA >>21. Greg Simon, New York, NY, USA >>22. Jim Terrall, Cornwall, CT, USA >>23. Lib Tobin, Cornwall, CT, USA >>24. Robert Terrall, Sharon, CT, USA >>25. Martha Porter, Sharon, CT, USA >>26. Pamela Sexton, Watsonville, CA, USA >>27. Curt Gabrielson, Watsonville, CA, USA >>28. Azwar Hamid, Yogyakarta, Indonesia >>29. Kristin Sundell, Cambridge, MA, USA >>30. Larissa Snorek, San Francisco, CA, USA >>31. Wendy Aniseh Khan, San Francisco, CA USA >>32. Jesus Hermosillo, San Francisco CA USA >>33. Art Fridrich, Chicago, IL USA >>34. Kenneth Weeks, Palatka, FL USA >>35. Juan Reardon, Martinez, CA >>36. John A. Reardon, Martinez, CA > > From eric@stewards.net Fri Feb 20 00:39:31 1998 (envelope-from eric@stewards.net) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 1998 02:40:45 -0500 (EST) To: PROGRESSIVE SOCIOLOGISTS NETWORK From: eric@stewards.net (Eric Sommer) Subject: Chomsky's Interview re: Iraq Hi there, The following is, at least from my perspeictve, a great Chomsky interview on Iraq: Eric Eleven Questions Re Iraq: An Interview with Noam Chomsky Originally for the Italian journal "La Repubblica" The interviewer was Giampaolo Cadalanu 1) The intervention of the U.S. in Iraq seems at the moment unavoidable. Do you think the real reason of this intervention is to impose respect of U.N. resolutions? To evaluate the proposal, we can ask how the US itself respects UN resolutions. There are simple ways to check. For the past 30 years, the US is far in the lead in vetoing Security Council Resolutions (Britain second, France a distant third). In the General Assembly, the US regularly votes against resolutions in virtual isolation -- hence in effect vetoing them -- on a wide range of issues. The pattern extends to the World Court, international conventions on human rights, and much else. Furthermore the US freely disregards violation of UN resolutions that it has formally endorsed, and often contributes materially to such violation. The case of Israel is notorious (for example, the 1978 Security Council resolution calling on Israel to withdraw immediately from Lebanon). To select another example that is quite relevant here, in December 1975 the Security Council unanimously ordered Indonesia to withdraw its invading forces from East Timor "without delay" and called upon "all States to respect the territorial integrity of East Timor as well as the inalienable right of its people to self-determination." The US responded by (secretly) increasing its shipments of arms to the aggressors, accelerating the arms flow once again as the attack reached near-genocidal levels in 1978. In his memoirs, UN Ambassador Daniel Patrick Moynihan takes pride in his success in rendering the UN "utterly ineffective in whatever measures it undertook," following the instructions of the State Department, which "wished things to turn out as they did and worked to bring this about." The US also cheerfully accepts the robbery of East Timor's oil (with participation of US-based companies), in violation of any reasonable interpretation of international agreements. The analogy to Iraq/Kuwait is close, though there are differences: to mention only the most obvious, US-backed atrocities in East Timor were vastly beyond anything attributed to Saddam Hussein in Kuwait. It is easy to extend the record. Like other great powers, the US is committed to the rule of force, not law, in international affairs. UN Resolutions, World Court Judgments, International Conventions, etc., are acceptable if they accord with policy; otherwise they are mere words. 2) Which difference do you see between this intervention and Operation "Desert Storm", with the Bush administration? There are many differences. "Desert Storm" was allegedly intended to drive Iraq from Kuwait; today the alleged goal is to compel Iraq to permit UN inspection of Saddam's weapons programs. In both cases, a closer look reveals a more complex story. After Iraq invaded Kuwait, the US feared that in "the next few days Iraq will withdraw" leaving in place a puppet government and "everyone in the Arab world will be happy" (Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Colin Powell). The concern, in brief, was that Iraq would act much as the US had done a few months earlier when it invaded Panama (vetoing two Security Council resolutions condemning its actions). What followed also does not quite conform to standard versions. Today, it is widely expected that a military strike will leave Iraq's murderous tyrant in power, continuing to pursue his weapons programs, while undermining such international inspection as exists. It may also be recalled that Saddam's worst crimes were committed when he was a favored US ally and trading partner, and that immediately after he was driven from Kuwait, the US watched quietly while he turned to the slaughter of rebelling Iraqis, even refusing to allow them access to captured Iraqi arms. Official stories rarely yield an accurate picture of what is happening. Nonetheless, the differences between 1990 and today are substantial. 3) Do you believe that the so-called "Sexgate", the scandal about sexual behaviour of president Clinton, had a role in the decision to attack Iraq? I doubt that it is much of a factor. 4) Do you see an alternative to the "new world order" of the U.S.? "World order," like "domestic order," is based on decisions made within institutions that reflect existing power structures. The decisions can be changed; the institutions can be modified or replaced. It is natural that those who benefit from the organization of state and private power will portray it as inevitable, so that the victims will feel helpless to act. There is no reason to believe that. Particularly in the rich countries that dominate world affairs, citizens can easily act to create alternatives even within existing formal arrangements, and these are not graven in stone, any more than in the past. 5) Do you see in Iraq an alternative to Saddam Hussein? The rebelling forces in March 1991 were an alternative, but the US preferred Saddam. There was an Iraqi democratic opposition in exile. Washington refused to have anything to do with them before, during, or after the Gulf War, and they were virtually excluded from the US media, apart from marginal dissident journals. "Political meetings with them would not be appropriate for our policy at this time," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher stated on March 14, 1991, while Saddam was decimating the opposition under the eyes of Stormin' Norman Schwartzkopf. They still exist. How realistic their programs are, I cannot judge, and I do not think we can know as long as the US remains committed -- as apparently it still is -- to the Bush adminstration policy that preferred "an iron-fisted Iraqi junta," without Saddam Hussein if possible, a return to the days when Saddam's "iron fist...held Iraq together, much to the satisfaction of the American allies Turkey and Saudi Arabia," not to speak of Washington (NY Times chief diplomatic correspondent Thomas Friedman, July 1991). 6) What would happen if Baghdad suddenly decides to obey the U.N. resolution? I am afraid that the probability is slight, and if he did, he would soon find new ways of evading the resolutions. 7) Why did embargo not work against Saddam's regime? The effects of the sanctions come as no surprise. They have strengthened Saddam's position and undermined potential resistance to him among people struggling to survive. New bombing is likely to have a similar effect. 8) This time, do you believe it will be again "Exxon's war"? I do not think it was "Exxon's war" in 1991, or today, at least in a narrow sense. It is quite true that since World War II, the US has been firmly committed to maintaining control over Middle East oil, which the State Department described as "a stupendous source of strategic power, and one of the greatest material prizes in world history." But there is no persuasive evidence that in 1990-91, the US was concerned about an Iraqi threat to this control. There is, however, good reason to believe that Washington saw the Iraqi invasion as an opportunity to extend its control -- to demonstrate that "what we say goes," as George Bush announced triumphantly while the missiles and bombs were falling. In fact, the US used the opportunity to institute at once the rejectionist version of the Israel-Arab "peace process" that it had maintained in virtual international isolation for 25 years, but was now able to implement. Previously, the US had been compelled to veto Security Council resolutions calling for a diplomatic settlement, to vote regularly against similar General Assembly resolutions (the last in December 1990, passed 144-2, the US and Israel opposed), and to undermine other diplomatic initiatives from Europe, the Arab world, and others. But after the Gulf War, the US was finally able to proceed, unopposed. The background issue remains control of the world's major energy reserves, but apart from that, the specific problems of US energy corporations have not directly motivated the policies we are discussing. 9) Which role did the military play in the decision to attack? And industry? Very little, I think. 10) This time, is it possible to link Gaza and the West Bank with respect of U.N. resolutions? Highly unlikely, as things now stand. The US government could always have linked the issues, but has preferred not to. Its goal for the Israeli-occupied territories is the Bantustan-style settlement that is now being imposed (Israel's two political groupings are not very different in this regard). US attitudes towards UN resolutions on these issues can readily be determined by reviewing the record of US vetoes, isolated negative votes, and disregard of continuing violations. 11) What can (or: could) be done to avoid (or: to stop) the war? The usual answer: substantial popular pressure, in this case, from within the US and in Europe, primarily. Right now, that does not seem likely. = = = END = = = From SANTORO@vms.cis.pitt.edu Fri Feb 20 11:31:00 1998 Fri, 20 Feb 1998 13:30:42 -0500 (EST) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 1998 13:30:43 -0500 From: Dan Santoro Reply-To: SANTORO@vms.cis.pitt.edu To: PSN Subject: Iraq Alan Spector's point about Iraq's relationship to the world oil market is well taken. Let's face it. This is not a struggle about making the world safe for democracy. And it has very little to do with Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction...(except that we wish to maintain Iraq's quarantine and our ability to do that depends on keeping Iraq's military capacity to a minimum. Our current relationship to the middle east and our current threat to Iraq which began with Operation Desert Storm is best understood in realtion to events subsequent to 1990. Let's tke a walk down memory lane: Aryeh Neier wrote in THE NATION: "Saddam Hussein has compiled a long record of violations of international humanitarian law, MANY NOT DENOUNCED BY THE UNITED STATES while they were being committed, or denounced halfheartedly because OUR GOVERNMENT FAVORED IRAQ in the long and incredibly bloddy war it launched against Iran. Iraq used poison gas intermittently from 1983 to 1988 against Iranian troops. It bombed and rocketed civilians in Iran's cities (Iran did the same to civilians in Iraq's cities). In 1988, Iraqi planes attacked Kurdish villages with poison gas. Since 1985 half a million Kurds have been forcibly resettled by Iraq and their villages have been dynamited. YET IN THIS PERIOD THE UNITED STATES WAS CULTIVATING IMPROVED RELATIONS WITH IRAQ, PROVIDING BILLIONS OF DOLLARS OF LOAN GUARANTEES THROUGH SUCH AGAENCIES AS THE COMMODITY CREDIT CORPORATION (C.C.C.) AND THE EXPORT-IMPORT BANK. In 1989 the Bush administration doubled the C.C.C. program for Iraq to a level exceeding $1 billion for the year." Dilip Hiro wrote of the support of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait given to Iraq and in also... "Saddam received more arms and tacit support from the West. In early 1987, when Iran achieved notable victories near Basra (ya'll remember what would take place at Basra later...the "Road of Death"? anyway, back to our story...) Iraq's second largest city, AMERICA INTERVENED ON THE IRAQI SIDE OF THE CONFLICK BY SHORING UP THE U.S. NAVAL PRESENCE IN THE GULF AND EFFECTIVELY OPENING A SECOND FRONT AGAINST IRAN." Alexander Cockburn then wrote, "To help Saddam win his eight-year war against Iran, THE U.S. GAVE HIM SATELLITE INTELLIGENCE, HELICOPTERS, AGRICULTURAL CREDITS AND NAVAL PROTECTION IN THE GULF. The reason that a U.S. naval vessel, the Vincennes, was able to shoot down an Iranian civilian airbus filled with innocent people, is that it was in the Gulf aiding Iraq. The U.S. supported Iraq in this fashion, though perfectly aware of Saddam's abominations, as were the French, who lent him fighter-bombers, the Germans, who made him mustard gas, and the British, with whom he was a major trading partner. On March 7, the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, in which the U.S. is very influential, decided not to take action on a draft to bring human-rights violations in Iraq before it, despite a mass of information provided by Amnesty International." It seems we care only about human rights when it suits our foreign policy objectives. Cockburn also wrote, "Saddam has long been the recipient of American, British, West German, and French credits and military supplies." Well, so then what went wrong to lead to the demonization of our old pal, Saddam Hussein? Dilip Hiro wrote in september of 1990: "In the course of the 'tanker war' crisis in the summer of 1987, when Iran escalated its attacks against Kuwait's oil tankers in retaliation for that country's financial and logistical support of Iraq, the United States provided naval escorts for Kuwaiti tankers registered under the American flag. America thus strengthened its ties with the ruling dynasty, the al-Sabahs. SO IT WAS NOT SURPRISING THAT KUWAIT UNDERMINED THE BENCHMARK PRICE SET BY OPEC BY PRODUCING FAR ABOVE ITS QUOTA. BEFORE SADDAM'S INVASION, OIL WAS SELLING AT $15 A BARREL, COMPARED WITH THE OPEC REFERENCE PRICE OF $18. Allowing for inflation this meant that petroleum was available at the 1971 pre-oil-shoch price. CHEAP OIL PLAYED HAVOC WITH THE ECONOMIES OF IRAN AND IRAQ, WHICH WERE COMMITTED TO POSTWAR RECONSTRUCTION PROGRAMS. Iran under its pragmatic President, Ali Akbar Rafsanjani, tried to ease its difficulties by moving toward a rapprochment with Washington. SADDAM OPTED FOR A QUICK, DRAMATIC SOLUTION TO HIS ECONOMIC WOES--ANNEXATION OF KUWAIT." And in August of 1990 Cockburn wrote: "At the OPEC meeting in July (of 1990), Saddam Hussein said that every dollar off of the price of oil cost Iraq $1 billion dollars annually. Iran was being similarly injured by the overproduction by Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. Even Saudi Arabia added its vioce to Iraq's protests." So, this is just a little background on the roots of the current crisis. Contrary to some opinion, these current events have EVERYTHING to do with past events, which further are rooted in the political dynamics of the global oil economy. The first Persian Gulf War, as someone said, "Was not about bombing Iraq back into the Stone Age. Its purpose was to bomb Iraq back into the Third World." The purpose of this war will be to keep it there. My fear is that this is going to be a really bad one... I just hope that if we make it to the next election, we will remember that bombs dropped by Democrats kill as effectively as Republican bombs. Welcome to the post-Cold War world! Isn't it much nicer? dan -- ########################################################### "If you are a good economist, a virtuous economist, you are reborn as a physicist. But if you are an evil, wicked economist, you are reborn as a sociologist." --Paul Krugman Dan Santoro Division of Social Sciences 104 Krebs Hall University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown Johnstown, PA 15904 814-269-2976 mailto:santoro@vms.cis.pitt.edu http://www1.pitt.edu/~santoro/ ########################################################### From tell@acsu.buffalo.edu Fri Feb 20 11:09:39 1998 Date: Fri, 20 Feb 1998 13:09:31 -0500 (EST) From: "Shawgi A. Tell" To: Progressive Sociologists Network Subject: Text Of Letter From International Commission Of Inquiry On Economic Sanctions Greetings, The scope of Anglo-American imperialist aggression is such that it represents a violation of a whole host of international laws, charters and conventions. Refusing to respect even backward bourgeois norms of conduct, the imperialists continue to try to justify the unjustifiable. They and their agents are laboring vigorously to impose their agenda on all. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Seven years have passed since the US and its British and other allies, acting under the auspices of the UN Security Council, conducted a war against Iraq in which facilities essential to civilian life and economic productivity were destroyed throughout the country, in violation of specific provisions of the UN Charter, the Hague and Geneva Conventions, the Nuremberg Charter, and the laws of armed conflict. During these past seven years, economic sanctions have been imposed on Iraq by the UN Security Council clearly acting under US pressure. This has resulted in the deaths of around a million Iraqis, most of them children. The sanctions have violated the provisions of the Hague and Geneva Conventions, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other covenants, and constitute a crime against humanity of immense proportions. Britain's government talks of a "moral approach" to foreign policy. Yet in the case of the Iraq sanctions, its adopts policies which are almost universally perceived by international public opinion to run directly counter to both the legal and the moral norms of international behaviour. Our Commission of Inquiry, which is headed by four former heads of state and government and a number of other international senior states people, takes the opportunity of this anniversary of the war's outbreak to reiterate its call for the immediate lifting of the sanctions, and a new approach for an agreed, just and non-violent resolution to the points at issue in the Gulf region. Ahmed Ben Bella, former President of Algeria. Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici, former Prime Minister of Malta. Ramsey Clark, former Attorney General of the USA. Tony Benn MP. 'Co-Presidents, International Commission of Inquiry on Economic Sanctions TML Weekly, 2/8/98 Shawgi Tell Graduate School of Education University at Buffalo tell@acsu.buffalo.edu From PJM0930@aol.com Fri Feb 20 06:20:51 1998 From: PJM0930@aol.com by imo21.mx.aol.com (IMOv12/Dec1997) id GJHLa04355 Date: Fri, 20 Feb 1998 08:20:27 EST To: psn@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Re: Iraq bombing thread Sorry Matt about all the condescending replies. Personally I am opposed to the intervention that the US is planning and was opposed to Gulf War (I thought that that sanctions should have been allowed to run their course). I do think that most of the arguments people have thrown at you about why not to bomb are embarassingly specious. The real problem with the US position is that is pursuing a policy that is at best vague and at worst contradictory and which it cannot control. The US is also trying to assume a role that neither the world community nor a good chunk of its populace (for varying and contradictory reasons) opposes. While most of the world has a certain antipathy to Saddam Hussein and would not mind seeing him removed from power, the currently planned bombing campaign will primarily accomplish one thing, increase the suffering of the Iraqi people. Remember to some extent Saddam is fairly insensitive to the suffering of the Iraqi (though the relevant question may be who is more insensitive, him or the US government). So what are policy response be after the bombing if he does not relent???? The US is trying to play the role of world cop while actively undermining any multilateral authority (except maybe the Anglo-American club). We don't even pay our share of UN peace-keeping operations and most of the rest of the world is uncomfortable with the US taking a unilateral lead role. It is something of a logical paradox at the heart of US policy to brand Hussein a mad-dog dictator (which is not entirely untrue) but then asking him to play by the rules of a barely tangible internation authority. Remember we (ie, the Bush administration) consciously chose not to destroy the Republican Guard in the Gulf War primarily to keep Hussien in power as a counterweight to the Iranians. We (and more to the point, the Iraqi people) have suffered for that (one among many) mistakes. Why make the Iraqi people suffer more? Either Hussien will commit a gregious violation of international conduct at some point in the future or he won't? If he doesn't fine but we already know that the West is willing and able to defeat him utterly should they choose. From dgrammen@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu Fri Feb 20 13:57:08 1998 Date: Fri, 20 Feb 1998 14:56:59 -0600 (CST) From: Dennis Grammenos To: PROGRESSIVE SOCIOLOGISTS NETWORK Subject: Amerikkkan Democracy at work... >From p.14 of the Chicago Tribune (Friday, 20 February 1998) in an article titled "Message masters fail to deliver" (continued from front page)... It is talking about how the White House is downplaying the OSU fiasco. Quoted is White House spin-meister Harold Ickes, former deputy chief of staff who has planned scores of White House staged events. CAPS are mine and have been added for emphasis. ____________________________________________________ "The day after the Ohio event, those in and close to the administration were seeking to minimize its impact. 'We in Washington get overly concerned with control,' said Ickes, a master of control. 'We want things smooth and quiet as a Sunday talk show. Well Ohio State wasn't smooth and quiet. So what? THE ONLY OPINION THAT REALLY COUNTS IS THE PRESIDENT'S. And he's not going to be affected by a bunch of goofy hecklers." _____________________________________________________ Solidarity, Dennis Grammenos _____________________________________________________________ | Dennis Grammenos dgrammen@uiuc.edu | | Departments of Geography & | | Russian and East European Studies | | University of Illinois Phone: (217) 333-1880 | | Urbana, IL 61801 Fax: (217) 244-1785 | |_____________________________________________________________| From cdfupdate@cdfig.childrensdefense.org Fri Feb 20 19:19:16 1998 Date: Fri, 20 Feb 98 16:57:14 EST From: "CDFupdate" To: cdfupdate@automailer.com Subject: CDF Update - February 20, 1998 Sender: owner-cdfupdate@automailer.com Children's Defense Fund Update February 20,1998 In This Issue: -- S. 10 -- -- Children's Health -- -- Training on Grass Roots Lobbying -- --- S. 10 --- *** Opponents of S. 10 Making Progress *** The movement against S. 10, the "Violent and Repeat Juvenile Offender Act," is beginning to show results, largely due to your efforts. Opponents of the bill have been calling and visiting their senators and appearing on radio and in local papers. The message is getting out that S. 10 does not target violent offenders, but instead turns the clock back 25 years and treats all youth -- including runaways and petty offenders -- as hard core criminals in need of adult jails and open records. It is important that we keep up the pressure to stop S. 10 and keep communities and children safe. For a closer look at all the great work you're doing, check out these articles: * The Washington Post, February 6, 1998. "Kids and Crimes," Pg. A24. * USA Today, February 10, 1998. "Avoid Jailing Juveniles with Hardened Adults," by DeWayne Wickham. * The Baltimore Sun, February 10, 1998. "A Road Back to the Dark Ages of Prison Policy," by Charles Levendosky. * The Chicago Tribune, February 15, 1998. "No Quick Fix for Keeping Kids Out of Trouble," by Clarence Page: Pg. A23. For more information on S. 10, and what you can do to stop it, please contact Holly Jackson at 202/662-3664, or . --- Children's Health --- *** President Announces New Efforts to Enroll Uninsured Children *** On Wednesday, Feb. 18th, the President announced a series of new efforts to enroll uninsured children in Medicaid and the new State Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP). * A new directive was released to launch a government-wide effort to enroll uninsured children in Medicaid and CHIP. Eight federal agencies with jurisdiction over children's programs must develop an intensive children's outreach strategy and report back in 90 days on their plan to help enroll children. * New private sector commitments include a toll free number operated by Bell Atlantic that families can call and learn how to get information about their state program, funds from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation for innovative state-local coalitions to conduct outreach, and a commitment from the National Education Association to educate teachers on how they can inform children and families about health insurance. * Colorado and South Carolina have joined Alabama as the first states to have their CHIP plans approved by HHS. Also, the National Governor's Association has completed, and added to their web site, a table of states' efforts to streamline and simplify the enrollment process and another that outlines outreach efforts state by state. The web site address is . To get to the tables click on "Recent additions to the NGA web site: Nation's Governors are Proud Partners in Effort to Expand Health Insurance to America's Children". To find out more about these initiatives or child health in general, contact CDF's health division at 202.662.3575 or . -- CDF Annual Conference -- ** Training on Lobbying Tools for State and Local Advocates ** "Devolution: Defining State and Local Programs for Children" Wednesday, March 25 In this training session we will examine the strategies, techniques, materials, data, and other resources that empower child advocates and policy makers at the state and local levels faced with devolution. Devolution is the shifting of responsibilities from the federal government to other domains - state government, local government, and the private sector, including churches and charities. It is one of the most important issues in American politics today. State and local governments in recent years have been given increased opportunities, including new dollars, to design, implement, and track programs that affect children. Significant responsibility for issues such as child welfare, child health, child care, and child support rests in state and local jurisdictions. The issue of devolution is complicated because it involves understanding government processes and legislation at the federal, state, and local levels. When programs are given to the states, each state has to create and follow their own set of rules and regulations and funds for the program must be appropriated according to the state's own constraints. Participants will: * Role-play hypothetical meetings with state legislators * Practice staying on message, even with a hostile questioner * Move beyond describing problems and on to recommending solutions. This session is a must for any advocates planning to lobby their elected officials and public administrators. ** Call the CDF Conference Hot-line at 202/662-3684 or visit the CDF Website at: , or for a registration brochure, send an email to: . ****************************************************************** -- OUR STRENGTH IS IN OUR NUMBERS -- SHARE THIS LEGISLATIVE UPDATE WITH YOUR FRIENDS!!! Our typical email is about a page or two long and generally comes once a week. To join our legislative update email list, sign-up on our website or send an email to: and write in the body of the message: subscribe cdfupdate PLEASE NOTE: WHEN SUBSCRIBING OR CANCELING YOUR SUBSCRIPTION, PLEASE DO NOT SURROUND YOUR ADDRESS WITH BRACKETS. Kimberly Taylor Children's Defense Fund 25 E Street, NW Washington, DC 20001 202/662-3540 (fax) CDFupdate@childrensdefense.org "What is done to children, they will do to society." --Karl Menninger From africa-cuba-brazil-academic-events@juno.com Sat Feb 21 02:46:44 1998 id CAA01013; Sat, 21 Feb 1998 02:46:38 -0700 (MST) From: africa-cuba-brazil-academic-events@juno.com To: MedSoc@csf.colorado.edu, MEDSOC@GWUVM.GWU.EDU, OAP585-LIST@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu, psn@csf.colorado.edu, RES-GARD@tamvm1.tamu.edu, restruct@UQuebec.CA, SASH-L@asuvm.inre.asu.edu, scf@catfish.valdosta.peachnet.edu, SCRG@MSU.EDU, sea-l@lmrinet.ucsb.edu, SO010@UMSLVMA.UMSL.EDU, SO200@UMSLVMA.UMSL.EDU, SOC-ECON@unmvma.unm.edu, soc-list@oise.utoronto.ca, soc110@whitman.edu, soc111-l@piper.hamline.edu, SOC180@lists.missouri.edu, SOC210@UMSLVMA.UMSL.EDU, soc214@list.uvm.edu, SOC2230@morgan.ucs.mun.ca Subject: Africa/Brazil-> INTERNS * VOLNTRS * Proj DIRS * LEADERS X-Juno-Line-Breaks: 0-154 Date: Sat, 21 Feb 1998 04:44:38 EST OWNER, Please post to the List. Thank you _____________________________________________________________ Africa/Brazil-> INTERNS * VOLNTRS * Proj DIRS * LEADERS _____________________________________________________________ INTERNS * VOLUNTEERS * Project DIRECTORS * GROUP LEADERS CALL - MODERATORS * PRESENTERS * PAPERS * ABSTRACTS * PROPOSALS 2 African CONFERENCES: Comp. Literacy, Dist Learning & InfoTech, & 2nd Int'l CONF: WOMEN IN AFRICA & THE AFRICAN DIASPORA WOMEN'S HEALTH & HUMAN RIGHTS CONFERENCE Details Below in 3rd & 4th Sections _____________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________ A F R I C A N D I A S P O R A P R O G R A M S & A C A D E M I C C R E D I T _____________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________ I. AASP Africa-Brazil-Cuba Study/Travel * Multi-Disciplinary Multiple progs, 1 to 3 wks in duration, year round Starts at $995, the most affordable program of this sort 15 African countries plus Cuba and Brazil Send mailing address to abc@starmail.com For application & details, go to both: http://www.freeyellow.com/members2/african-disaspora/index.html http://www.freeyellow.com/members2/african-disaspora/journey.html Descriptive AASP Catalog: *PHONE* 312-443-0929 Prof. Rogers II. Crossroads Africa (& Brazil) Work/Travel/Study 7-wk Summer Prog * Workcamps RainForest*Health*Medicine*Agriculture*Building*Comm Dev Participants (Interns) & Group Leaders (Proj DIRs) Send mailing address to abc@starmail.com Funds are raised in the community and on campus Go to: http://www.igc.org/oca/ application & details Phone: 212-870-2106 - Kate III. CONFERENCE: African Computer Literacy, Distance Learning & Info Tech - to be held in Ghana, May 20-22 '98 CALL FOR Proposals Abstracts Papers Presenters Moderators Exhibitors Sponsors Proposals Abstracts Papers may also be E-mailed or FAXED For proposal help, guidelines, CONF goals, sub-themes, updates: http://www.ulbobo.com/gdep/ http://www.freeyellow.com/members2/african-diaspora/travels.html To join the Conference Discussion List (for volunteers, attendees, organizers, and interested persons), pls send a msg with "subscribe ghaclad-scope" in the body to: majordomo@igc.org Airline Deadline is NOW: Must contact BOTH Dr. Darkwa and Pharra ASAP to reserve $750 Roundtrip NY-GHANA ticket darkwa@uic.edu, dewindt@acsu.buffalo.edu Flexibility in departure and return... CONF Coordinator: Dr. Osei DARKWA, Faculty, UI-Chicago Phone: 312-996-8508; darkwa@uic.edu IV. Prof. Obioma NNAEMEKA, Convenor Women's Human Rights & Health CONF at Indianapolis, IN/USA 2nd Int'l Conf. on WOMEN IN AFRICA AND THE AFRICAN DIASPORA OCTOBER 22-27, 1998 Pres., Assoc of African Women Scholars (AAWS) French & Women's Studies Program Indiana University 425 University Boulevard Indianapolis, IN 46202 U. S. A. Phone: (317)278-2038; (317)274-0062 (messages) Fax: (317)274-2347 ABC@STARMAIL.COM Contact Obioma if you would like to help with this Conference or to receive the Registration Form or details re: CALL for papers, proposals, abstracts, moderators, exhibitors, volunteers V. "..Letters with Wings" Program ///\_[_/\\\ Human Rights Victims/Prisoners * Amnesty & Justice * Correspond with young HR victims in the African Diaspora * Appeal-letter writing & sending * Help those Unjustly Imprisoned & Inhumanely Sentenced * Write us for a HR Victim assignment Rob Owens, PhD Coordinator __________________________ Posted by EduNet Int'l Education & Internships Network http://www.freeyellow.com/members2/african-disaspora/index.html From tell@acsu.buffalo.edu Sat Feb 21 07:19:10 1998 Date: Sat, 21 Feb 1998 09:19:04 -0500 (EST) From: "Shawgi A. Tell" To: Progressive Sociologists Network Subject: FYI: national protests (fwd) FYI Shawgi Tell Graduate School of Education University at Buffalo tell@acsu.buffalo.edu ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Thousands will Demonstrate on February 28 in First National Protests Opposing New U.S. War on Iraq National Emergency Coalition to Stop the War Against Iraq 39 W. 14th St., Suite 206, New York, NY 10011, (212) 633-6646, Fax (212) 633-2889, Email: iacenter@iacenter.org For Immediate Release Press Contact: Brian Becker/Deirdre Sinnott/Kadouri Al Kaysi Attention: News Editor (212) 633-6646 The newly formed National Emergency Coalition to Stop the U.S. War Against Iraq has set two national anti-war protests on February 28, 1998, for New York City and San Francisco. The Coalition includes over two hundred groups and prominent individuals from anti-war, civil rights, labor union's, women's, student, lesbian, gay, bi and trans, veterans, and religious organizations. "The people of this country will take to the streets again to protest a U.S. bombing war against the people of Iraq that will likely kill thousands of civilians, further crippling Iraq's water, sanitation and electrical system, and all that is necessary to sustain civilian life," stated Ramsey Clark, former U.S. Attorney General. "A new U.S. bombing is illegal, a violation of international law and constitutes another war crime against the Iraqi people," Clark continued.... From mweigand@usa.net Fri Feb 20 16:46:47 1998 Date: Fri, 20 Feb 1998 16:43:39 -0700 (MST) From: mweigand@usa.net Subject: Re: Iraq bombing thread To: psn@csf.colorado.edu As a peace activist in the 1960's who is not unfamiliar with such issues, I would pose the following questions to PSN'rs: [] Conceivably, is it possible for the U.S. to act in a non-imperialist manner? Is all humanitarian/medical aid to other countries just a cynical deception? [] Does a dictator such as SH presently pose a threat to world peace, or is it all a figment of the capitalist imagination? [] Is violence ("killing of innocents") in war ever justified? If not, the U.S. should never have entered World War II. [] Must we wait until a country uses chemical or biological weapons against us before responding? Or historically, should the U.S. have waited until Nazi Germany destroyed all other allied nations before declaring war on Germany in WWII? [] Must all progressive sociologists be pacifists? It seems that a violent overthrow of capitalism is approved, but not violence toward a country which would prefer to spray anthrax in New York subways if it could. Does this indicate a death wish among some Marxists? [] With all of its noble ideals, is the United Nations ALWAYS pro-U.S. in its resolutions? [] For critics focussing exclusively upon the U.S.: How would you justify the profiteering by European countries, China, and Russia in helping SH to re-arm since the Gulf War? [] Are chemical/biological weapons of a different order than conventional weapons? For example, should the fact that a plague initiated by a small, obscure country can infect the entire world make a difference in U.S. foreign policy? I would argue that this type of weapon, because of its potential to affect the entire world in addition to the original combatants, should be considered a more serious threat. Any comments would be appreciated. Best wishes, -=MW=- MSCD From agfrank@chass.utoronto.ca Sat Feb 21 12:46:59 1998 id MAA03494; Sat, 21 Feb 1998 12:46:47 -0700 (MST) Sat, 21 Feb 1998 14:45:54 -0500 (EST) Date: Sat, 21 Feb 1998 14:45:53 -0500 (EST) From: Gunder Frank To: Metta Spencer , WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK , psn@csf.colorado.edu, "Lev S. Gonick" , jeff sommers , Paulo Frank , Fiona Godfrey <100412.1015@compuserve.com>, sallinge_j@GRUMPY.FORTLEWIS.EDU Subject: ah, the "free press" (fwd) is this for real? agf ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Andre Gunder Frank University of Toronto 96 Asquith Ave Tel. 1 416 972-0616 Toronto, ON Fax. 1 416 972-0071 CANADA M4W 1J8 Email agfrank@chass.utoronto.ca My home Page is at: http://www.whc.neu.edu/whc/resrch&curric/gunder.html ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sat, 21 Feb 1998 07:24:21 -0800 From: doug norberg To: Doug Norberg Subject: ah, the "free press" Goebbels would have been proud... DAN RATHER: NOT KNOWN HOW MANY CASUALTIES CBS NEWS hit total embarrassment Friday afternoon when anchor Dan Rather, in full pancake makeup, and Pentagon correspondent David Martin were caught rehearsing coverage of a U.S. bombing run on Iraq -- a rehearsal that was mistakenly beamed to television affiliates via satellite! For 20 minutes, Rather could been seen on the satellite going through the motions of a bombing. According to one viewer who witnessed the spectacle, Rather at one point described how it was not known how many casualties were caused by the bombings. "It felt like WAG THE DOG," a senior news producer at a major-market affiliate told us. "I bet the network is living in fear that someone on the receiving end of the transmission had tape rolling." "It looked like a real broadcast of what was going on," Bill McClure, master control operator at WTAP-TV in Parkersburg, W.Va., an NBC affiliate, told the ASSOCIATED PRESS. The network wanted to test new graphics and theme music that would be used to cover the story, according to CBS NEWS spokeswoman Kerri Weitzberg. No word on testing camera angles that would work best during February sweeps. From dgrammen@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu Sat Feb 21 13:40:46 1998 Date: Sat, 21 Feb 1998 14:40:40 -0600 (CST) From: Dennis Grammenos To: PROGRESSIVE SOCIOLOGISTS NETWORK Subject: Another Massacre in Colombia ??? ************************************************************************ * COLOMBIA SUPPORT NETWORK: To subscribe to CSN-L send request to * * listserv@postoffice.cso.uiuc.edu SUB CSN-L Firstname Lastname * * (Direct questions or comments about CSN-L to csncu@prairienet.org) * * VISIT THE COLOMBIA SUPPORT NETWORK WEBSITE AT http://www.igc.org/csn * * For more info contact CSN at P.O. Box 1505, Madison WI 53701 * * (608) 257-8753 fax: 608 2556621 csn@igc.apc.org * ************************************************************************ ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sat, 21 Feb 1998 13:38:33 -0600 From: Dennis Grammenos Subject: Another Massacre in Colombia ??? The following is a summary of a story from Friday's El Espectador, a Colombian daily newspaper. Pardon the rough translation. The full story can be found (in Spanish) at the URL http://www.elespectador.com/9802/20/genotici.htm#06 Solidarity, Dennis Grammenos Urbana, Illinois _______________________________________________________________________ http://www.elespectador.com/9802/20/homepage.htm _______________________________________________________________________ El Espectador Friday, 20 February 1998 In Meta accusations of another massacre --------------------------------------- BOGOTA- About 46 people may have died as a result of actions by armed paramilitaries or guerrillas in Turpial, district of El Anzuelo, in Mapiripan (Meta). The accusations were voiced yesterday by Ana Silvia Linder, representative of the international Committee of the Red Cross --with seat in Villavicencio-- confirming having received calls in which the existence of a new massacre in the region announced. The commander of the Fourth Division of the Army, Brigadier-General Jaime Humberto Cortes Parada, declined to make comments on the matter and indicated that they are merely rumors intented to discredit and to disturb the electoral process. _____________________________________________________________________ ************************************************************************ * COLOMBIA SUPPORT NETWORK: To subscribe to CSN-L send request to * * listserv@postoffice.cso.uiuc.edu SUB CSN-L Firstname Lastname * * (Direct questions or comments about CSN-L to csncu@prairienet.org) * * VISIT THE COLOMBIA SUPPORT NETWORK WEBSITE AT http://www.igc.org/csn * * For more info contact CSN at P.O. Box 1505, Madison WI 53701 * * (608) 257-8753 fax: 608 2556621 csn@igc.apc.org * ************************************************************************ From Spectors@mail.netnitco.net Sat Feb 21 13:46:57 1998 Date: Sat, 21 Feb 1998 14:44:02 -0800 From: Spectors Reply-To: Spectors@mail.netnitco.net To: psn@csf.colorado.edu Subject: MarkWeigand's Survey --------------EE150C8AEFA6E375C4436E02 Note: the comments below are in response to Mark Weigand's questions to PSN about the U.S. government's conflict with Iraq. I hope others will offer their insights as well. Mark's comments are printed in regular type. My responses start with an UPPER CASE WORD (for identification, not flame purposes), are [bracketed] and underlined below his questions.----Alan Spector ============================================================================= As a peace activist in the 1960's who is not unfamiliar with such issues, I would pose the following questions to PSN'rs: Conceivably, is it possible for the U.S. to act in a non-imperialist manner? Is all humanitarian/medical aid to other countries just a cynical deception? [NO to the first YES to the second, except that individual U.S. citizens, such as the Quakers or Doctors Without Borders, etc. may offer aid out of genuine humanitarianism. But not the government---they kill so many people. The few dollars they offer up to burn the corpses to keep a plague from developing or otherwise to stabilize crisis situations they helped create hardly compensates for their cynical, profit-driven mass murder. ] Does a dictator such as SH presently pose a threat to world peace, or is it all a figment of the capitalist imagination? [NO-not to world peace. But it is not a figment of the imagination. It is a well-crafted exaggeration created to obscure the hundreds of millions of deaths caused by imperialism and lay the basis for further U.S. military expansion and economic domination] Is violence ("killing of innocents") in war ever justified? If not, the U.S. should never have entered World War II. [YES, in the sense of collateral damage, some civilians die, just as they die during capitalist-imperialist "peace" that kills with disease, fascist repression, unsafe work conditions, etc. But one must always weigh the civilian costs. Killing hundreds of thousands to get Saddam is not justified. Killing thousands of civilians to get Noriega while allowing bigger drug dealers to operate unrestricted is not justified. Bombing Hiroshima & Nagasaki--not justified, NOR the saturation bombing of Dresden. Bombing the railroad lines that led to the Nazi Death Camps, and allowed the Nazis to more quickly and efficiently kill many more civilians---THAT would have been justified, even if some civilians had initially been killed during those bombings. But the Allies didn't do those bombings much..... ] [] Must we wait until a country uses chemical or biological weapons against us before responding? Or historically, should the U.S. have waited until Nazi Germany destroyed all other allied nations before declaring war on Germany in WWII? [THE PROBLEM here is that it is the U.S. that has destroyed so many other nations. In your example above, it is the U.S. that is playing the role of the Nazis. And that has used nuclear weapons. And that has created biological and chemical weapons and given them to allies to use. So, NO, we should not wait for the U.S. government to murder millions more. The issue is whether WE should wait any longer to respond against imperialism! We should respond NOW----but against U.S. and other imperialisms. WE DO NOT NEED A PEACE MOVEMENT. WE NEED AN ANTI-IMPERIALIST MOVEMENT to take aim at all of capitalism's abuses, including, especially imperialist exploitation and mass death] [] Must all progressive sociologists be pacifists? It seems that a violent overthrow of capitalism is approved, but not violence toward a country which would prefer to spray anthrax in New York subways if it could. Does this indicate a death wish among some Marxists? [NO--I'm not a pacifist. Is it the "country" of Iraq that allegedly wants to spray anthrax in New York subways if it could. Believe me, if the Iraqi people as a whole, or even Saddam Hussein wanted to have anthrax or some equally devastating disease sprayed in New York subways, they could easily do it. Even without smuggling in terrorists, out of 275 million people in the U.S., there are probably some who would do it out of loyalty to Saddam, or rage against imperialism which may have killed their family members in Iraq or elsewhere, or general mental disorder, or simply because someone paid them to do it (ain't capitalism grand!). The fact that so little terrorism has been carried out is evidence that those most often accused of terrorism (anti-imperialists of various persuasions), in fact have no desire to kill large numbers of innocent civilians. The dismissive, insulting "death wish" comment is something that I would not have expected from Mark. ] With all of its noble ideals, is the United Nations ALWAYS pro-U.S. in its resolutions? [NO. There is competition among the capitalists. On many issues some European interests split with the U.S. capitalists (themselves a group that sometimes fights among themselves, by the way). Various so-called "Third World" countries sometimes oppose one or another of those imperialisms if they threaten their specific interests.] [] For critics focussing exclusively upon the U.S.: How would you justify the profiteering by European countries, China, and Russia in helping SH to re-arm since the Gulf War? [WHY just emphasize the countries that helped SH re-arm? All the war profiteering countries/corporations are guilty of aiding in the mass destruction of human lives. By the way, that includes Sweden, the darling of liberal socialists all over the world. Sweden is hailed as an example of the way that capitalism can be peacefully, gradually transformed into a "more gentle" type of system. Swedish capitalism make significant profits selling weapons that kill many civilians, especially in the so-called "Third World." Liberal socialism has often been used as a camoflague for imperialist exploitation and murder, attempting to ally with imperialism if it appears to throw them a crumb or two. Ain't capitalism creative? We focus on the U.S. government today, because it is the U.S. government today which is preparing to very quickly kill tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of people.] [] Are chemical/biological weapons of a different order than conventional weapons? For example, should the fact that a plague initiated by a small, obscure country can infect the entire world make a difference in U.S. foreign policy? I would argue that this type of weapon, because of its potential to affect the entire world in addition to the original combatants, should be considered a more serious threat. [WHY are these weapons in the hands of "small, obscure countries" more frightening than those weapons in the hands of countries like the U.S., Britain, Pakistan, Israel, etc. Or is "small, obscure" a code word for "not part of the Western Capitalist Orbit"? Why the implicit trust in U.S. capitalism, politicians, and military?] Any comments would be appreciated [IN GERMANY in the 1930's, there was the fear of "small, obscure, alien" interests bringing disorder to the German state. So lots of people gave Hitler the authority and power to supposedly protect them. Will the people of the U.S. rush to Clinton, Chase-Manhattan, EXXON oil, and the U.S. military high command seeking protection from Saddam today, (and who tomorrow?) Who is more likely to initiate the kinds of policies that will lead to world war? Who has the proven record of continuous mass destruction of human lives? Let's not repeat the terrible mistake of the 1930's.] ALAN SPECTOR ============================================================================ --------------EE150C8AEFA6E375C4436E02 Note: the comments below are in response to Mark Weigand's questions to PSN about the U.S. government's conflict with Iraq. I hope others will offer their insights as well. Mark's comments are printed in regular type. My responses start with an UPPER CASE WORD (for identification, not flame purposes), are [bracketed] and underlined below his questions.----Alan Spector
 

=============================================================================

As a peace activist in the 1960's who is not unfamiliar with such issues, I
would pose the following questions to PSN'rs:

Conceivably, is it possible for the U.S. to act in a non-imperialist manner?
Is all humanitarian/medical aid to other countries just a cynical deception?

[NO to the first YES to the second, except that individual U.S. citizens, such as the Quakers or Doctors Without Borders, etc. may offer aid out of genuine humanitarianism. But not the government---they kill so many people. The few dollars they offer up to burn the corpses to keep a plague from developing or otherwise to stabilize crisis situations they helped create  hardly compensates for their cynical, profit-driven mass murder. ]

 
Does a dictator such as SH presently pose a threat to world peace, or is it
all a figment of the capitalist imagination?

[NO-not to world peace. But it is not a figment of the imagination. It is a well-crafted exaggeration created to obscure the hundreds of millions of deaths caused by imperialism and lay the basis for further U.S. military expansion and economic domination]
 

 Is violence ("killing of innocents") in war ever justified? If not, the U.S.
should never have entered World War II.

[YES, in the sense of collateral damage,  some civilians die, just as they die during capitalist-imperialist "peace" that kills with disease, fascist repression, unsafe work conditions, etc. But one must always weigh the civilian costs. Killing hundreds of thousands to get Saddam is not justified. Killing thousands of civilians to get Noriega while allowing bigger drug dealers to operate unrestricted is not justified. Bombing Hiroshima & Nagasaki--not justified, NOR the saturation bombing of Dresden. Bombing the railroad lines that led to the Nazi Death Camps, and allowed the Nazis to more quickly and efficiently kill many more civilians---THAT would have been justified, even if some civilians had initially been killed during those bombings. But the Allies didn't do those bombings much..... ]
 
 

[] Must we wait until a country uses chemical or biological weapons against us
before responding? Or historically, should the U.S. have waited until Nazi
Germany destroyed all other allied nations before declaring war on Germany in
WWII?

[THE PROBLEM here is that it is the U.S. that has destroyed so many other nations. In your example above, it is the U.S. that is playing the role of the Nazis. And that has used nuclear weapons. And that has created biological and chemical weapons and given them to allies to use. So, NO, we should not wait for the U.S. government to murder millions more. The issue is whether WE should wait any longer to respond against imperialism! We should respond NOW----but against U.S. and other imperialisms. WE DO NOT NEED A PEACE MOVEMENT. WE NEED AN ANTI-IMPERIALIST MOVEMENT to take aim at all of capitalism's abuses, including, especially imperialist exploitation and mass death]
 
 

[] Must all progressive sociologists be pacifists? It seems that a violent
overthrow of capitalism is approved, but not violence toward a country which
would prefer to spray anthrax in New York subways if it could. Does this
indicate a death wish among some Marxists?

[NO--I'm not a pacifist. Is it the "country" of Iraq that allegedly wants to spray anthrax in New York subways if it could. Believe me, if the Iraqi people as a whole, or even Saddam Hussein wanted to have anthrax or some equally devastating disease sprayed in New York subways, they could easily do it. Even without smuggling in terrorists, out of 275 million people in the U.S., there are probably some who would do it out of loyalty to Saddam, or rage against imperialism which may have killed their family members in Iraq or elsewhere, or general mental disorder, or simply because someone paid them to do it (ain't capitalism grand!).  The fact that so little terrorism has been carried out is evidence that those most often accused of terrorism (anti-imperialists of various persuasions), in fact have no desire to kill large numbers of innocent civilians. The dismissive, insulting "death wish"  comment is something that I would not have expected from Mark. ]
 

With all of its noble ideals, is the United Nations ALWAYS pro-U.S. in its
resolutions?

[NO. There is competition among the capitalists. On many issues some European interests split with the U.S. capitalists (themselves a group that sometimes fights among themselves, by the way). Various so-called "Third World" countries sometimes  oppose one or another of those imperialisms if they threaten their  specific interests.]
 

[] For critics focussing exclusively upon the U.S.: How would you justify the
profiteering by European countries, China, and Russia in helping SH to re-arm
since the Gulf War?

[WHY just emphasize the countries that helped SH re-arm? All the war profiteering countries/corporations are guilty of aiding in the mass destruction of human lives. By the way, that includes Sweden, the darling of liberal socialists all over the world. Sweden is hailed as an example of the way that capitalism can be peacefully, gradually transformed into a "more gentle" type of system. Swedish capitalism make significant profits selling weapons that kill many civilians, especially in the so-called "Third World."  Liberal socialism has often been used as a camoflague for imperialist exploitation and murder, attempting to ally with imperialism if it appears to throw them a crumb or two. Ain't capitalism creative? We focus on the U.S. government today, because it is the U.S. government today which is preparing to very quickly kill tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of people.]
 
 

[] Are chemical/biological weapons of a different order than conventional
weapons? For example, should the fact that a plague initiated by a small,
obscure country can infect the entire world make a difference in U.S. foreign
policy? I would argue that this type of weapon, because of its potential to
affect the entire world in addition to the original combatants, should be
considered a more serious threat.

[WHY are these weapons in the hands of "small, obscure countries" more frightening than those weapons in the hands of countries like the U.S., Britain, Pakistan, Israel, etc. Or is "small, obscure" a code word for "not part of the Western Capitalist Orbit"?  Why the implicit trust in U.S. capitalism, politicians, and military?]

Any comments would be appreciated

[IN GERMANY in the 1930's, there was the fear of "small, obscure, alien" interests bringing disorder to the German state. So lots of people gave Hitler the authority and power to supposedly protect them.  Will the people of the U.S. rush to Clinton, Chase-Manhattan, EXXON oil, and the U.S. military high command seeking protection from Saddam today, (and who tomorrow?)  Who is more likely to initiate the kinds of policies that will lead to world war? Who has the proven record of continuous mass destruction of human lives? Let's not repeat the terrible mistake of the 1930's.]
 

ALAN SPECTOR
============================================================================ --------------EE150C8AEFA6E375C4436E02-- From PJM0930@aol.com Sat Feb 21 14:34:03 1998 From: PJM0930@aol.com by imo23.mx.aol.com (IMOv12/Dec1997) id GJOWa04925 Date: Sat, 21 Feb 1998 16:33:54 EST To: psn@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Re: Iraq bombing thread [] Conceivably, is it possible for the U.S. to act in a non-imperialist manner? Is all humanitarian/medical aid to other countries just a cynical deception? Yes, while there may be a capitalist rationality involved in US actions there is no such thing as a unified actor behind actions of the American state. The state can act in contradictory way even idealistic ways and act against its own best interests (considered from a particular point of view). The relevant question now though is whether the idealism that drives the current purported goal of protecting world peace (and of course protecting the US economy, not even the State Department would deny that) is clouded by the rationality of its self-interest in ways of which the policy makers in Washington are not even conscious. (Assuming that is not all a cynical exercise in the first place) Let me make my position clear. In principle I am not opposed to military action to remove S.H. (and the Bathist regime) from power. Up to a point, such an action might (emphasis on might) save more Iraqui lives than the continued repression or the war that will inevitably result if Hussein tries another land grab or a w.m.d. attack on Israel, the Saudi's or the West. (An attitude expressed by much of the Arab leadership.) What is so troubling about the American position is that it is trying to impose unilateral control on the Gulf not save lives (Iraqui or any other) but to stabilize the region according to its geopolitical agenda, which in large measure is about oil. This is, after all, the reason the Saddam Hussien was left in power. It did not have anything to do with saving civilian lives, the Republican Guard could have been destroyed in the field without Baghdad even being invaded. The whole point, and it has been fairly widely admitted, was to keep Hussien as a counterforce to the Iranians. From dgrammen@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu Sat Feb 21 13:41:44 1998 Date: Sat, 21 Feb 1998 14:41:35 -0600 (CST) From: Dennis Grammenos To: PROGRESSIVE SOCIOLOGISTS NETWORK Subject: NYT: 4 Arrested in Colombia For Ties to Death Squads ************************************************************************ * COLOMBIA SUPPORT NETWORK: To subscribe to CSN-L send request to * * listserv@postoffice.cso.uiuc.edu SUB CSN-L Firstname Lastname * * (Direct questions or comments about CSN-L to csncu@prairienet.org) * * VISIT THE COLOMBIA SUPPORT NETWORK WEBSITE AT http://www.igc.org/csn * * For more info contact CSN at P.O. Box 1505, Madison WI 53701 * * (608) 257-8753 fax: 608 2556621 csn@igc.apc.org * ************************************************************************ ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sat, 21 Feb 1998 14:00:43 -0600 From: Dennis Grammenos Subject: NYT: 4 Arrested in Colombia For Ties to Death Squads The following is a short story carried in p.A5 of Saturday's New York Times. Solidarity, Dennis Grammenos Urbana, Illinois __________________________________________________________ New York Times Saturday, 21 February 1998 4 Arrested In Colombia For Ties to Death Squads ----------------------------------------------- BOGOTA, Colombia, Feb 20 (Reuters)-- Four members of Colombia's security forces have been arrested and accused of having links with right-wing death squads, justice officials said today. The officials said they believed the arrests were the first in the long war with leftist guerrillas in which active members of the police or army have been detained on charges of official ties to right-wing paramilitary groups. A statement from the chief prosecutor's office identified the suspects as an army major in Cordoba Province and three police officers in Bolivar Province. In addition to helping to form paramilitary groups, the four men have been charged with several murders, including that of a mayor-elect in Bolivar last November, the officials said in a statement. _________________________________________________________________________ ************************************************************************ * COLOMBIA SUPPORT NETWORK: To subscribe to CSN-L send request to * * listserv@postoffice.cso.uiuc.edu SUB CSN-L Firstname Lastname * * (Direct questions or comments about CSN-L to csncu@prairienet.org) * * VISIT THE COLOMBIA SUPPORT NETWORK WEBSITE AT http://www.igc.org/csn * * For more info contact CSN at P.O. Box 1505, Madison WI 53701 * * (608) 257-8753 fax: 608 2556621 csn@igc.apc.org * ************************************************************************ From idavies@YorkU.CA Sat Feb 21 16:03:10 1998 From: "Ioan Davies" To: psn@csf.colorado.edu Date: Sat, 21 Feb 1998 18:08:47 +0000 Subject: Re: update on InfoMed-USA Reply-to: idavies@YorkU.CA X-pmrqc: 1 The problem with the blockade is an American one, not one for Cuba. (the 'soft' American left seems to believe that if the blockade were lifted, Cuba would somehow be 'saved'). If the blockade were lifted at present, the revolutionary potential of Cuba would be devastated, all the solid gains of the revolution would be trashed. Havana would once again be the scene for Mafia-run Casinos. Lifting the blockade under American terms would be a disaster. Cuba must work slowly and effectively to cultivate other sources of trade and support, as it is already doing, and try to build up an economy which is independent of the USA. Fighting for a lifting of the blockade now, must be an admission that Castro was wrong. Why would anyone want to sign a petition to that effect? Those of us who have just returned from Havana see the American left as a bunch of spineless dolts who either mouth antedeluvian slogans or who are awash in a sentimental angst of their failure to create a vital radical alternative. If Cuba is to be the symbol for anything it surely must be that of the resistance to American imperialisim and the only remaining serious attempt to create a vibrant egalitarian economy. Whoever signs this sucky, maudlin proposal is only enhancing American prestige. Like every memo drafted in the USA, it assumes that only the USA is the fount of wisdom and culture, and that somehow Cuba must be sucked into the maw of the den. Surely, it is time to rethink that one and to work with the Cubans to create a real international base for the revolution. May the boycott - and the struggle - continue!. > Date: Fri, 13 Feb 1998 11:29:33 -0800 (PST) > Reply-to: jreardon@igc.apc.org > From: jreardon@igc.apc.org > To: PROGRESSIVE SOCIOLOGISTS NETWORK > Subject: update on InfoMed-USA > X-To: (Recipient list suppressed) > > > > >If you wish to be removed from this list let us know. > > > >*************************************************************************** > ***** > > > >Your support is needed to lift the blockade of Cuba. > > > >Call your congress representative to encourage further action on bill HR 1951, > > > > No to the embargo of food and medicine . > > > >******************************************************************************* > > > > InfoMed-USA: Who Are We? > > > > Most Recent Update: February 13, 1998: > >---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > > 800 computers sent to Cuban hospitals & clinics!!! > > > >---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > >InfoMed-USA is dedicated to the support of public health > >development in the third world and the Republic of Cuba in > >particular through the Cuban medical information network > >(InfoMed). InfoMed-USA emerged from efforts in 1995 and > >1996 to provide Cuba's Ministry of Public Health > >(MINSAP) with computers and other materials needed to > >sustain and expand its medical information network. > > > >As of February 1998 a cumulative total of 800 computers > >has been sent to Cuba's InfoMed by InfoMed-USA through > >various means and routes with the help and support of > >many individuals and organizations. > > > >InfoMed-USA has also assisted Cuban health professionals > >by providing spare parts, books, other specially requested > >materials and various types of consultation. InfoMed-USA > >strives to reach health and information professionals. > > > > We aspire to: > > > > * Increase awareness about health achievements in Cuba > > and the impact of US policies on the health of the > > Cuban people; > > > > * Increase communication between health professionals > > of our two countries; > > > > * Increase solidarity with Cuba's public health efforts in > > the form of material contributions, technical > > assistance and joint projects; > > > > * Build opposition to the US embargo of Cuba. > > > > > > > >With the collaboration of the Cuban Ministry of Public > >Health, InfoMed-USA participated in the 1996 annual > >meeting of the American Public Health Association (New > >York, November 17-21) with a booth to exhibit Cuba's > >achievements to visiting public health professionals > >InfoMed-USA > > > >On May 30th 1997 in San Jose, California, InfoMed-USA > >representatives presented a paper about Cuba's InfoMed at > >the Spring Meeting of American Medical Informatics > >Association (AMIA). The paper's title was "Supporting > >Medical Informatics in the Developing World. Cuba's > >InfoMed: A case study" > > > >On November 4-7, 1997 InfoMed USA/Cuba facilitated the > >participation of a Cuban InfoMed representative in the > >"International Conference on Medicine and the Internet, > >MEDNET-97, (Brighton, England) where the following > >paper was presented: "Is it possible to Create Medical > >Information Networks in the Developing World? Cuba's > >Response: INFOMED" by P. Urra Gonzalez, J.Hernandez > >Ojito, J. Reardon, A. Magrans de Cardenas. . The British > >Cuba Solidarity Campaign from London and Brighton was > >instrumental in making the Cuban presence at this > >conference possible. > > > >On November 24-25, InfoMed USA/Cuba was invited and > >participated in the international conference on "Resource > >Mobilization for the Health Sector" in Havana, Cuba, > >organized by the Cuban Ministry of Public Health > >(MINSAP) and sponsored by the World Health > >Organization (WHO) and PAHO. At this conference a > >diagnosis of the Cuban health system was presented and > >areas of priority need were identified. As one of the > >signatories of the Declaration of the International > >Conference Resource Mobilization for the Cuban Health > >Sector, InfoMed USA/Cuba invites and encourages > >everyone to join in this effort by MINSAP and the Cuban > >people to recover the ground lost in these years. Many > >specific projects are presented as "Options For Solidarity > >And Friendship." > > > >In its January 1, 1998 edition, the Silicon Valley based > >computer industry magazine, MicroTimes, included Project > >InfoMed USA/Cuba and its founders Dave Wald and Juan > >Reardon in its 11th annual year end list of the > >"MicroTimes 100 -- High Tech's High Achievers -- Famous > >and Not So Famous."Here's what they had to say "We're > >happy to applaud this endeavor and hope > >it inspires others to recycle old equipment where it will do > >the most good." > > > >Project InfoMed USA/Cuba hosts the "Cuba Solidarity Web > >Site" (http://www.igc.apc.org/cubasoli). This medium > >allows the publication and posting of news related to health > >in Cuba and solidarity efforts to support it. > > > >The Cuba Solidarity Web Site has been useful in promoting > >support for the Cuban Humanitarian Relief Act: H.R. 1951, > >to lift the U.S. restrictions on food and medicine. The bill > >presently has 99 co-sponsors in the U.S. congress. The web > >site connects with the InfoMed Web page in Cuba and with > >the Republic of Cuba's Web page. > > > >The web site has been recommended by the Cuban Interest > >Section in Washington as a source of accurate news on > >Cuba. It is also a place where members of the movement of > >solidarity with Cuba can connect and exchange information. > >We invite all groups working toward the end of the embargo > >to visit and make use of the Cuba Solidarity Web site. > > > >InfoMed USA/Cuba continues to work towards the above > >mentioned goals and encourages other organizations > >standing for justice and fairness on all issues to oppose the > >blockade of Cuba. > > > >In Solidarity, > > > >David Wald > >dwald@igc.apc.org > > > >Juan Reardon, MD, MPH > >jreardon@igc.apc.org > > > >---------------------------------------------------------------------- > >How To Contact InfoMed-USA ! > > > >National David Wald dwald@igc.apc.org > >East Bay Juan Reardon jreardon@igc.apc.org > >San Francisco Rita Barouch Baro1597@wonder.cdc.gov > >Sacramento Marisa Perez stonetiger@igc.apc.org > >Los Angeles Will Anderson walfand@juno.com > >Seattle Roger Lippman terrasol@igc.apc.org > >Boston, Chester King 7422.1040@compuServe.COM > >Washington, DC Bert Stiller bstiller@CapAccess.org > >New Orleans, Carrie Dougherty carolyn@accesscom.net > >NY, R. Garfield garfield@cuson-sph.cpmc.columbia.edu > >WWWeb Dana Simon dsimon@igc.apc.org > >Sth. Carolina Daniel Ross ely98@aol.com > > > > > > http://www.igc.apc.org/cubasoli/ > > > >>--------------------------------------------------------------------------- > >> > > > > > Professor Ioan Davies,Sociology and Social/Political Thought, Founders College, York University, Toronto, Canada, M3J 1P3 Phone: 416 736 5148. Web: http://members.tripod.com/~IoanDavies/ From T.R.Young@csf.Colorado.EDU Sun Feb 22 05:34:30 1998 by csf.Colorado.EDU (8.8.4/8.8.4/CNS-4.1p-nh) id FAA09257 for psn; Sun, 22 Feb 1998 05:34:24 -0700 (MST) id FAA09252; Sun, 22 Feb 1998 05:34:21 -0700 (MST) by ntserver3.sensible-net.com (Post.Office MTA v3.1.2 To: PSN@csf.Colorado.EDU From: T.R.Young@csf.Colorado.EDU Subject: Oral Sex Date: Sun, 22 Feb 1998 07:37:36 -0500 The ways of sex, love and marriage are, in history, manifold. Yet there still remain those who hold that sex, love and marriage should follow only that form which fits into a patriarchal, sexually repressive, hierarchical and politically exploitative social order. My good friend, Maxine Baca Zinn and our esteemed colleague, Judy Root Aulette have suggested, in the Jan98 issue of Footnotes, that the views of Norval Glenn and those broad segments of society for which he speaks, do not have a armlock on the truths about forms of intimacy about which they know nought. Folk theories of evil, error, deviancy and devilish sin have everywhere been used to legitimate a narrow range of normative behaviors upon children and adults alike. In these written and oral wars, social theory seems, at least to we poor social scientists, to be a powerful tool in normative wars about sin and sex. Barry Dank, in the same issue, points out it is not. For his part, Glenn say his only purpose was to encourage discussion. Constructive discussion. Glenn makes the point that he, himself, is centrist by noting that he is advisor to Democratic Leadership Conference, itself founded by Bill Clinton. mmmmm. David Knox, on Glenn's behalf, points out that Glenn's basic thesis was that many textbook authors nowadays, has an anti-family bias. Critics say that talking about other forms of intimacy is not thereby, an indictment of family per se. Nor is a critique of nuclear patriarchal family axiomatically an indictment of family generally. I learned that the hard way in 1970...but see below. Demie Kurz, at UPenn, gives the title of the Glenn book: 'Closed Minds and Closed Hearts' Mmmmmm. Quite a title for a book calling for free and open discussion. Constructive discussion. Kurz, to her credit, notes that it is not marriage which is the problem but rather divorce... she notes that a lot of women divorce abusive, alcoholic, drug-addicted and dallying husbands. Seems most men expect women to make the best of of such marriages...including those concerned with the 'collapse' of the family. Risman and Tomaskovic-Dewey points out that, rather than promoting constructive criticism, the Glenn book condemned books which other reviewers had praised. Judy Stacy, USC, refers to the Glenn text as 'virtual social science.' Ah, sad sad day for those of us who live and work only in the virtual reality of the Web...but Stacy's larger point was that Glenn's book was an instance of fraudulent dramaturgy rather than, as one might hope, enlivening and enabling dramaturgy...as I do hope. Of the books mentioned, seems to me that books such as that by Stacy and Kurz are much much the better way to understand the great complexities of sex, marriage and sin than are those books which try to fit young people into a social form that evolved some 4000 years ago along with settled agrarian societies...and a form which cannot possibly work in industrialized societies; in advanced capitalist societies which rip the family asunder by its labor policies, by its inequalities, by its commercial practices. Alas for Glenn, he choses the wrong villain in the plot...'tis not postmodern critics of patriarchy nor yet the sociologists which honor that critique; rather the villian in the play are those great sweeping social changes which forever destroyed the agrarian social order for which patriarchy was made. **** Public obloquy and scorn may deter popes, princes and presidents from forms of intimate behavior proscribed by protestants and puritans...but as Dank points out in his piece, young people in the first rush to explore their sexuality pay little heed to what sociologists say. If the norms of sex, love and marriage are leptokurtotic in one society and platykurtotic in another, there is no writ for sociologists to say which is the better mode of being and doing; of loving, living and dying. As Oscar Wilde might well have said: "As for the virtuous, one can pity them, of course, but one cannot possibly admire them." But then Wilde was known more for his beauty than for his virtue. ******* A personal note: One of the nicer things about getting on in years is that one has many memories from which to draw lessons. I recall that, in 1970, I was refused a contract to teach another year at SWMissouri since, with my mere comment that the American nuclear family form was a recent and rare way of doing intimacy, kinship and socialization. The Chair, a nice person, taught family in the department...she was infuriated that I had suggested, unwittingly, that her syllabus was more a political tool than a scientific text. Alas, the postmodern critique of the family was not, then, available. Had it been, I would still be teaching at SWMS...I would not have been forced to take a Ph.D at Colorado; would not have been involved in the great struggles in American sociology of the 60's and 70's; would not have been forced to rethink the politics of sociology and the philosophies of knowledge which now pre-occupy my time. Rather I could have retired in peace at Branston instead of working night and day to transform American sociology and the knowledge process itself. Ah...by such small things we men and women die. ********** Afterthought: I suppose I had led people to believe that I had something to say about oral sex in the oval orifice...I do. Driving around the country the last three weeks, I had a chance to listen to a lot of talk shows on radio...['twas either that or Rush Limbaugh]...so I listened. Several callers were at a lost about what to tell their kids when they came home from school asking about oral sex. Seems there is a lot of talk about oral sex in the news nowadays. Of the talk show hosts, only Dr. Laura knew what to tell them...'don't do it.' I think, had I been asked, I would have said something like: "Well MaryDickJanePaulTommyandChristie, oral sex can be anything ranging from a gentle kiss on the shoulder before you fall asleep in the arms of a woman you love to a teasing nibble on the ear of a woman distracted from her reading, writing or cooking in the kitchen by a man who has better things in mind. [and ceteris parabus, a man you love...not my cup of tea but Oscar Wilde might give it a shot]. ....Or BettyBillySusieAlbertJeanandPatti. oral sex could include intense liplock tongueteasing explorations. The kissing of hands, arms, necks and nipples also counts as oral sex" For the purposes at hand, I think I would have stopped there. In actual practice, one might go further and were one to do that, I would hope it is to give one's partner(s) in intimacy the exquisite pleasure of one's best oral examinations. Whatever Orval Glenn and Dr. Laura might think about oral sex beyond that first gentle kiss, I cannot know. I would hope that other my colleagues would not count them as evil, sinful, deviant or disgusting... all good love to you all in whatever way you do it, TR TR Young The Red Feather Institute 8085 Essex, Weidman, Mi., 48893--ph: [517] 644 3089 Email: tr@tryoung.com From dgrammen@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu Sun Feb 22 08:53:08 1998 Date: Sun, 22 Feb 1998 09:53:01 -0600 (CST) From: Dennis Grammenos To: PROGRESSIVE SOCIOLOGISTS NETWORK Subject: Even Jazz Professors Unionize... ---------------------------------------------------------------- February 20, 1998 The Chronicle of Higher Education Professors of Jazz Vote to Form Union by Jason M. Reynolds Jazz professors at the New School for Social Research voted last month, 42 to 23, to form a union. Some labor experts think the move could have serious ramifications for other private institutions. The professors, many of them part-timers, are part of the Jazz and Contemporary Music Program in the New SchoolUs Mannes College of Music. They formed their union under the American Federation of MusicUs New York City chapter, Local 802. They decided to affiliate with Local 802 instead of with a teachersU union because many of the jazz professors, who perform in non-academic settings, already belong to the group. The union reached out to the Mannes professors as part of a larger plan to improve working conditions for all jazz performers in the city, said Tim Dubnau, a union organizer involved with the RJustice for Jazz ArtistsS drive. First on the union's agenda: to improve health care, pensions, wage increases, and job security for the jazz professors. "We didn't feel these and other issues were being addressed by the New School administration," said Bill Kirchner, a jazz professor and member of the unionUs organizing committee. The negotiating committee was planning to meet last week to discuss how best to tackle those issues when it sits down with the administration. "I'm deeply disappointed that the faculty have chosen to elect union representation," said Chuck Iwanusa, associate dean and director of the division of jazz and contemporary music at Mannes. Collective bargaining is unnecessary, he said, because the university appointed a committee last fall to address the concerns of adjunct instructors. He declined to discuss any details of the impending negotiations between the administration and the union. The U.S. Supreme Court, in National Labor Relations Board v. Yeshiva University, has ruled that professors who have managerial duties could not unionize, and the ruling has been held to include private-college faculty members in general. The unionization of jazz professors at the New School represents a "possible end run around Yeshiva." said Joel M. Douglas, a professor of public administration at the City University of New YorkUs Baruch College. It is highly unusual for professors at a private college to be certified as a collective-bargaining unit, much less as a separate unit from the rest of the faculty, he said. The move could create schisms in the faculty, he added, now that jazz professors can bargain for separate benefits. _______________________________________________ From YLPSLL0@cpua.it.luc.edu Sun Feb 22 21:45:31 1998 Date: Sun, 22 Feb 98 22:44 CST From: YLPSLL0@cpua.it.luc.edu To: psn@CSF.COLORADO.EDU Subject: Saddamy Well folks, as of Sun nite, it looks like things calmed down. Now there will be a thousand explanations-most of which reflected the biases of the pre standown. But note there were a few critics who said Saddam would back down-just short of an attack. By coincidence-and as a Freudian as well as Marxist I am not a believer in chance, the NBC movie was Crimson Tide, a technothriller about a sub coming withing minutes of launching WW III. So now everybody can claim victory, Clinton, the protestor of the 60's proved he had....well many folks agree but I won't go into it, SH beat the imperialists-and may very well have saved his own ass in the process, the demonstrators won by exposing Rubin, Richardson and Albrech psn won by condeming the bombing. I was strangely (for me quite), from at first nuke the mf, I slowly moved to oppose bombing for a much less than elegant moral or intellect- ual reason, it would not work, especially if he moved his fascilities to Sudan/Libya. And innocent people would die-there are innocent people. But some questions remain. Just who would he have used his wmd on. It does not seem he really has the delivery systems needed. Most of nieghbors have the same weapons.Isreal at the first germ would turn Iraq into radioactive rubble. Can there now be a rapproachment with Iran and who knows, end of Hezballah's funding. Will CIA try to remove SH by other means-perhaps send anthrax infected Monica inflatable dolls or other brainstorms left over from anti Castro plots. Anyhow everyone won-at least as of Sunday nite- lets just see if Monica really loves Bill and will go to jail for him-until he leaves Hillary and falls for Chelsea's roomate. Back to As Washington turns. Lauren From ErasmusC@psy.unp.ac.za Mon Feb 23 07:15:15 1998 Date: Mon, 23 Feb 1998 16:06:46 +0200 From: Clare Erasmus To: psn@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Contemporary socialisation debates Can anyone help me in locating current socialisation theoretical debates and research debates. I am particularly interested in issues concerning gender and difference; gender identity; education; subject choices in school; the sociology of school curriculum, and how structure and agency could explain these. Please e-mail me directly if you imput thank you clare From SANTORO@vms.cis.pitt.edu Mon Feb 23 08:25:10 1998 Mon, 23 Feb 1998 10:24:54 -0500 (EST) Date: Mon, 23 Feb 1998 10:24:54 -0500 From: Dan Santoro Reply-To: SANTORO@vms.cis.pitt.edu To: AHS-Talk Subject: Coming out in way MW wrote: "[] Must all progressive sociologists be pacifists? It seems that a violent overthrow of capitalism is approved, but not violence toward a country which would prefer to spray anthrax in New York subways if it could. Does this indicate a death wish among some Marxists?" I say what I'm doing here "coming out" because I'm not sure how this will go over with my friends in the Association for Humanist Sociologist, but my answer is: no. Not all progressive sociologists should be pacifists. I guess I cannot call myself a pacifist because I do believe that force and sometimes violence are necessary and justifiable in struggles for liberation...and not just as "last ditch" efforts to survive but as a rational strategy. The problem is knowing when is physical force and violence necessary. That is the difficult question. Even non-violent actions are about force. For example, the Montgomery Bus Boycott was an attempt to force a change in an inhumane institution. But nonviolence isn't always sufficient nor effective. Even Desmond TuTu understood that. dan -- ########################################################### "If you are a good economist, a virtuous economist, you are reborn as a physicist. But if you are an evil, wicked economist, you are reborn as a sociologist." --Paul Krugman Dan Santoro Division of Social Sciences 104 Krebs Hall University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown Johnstown, PA 15904 814-269-2976 mailto:santoro@vms.cis.pitt.edu http://www1.pitt.edu/~santoro/ ########################################################### From sokol@jhu.edu Mon Feb 23 09:33:27 1998 Date: Mon, 23 Feb 1998 11:20:18 -0500 From: Wojtek Sokolowski Subject: Re: Iraq bombing thread In-reply-to: <41a9b968.34ed831d@aol.com> To: psn@csf.colorado.edu, psn-cafe@csf.colorado.edu At 08:20 AM 2/20/98 -0500, you wrote, inter alia: >The US is trying to play the role of world cop while actively >undermining any multilateral authority (except maybe the Anglo-American >club). We don't even pay our share of UN peace-keeping operations >and most of the rest of the world is uncomfortable with the US taking >a unilateral lead role. That nicely summarizes the reasons behind my own opposition to the Gulf war. As I stated elsewhere, I know little about the empirical context in which that conflict is taking place, and that prevents me from even considering the moral questions pertaining to it. The only empirical reality, somewhat losely connceted to that issue, is the self-righteous arrogance of the American establishment -- the ruling apparatus, as well as a great chuck of the 'opinion makers'. Words alone cannot express how much I despise that self-righteous arrogance of the ruling classes -- so let me evoke a scene from a British action drama taking place in South Africa (before the end of the apartheid). In that scene, a high ranking police officer is captured by guerillas. In a conversation with his nemesis (an European journalist who reports on the brutality of the South Afrrican police), the poised and self-confident officer talks quite disparagingly about his captors and assures the journalist that he would soon be swapped. To which the journalist replies that he would not be so sure, and then cocks the gun taken from the officer, puts to his head and fires. My reaction to that sceen was sincere applause (not very intellectual, I admit, but that does not bother me at all). So the only empirical reality of the Gulf war I face is the arrogance of the American establishement and punditry talking about what 'we' are going to do with Iraq. And my gut reaction is simply "Fuck you, people, and fuck your war." I learned that form a friend of mine who attended a demo "greeting" President Bush in New Brunswick, NJ immediately after the Gulf war. Rather than preparing elaborate slogans about war attrocities, as other demonstrators did, his sign had only two words "FUCK YOU". From sokol@jhu.edu Mon Feb 23 10:39:23 1998 Date: Mon, 23 Feb 1998 12:26:10 -0500 From: Wojtek Sokolowski Subject: Re: Oral Sex In-reply-to: <1.5.4.16.19980222073115.3937d89c@sensible-net.com> To: psn@csf.colorado.edu, psn-cafe@csf.colorado.edu T.R. Young's remarks on oral sex are both thought provoking and intriguing. We ought to consider the historical context in which sex becomes associated primarily with erotic pleasure rather than its reprioductive-economic functions. The Marxist framework directing our attention to the conditions of material production of cultureal products (sex in this case) comes particularly handy. It is easy to see that in the pre-modern past, sex was primarily a vehicle for carrying economic and reproductive functions of society (bonding the household, the basis unit of production and consumption, and supplying the labour power i.e. children to that unit). However, in the moderen era, thanks to technological progress, household lost its economic function. As a result, sex, like religion, became the realm of individual choice and preference. Only in that context, the romantic and erotic aspects of sex came to the central focus. Only in modern times can people pusue sexual activities primarily for their personal enjoyment and gratification, without thinking of its economic-reproductive functions. In that sense, technology destroyed the integument of the moral norms pertaing to sex -- to put it graphically, all those writings on sexual morality are completely useless, one can't even wipe his/her organ after love making with them (the paper might be to stiff for such sensitive parts of the body). In that context, the cultural suprestructure, perepetrated by the punditry, is the integument of sexuality liberated from its economic and technological functions. In any case, instead of reading the normative bullshit, the mental pollution spewing from pundit-heads, I would be much more interested in knowing what real life people have to say about their own sexual activities and fantasies. What we need is a good ethnography of different practices of oral sex whose perception has been reduced, by the enetertainment industry, to a very narrow range of activities (basically the oral-genital contact), while leaving out a really wide range of other possibilities, some of which mentioned in Young's missive. Wojtek Sokolowski Institute for Policy Studies Johns Hopkins University Baltimore, MD 21218 sokol@jhu.edu voice: (410) 516-4056 fax: (410) 516-8233 Opinions expressed above are those of this writer only. They do not represent the views or policies of the Institute for Policy Studies, the Johns Hopkins University, or anyone else affiliated with these institutions. From fawcett@physics.utoronto.ca Sun Feb 22 21:13:50 1998 Date: Sun, 22 Feb 1998 23:13:01 -0500 From: Eric Fawcett To: Eric Sommer psn@csf.colorado.edu, tr@tryoung.com, richardvlosky@sprintmail.com, staff@stewards.net, "quinbya@.ibm.net" , casabaltimor@igc.apc.org, mpress@interlog.com, mscosmo@usa.net, devyani@ix.netcom.com, Elaine Gross , William Whitney , Jerome Scott , Leah Wise , PDHRE Human Rights List , drourke@direct.ca, Rebecca Berner , Salvador Garcia , "Servicios para el Desarrollo, A.C." , kurtz@top.monad.net, BLarcom@prodigy.net, bradmcc@cloud9.net, winfiel@binghamton.edu, dtejus@west.bri.com, pamies@abaforum.es, eagle@together.net, rayn@olympus.net, Ericegg@aol.com, bob_murota@bc.sympatico.ca, gdauncey@islandnet.com, Subject: s4pint-3 A Canadian view of the Iraq (U.S.?) Crisis ------------------------------------------ This article has been sent to all major and not-so-major newspapers in Canada and the major English-language ones abroad. Keep your eyes open in case it surfaces there and please let us at CCAFT know. It can be reprinted without permission but please give the author full credit and send us a copy of your publication. (Mail to: P.O.Box 8052, Saskatoon, Sask.,S7K 4R7, Canada). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- BOMBING THE CRADLE OF CIVILIZATION by David Orchard So the nation with more "weapons of mass destruction" than any other tells us to beware of Iraq. The country which has done more invading than any in history warns, "Iraq must be stopped." Iraq "may" possess and "might" use chemical and biological weapons, says the U.S. -- which has used them repeatedly, from Vietnam to Cuba, and now proposes to blow whatever amounts Iraq may have into the atmosphere, with nuclear weapons if necessary. Iraq is an "unpredictable rogue state," announces Washington, which in 1991 fired 900 tons of depleted uranium into Iraq, drenching it with permanent, radioactive contamination. Iraq is a threat to world peace, Bill Clinton and Tony Blair declare. Did Iraq overthrow Guatemala's government, 1954?; attack Cuba and assassinate Congo's prime minister, Patrice Lumumba, 1961?; invade the Dominican Republic, 1965?; drop 10,000,000 tons of bombs, chemicals and napalm on Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, 1965-1973?; overthrow and assassinate Chile's Salvador Allende, 1973?; invade Grenada, 1983 and Panama, 1989? Saddam Hussein is accused of being a modern Hitler. How has a small, virtually landlocked country, dependent on imported food and exports of oil, both cut off by sanctions and publicly stripped of its weapons, embargoed and guarded by a phalanx of the world's most advanced weaponry, inspected 2,186 times over seven years, incapable of even flying over its own territory, become equal to Nazi Germany? War may come, our leaders say. How is war possible when only one side has weapons? Is the operative word not massacre? Iraq is a Third World country, smaller than the province of Saskatchewan; its population is roughly 20 million with an average income today, according to the New York Times, of $2 per month. Devastated during the one-sided 1991 Gulf War — U.S. officials referred to it as a "turkey shoot", Iraq has since been bled white by seven years of sanctions and embargo. Since 1991, over one million Iraqis have died a slow starving death, (two-thirds of them children, making mockery of the U.N. declaration on the Rights of the Child), and millions more are suffering physical damage and drastically shortened lives. The majority of the population is reduced to "semi-starvation," according to the World Health Organization. Radiation-ravaged and deformed children are denied any relief from their agony by an embargo harsher than that imposed on Germany following World War II. The recent U.S. Bishop's statement to President Clinton reads, "Epidemics rage, taking away infants and the sick by the thousands..." The starvation of a population is clearly prohibited by international law, even during war, yet under this embargo a child is dying in Iraq every ten minutes. Now Iraq faces another overwhelming attack by the world's superpower, and a few sycophantic spear-carriers, including Canada. This is not a U.N. action. The Security Council has not authorized it and the U.N. Charter does not authorize member states to take unilateral military action. In 1804, Haiti was the first Latin American country to achieve its independence, through a slave revolt. The U.S., supported by Britain, imposed a 60-year embargo on the island; it did not want slave rebellion at home. For almost 40 years, Washington has embargoed Cuba and attempted to assassinate its leaders. Independence in the Caribbean continues to be an offence. For 30 years the U.S. blockaded Vietnam. Vietnam's crime? It defeated the U.S.A. Now the U.S. refuses to lift the embargo against Iraq. Why? Almost a century ago, Britain seized the Persian Gulf area, and carved a border between Iraq and Kuwait, a division never accepted by Iraq and renounced formally by it in 1961 after it overthrew the British-imposed monarch and achieved independence. In the 1930s, Britain conceded the entire oil reserves of the region to U.S. and British interests. In the 1970s, Iraq nationalized (with compensation) its oil industry and its citizens achieved a very high standard of living. In 1989, a high power U.S. delegation visited Baghdad and demanded Iraq privatize its oil industry. Iraq refused. Today Iraq stands in the way of complete U.S. (and British) control of the oil resources of the Gulf. In 1951, the Mossadeq government of Iran nationalized its oil. Britain and the U.S. imposed draconian sanctions and two years later the U.S. overthrew Mossadeq, calling him "that madman." In the early 1970s, Libya nationalized its oil reserves and built impressive health, education and construction projects in that once impoverished nation. President Nixon publicly reminded Libyan leader Moammar Gaddaffi of Mossadeq's fate and U.S. officials began referring to Gaddaffi as a "Hitler," a "terrorist" and a "mad dog." In 1986, the U.S., supported by Britain, bombed Libya, wounding Gaddaffi's wife, injuring all seven of his children, and killing his infant daughter. When Pierre Trudeau's government introduced the National Energy Programme, 1980, with its goal of 50% Canadian ownership of the industry, Washington, outraged, publicly warned that "relationships are sliding dangerously towards crisis." U.S. officials, referring to the 1973 Chilean coup, spelled out a plan to topple Trudeau by "destabilizing" Quebec and Ontario. Now Ottawa has volunteered to help Washington unleash the world's most horrendous weapons in an illegal and profoundly racist holocaust against the defenceless citizens of the cradle of recorded civilization. Call it privatization at the point of uranium-tipped missiles. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- DAVID ORCHARD is the author of "The Fight for Canada: Four Centuries of Resistance to American Expansionism" (1993) and the founder and chair of the Citizens Concerned About Free Trade. He farms in Saskatchewan. He can be reached by by fax: (306)244-3790 and by e-mail: ccafttor@sympatico.ca website: http://web.idirect.com/~ccaft From fawcett@physics.utoronto.ca Sun Feb 22 21:13:51 1998 Date: Sun, 22 Feb 1998 23:11:35 -0500 From: Eric Fawcett To: Eric Sommer psn@csf.colorado.edu, tr@tryoung.com, richardvlosky@sprintmail.com, staff@stewards.net, "quinbya@.ibm.net" , casabaltimor@igc.apc.org, mpress@interlog.com, mscosmo@usa.net, devyani@ix.netcom.com, Elaine Gross , William Whitney , Jerome Scott , Leah Wise , PDHRE Human Rights List , drourke@direct.ca, Rebecca Berner , Salvador Garcia , "Servicios para el Desarrollo, A.C." , kurtz@top.monad.net, BLarcom@prodigy.net, bradmcc@cloud9.net, winfiel@binghamton.edu, dtejus@west.bri.com, pamies@abaforum.es, eagle@together.net, rayn@olympus.net, Ericegg@aol.com, bob_murota@bc.sympatico.ca, gdauncey@islandnet.com, Subject: s4pint invitation I operate an e-mail S4P news-service for Science for Peace (Canada). >From time to time I forward an item of wider interest to an international community on an s4pint list. If you want me to include your name, please let me know by replying to the above address I know only too well how easily one gets snowed with too many e-mail messages. But But I suggest that you give it a try for a few weeks--we are living in difficult times and need to keep informed when the mass-media fail us. I apologize for multiple mailings, which are unavoidable when addresses are om several different e-mail lists. My first news item follows (with a couple more in separate mailings): Subject: Call for Urgent Action to forestall war in Iraq + AFSC website From: Colin Archer, Secretary-General, International Peace Bureau Fax: 738-9419 Email: ipb@gn.apc.org Web: http://www.itu.ch/ipb/ EUROPEAN PEACE MOVEMENTS CALL FOR URGENT ACTIONS TO FORESTALL WAR IN IRAQ Geneva, February 22, 1998. Representatives of European member organisations of Abolition 2000 (A Global Network to Abolish Nuclear Weapons) met today in Geneva and agreed to pursue a number of urgent actions to forestall war in Iraq. We urge that others give whatever support and cooperation they can, to ensure: * that supporters of Abolition 2000 in nations with representation on the Security Council petition their governments to vigorously and publicly affirm the view that the US lacks the legal authority under current UN Security Council resolutions to conduct a military assault against Iraq. * that approaches are made at once to Nobel Peace laureates, members of the Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, and other distinguished advocates of peace, to form delegations - to Baghdad and/or other key capitals - to pursue a peaceful settlement and the prevention of a war that could be catastrophic for the region and for world security as a whole. * that a Citizen Verification initiative is begun, by recruiting volunteers for Citizen Verification Teams, composed of NGOs and independent scientific experts from many nations, to act as impartial inspectors - either together with UNSCOM or separately - to verify the presence or otherwise of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. This approach could also prove invaluable in a number of other countries. Contact: IPB, Fax: +41 22 738 9419, e-mail:ipb@gn.apc.org * SPECIAL APPEAL: we call on organisations and individuals to offer all possible support to the Voices in the Wilderness peace camp outside the UN building in Baghdad. (Fax: +1 773 784 8837, email: kkelly@igc.apc.org >>PLEASE consider these action ideas and mobilize support for them in every >>way you can with utmost gency. This Statement is supported by representatives of the following International, European, and other, organisations, who will be acting urgently on these ideas. o-Abolition 2000, UK o-Alliance for Democracy, USA o-Appel des Cent pour la Paix, France o-Femmes pour la Paix, Switzerland o-Gensuikyo, Japan o-Grace, USA o-International Network of Engineers and Scientists for Global Responsibility o-International Peace Bureau o-International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, Germany, Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland o-Methodists United for Peace and Justice, USA o-Mouvement de la Paix, France o-No To Nuclear Weapons, Norway o-War Resisters International o-Women's International League for Peace and Freedom ============================================================================ Subject: American Friends Service Cttee (AFSC) responses to the Iraq crisis Friends, the AFSC has organized a website, "Response to the Iraq Crisis: What AFSC and others are doing." Access is from the box on our Home Page at: www.afsc.org. The four categories of information are: 1) upcoming Iraq-related events; 2) statements, articles, op-eds; 3) what AFSC offices have been doing; 4) links to other organizations and resources. We are appreciate the work of many individuals, groups, and organizations that are committed to seeking a peaceful, non-military solution to the crisis. From smrose@mailhub.exis.net Mon Feb 23 15:08:36 1998 From: "Steve Rosenthal" To: PSN@CSF.COLORADO.EDU, Martha Gimenez Date: Mon, 23 Feb 1998 17:06:02 +0000 Subject: Re: financial capital Martha, Sorry to be slow in replying to your questions. I didn't think your questions were rhetorical. I was just busy and distracted. Lenin argued that monopoly capitalism was a stage of capitalism in which, inter alia, finance capital had become dominant in unifying monopolies and cartels and organizing the export of capital. This in turn led to the economic and then political division of the entire world among the major imperialist power, wars for the redivision of the world, and proletarian revolutions. To update Lenin from the vantage point of the end of the 20th century, one could say that finance capital has continued to enlarge its strategic role, as commercial banks and brokerage houses on Wall Street and in other banking centers throughout the world seem to play an even greater role today than they did when Lenin wrote Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism in 1916. Moreover, international speculators like Soros and their financial institutions add further dimensions to the rule of finance capital. The U.S., as the major imperialist power at the end of World War II, set up the World Bank and IMF as instruments of finance capital to promote U.S. imperialism, to integrate and stabilize the capitalist world, and to facilitate imperialist exploitation within a facade of ostensibly supra-national institutions. The WB and IMF have certainly facilitated the super-exploitation of much of Asia, Africa, and Latin America by the major imperialist powers, the further immiseration of the world's urban and rural proletariat, and the expansion of the post-1970s U.S. neo-liberal model of free market structural adjustment. Today the IMF is the leading edge of U.S. efforts to manage and profit from the deepening crisis of overproduction that has caused the economic crisis in Asia. Through IMF loans, the U.S. would like to take over a large chunk of Asian capital. U.S. finance capital, centered on Wall Street or "Old Money," is trying to maintain control of Middle East Oil, the lifeblood of global capitalism. Rival Asian, European, and Third World capitalists would like to grab a larger piece of the action. The 1991 Gulf War and the current immense U.S. military deployment in the area reflect US imperialism's determination to maintain this control in the face of increasing economic and political opposition. The likely current postponement of US bombing is probably a prelude to a more serious U.S. ground invasion for which the US hopes to be able first to build more domestic and international political support. Like all Marxist analysis, Lenin's analysis needs re-examination and updating. In particular, Lenin's analysis led him to conclude that mass movements for national liberation in colonized countries would be allies of the proletarian movement in the "mother countries." Today this perspective is outdated. Monopoly capitalism has now proletarianized most of the urban and rural populations of the "Third World." They no longer can benefit from multi-stage strategies which organize to fight for anything other than the overthrow of capitalism/imperialism. Today the world's working class needs one international revolutionary movement/party to organize hundreds of millions to fight for the total destruction of capitalism. Steve Rosenthal ====================================== > Date: Thu, 19 Feb 1998 14:25:38 -0700 (MST) > From: Martha Gimenez > To: Steve Rosenthal > Subject: financial capital > Steve, > Would it be appropriate to say that lenin's view of imperialism includes > the notion that financial capital is the dominant form of capital? If so, > would the so-called 'global economy" fall under his characterization of > imperialism? I am thinking of the political rule, for all practical > purposes, of the World Bank and th IMF. > > Thanks, > > Martha > > From smrose@mailhub.exis.net Mon Feb 23 15:41:14 1998 From: "Steve Rosenthal" To: PSN@CSF.COLORADO.EDU Date: Mon, 23 Feb 1998 17:38:52 +0000 Subject: War Now or Bigger War Later? It looks like Kofi Annan may have provided a face-saving formula for the US to postpone its assault on Iraq. Of course, anything could still happen any day, but the US faced enormous international political opposition and limited and shaky support here at home for an attack that would not accomplish larger imperialist objectives of strengthening US strategic control over the Gulf region and its oil. US rulers are just beginning to grasp how politically weak they actually are. Clinton has not done his job for his capitalist bosses of preparing US workers for war or getting "allies" to support the US. It may be left to Clinton's successor to try to build the war fever necessary to launch a major invasion of Iraq. Meanwhile, Russian, French, Japanese, Chinese, and other imperialists are not likely to be willing to adopt a more congenial attitude toward a "global hegemon" (the US) whose political and economic position is eroding and declining. If the economic crisis spreads to the US and Europe, a worldwide resurgence of economic and political nationalism will follow. Let the protests in Columbus and elsewhere be sparks to ignite a mass anti-imperialist movement throughout the US. We're gonna need it! Steve Rosenthal From YLPSLL0@cpua.it.luc.edu Mon Feb 23 15:46:54 1998 Date: Mon, 23 Feb 98 16:46 CST From: YLPSLL0@cpua.it.luc.edu To: psn@CSF.COLORADO.EDU Subject: Oral sex-that means talking about it Wotjek correctly notes the separation of sexual pleasure-for both men and women, and I would add straight or gay, from reproduction in modern society. While as a Freudo-Marxist could write a paper, let me just note that this separation is not so recent. Some ancient religions practiced temple prostitution, sort of like all decent young women had to provide sacred sex for a while, perhap that is why in the act of sex so many people yet invoke divinities like O my God, O God, etc, often just condensed to Ohhhhh. But further, the Kama Sutra is many things, but surely, over 2500 years old, it was niether the product of modernity or capitalist forms. In other word whatever sexuality may or may not be, we must be very careful about its actual history. For Morton Hunt, Dennis de Rougemont etc, we see that amative sex, thats when you sort have a relationship-not necessarity marraige, was long part of feudal society, the liesure time activity of the nobility, a tradition that many modern elites still claim. Since its time for me to go home, I won't say anymore now, but many people have noted the extent to which capital has repressed sex for the sake of work, and gotten Fascism as a result (Reich), or used desire to encourage consumerism (Ewen, Marcuse). So now we have a chance to talk about sex, the psn version of oral sex, and not war. Lauren Langman From dassbach@mtu.edu Mon Feb 23 16:26:32 1998 Mon, 23 Feb 1998 18:26:23 -0500 (EST) Mon, 23 Feb 1998 18:26:22 -0500 (EST) Mon, 23 Feb 1998 18:26:19 -0500 (EST) From: "Carl H.A. Dassbach" To: Subject: Re: Oral Sex Date: Mon, 23 Feb 1998 18:35:31 -0500 charset="iso-8859-1" -----Original Message----- From: Wojtek Sokolowski To: PROGRESSIVE SOCIOLOGISTS NETWORK Date: Monday, February 23, 1998 2:22 PM Subject: Re: Oral Sex >T.R. Young's remarks on oral sex are both thought provoking and intriguing. > > >We ought to consider the historical context in which sex becomes associated >primarily with erotic pleasure rather than its reprioductive-economic >functions. The Marxist framework directing our attention to the conditions >of material production of cultureal products (sex in this case) comes >particularly handy. > >It is easy to see that in the pre-modern past, sex was primarily a vehicle >for carrying economic and reproductive functions of society (bonding the >household, the basis unit of production and consumption, and supplying the >labour power i.e. children to that unit). However, in the moderen era, >thanks to technological progress, household lost its economic function. As >a result, sex, like religion, became the realm of individual choice and >preference. Only in that context, the romantic and erotic aspects of sex >came to the central focus. Only in modern times can people pusue sexual >activities primarily for their personal enjoyment and gratification, >without thinking of its economic-reproductive functions. I unfortunately don't have TR's remarks becuase of a server glitch. Still, my reaction to this posting is: Oh come on, is this serious? This reads like some kind of victorian Marxist prudism couched in some a speculative anthropology of the worst sort. (BTW, the Marx family was, as far as I can tell, as bourgeois and prudish as they come - read, for example, Jenny's article on being detained at the French-Spanish border.) Just what is pre-modern? Before the 20th c., before the 12 th c., before 500 BC. Humanity has always cultivated and been aware of the erotic elements of sex - take a look at temples built in Gupta period in India (8th c, I believe) covered with hundreds of figures fornicating, etc. I understand that certain areas of Pompeii are restricted becuase of the extremely erotic wall paintings, look at Indian minatures, Japanese erotic art (one of my favorite 16th c (I believe) Japanese scroll is entitled "The Giant Penis Contest.") Look at Tantric Buddhims which always displays its deities fornicating. The list goes on and on. How can one look at richness of human history and our long and enduring interest in sexuality and eroticism and say >It is easy to see that in the pre-modern past, sex was primarily a vehicle >for carrying economic and reproductive functions of society (bonding the >household, the basis unit of production and consumption, and supplying the >labour power i.e. children to that unit). You want the Marxist spin on sexuality - read the Frankfurt school. Remeber Marcuse advocated n "polymorphous perversity" - as a path of liberation from bourgeois morality and constraint. The so called "integument of moral norms pertaining to sex" are really vehicles for the repression of the natural instincts of humanity towards pleasure in every form. The writings on sexual morality SHOULD be useless, sexual morality is merely one of the many forms of repression. Where sexuality becomes problematic is when it is one sided - in particular, directed towards male gratification and where the female is seen as an object to gratify males. This is no longer eroticism but exploitation. --------------------------- Carl H.A. Dassbach DASSBACH@MTU.EDU Dept. of Social Sciences (906)487-2115 - Phone Michigan Technological Univ. (906)487-2468 - Fax Houghton, MI 49931 (906)482-8405 - Private From sokol@jhu.edu Tue Feb 24 08:47:08 1998 24 Feb 1998 10:45:13 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 10:34:12 -0500 From: Wojtek Sokolowski Subject: Re: Oral sex-that means talking about it In-reply-to: <199802232246.PAA00745@csf.Colorado.EDU> To: YLPSLL0@cpua.it.luc.edu At 04:46 PM 2/23/98 -0600, you wrote: >Wotjek correctly notes the separation of sexual pleasure-for both >men and women, and I would add straight or gay, from reproduction in >modern society. While as a Freudo-Marxist could write a paper, let >me just note that this separation is not so recent. Some ancient >religions practiced temple prostitution, sort of like all decent young >women had to provide sacred sex for a while, perhap that is why in the >act of sex so many people yet invoke divinities like O my God, O God, >etc, often just condensed to Ohhhhh. But further, the Kama Sutra is >many things, but surely, over 2500 years old, it was niether the product >of modernity or capitalist forms. Well, as I soon as wrote my original missive, I realized someone would throw Kama Sutra in my face. True, Kama Sutra is over 2,500 years old, but does it mean that it was produced outside the socially constructed relations of production? Relations of production that imply not only the separation of the reproductive and the erotic aspects of sexuality and, above all, a class of symbol producers that can express that separation in a culturally accpetable form. The only reason I did not mention Kama Sutra, as well as other than Europe cultures in general, is that I know too little about those cultures to speculate how the socially constructed relations of production in those cultures affected their cultural script for sexuality. But there is little doubt in my mind that they did affect that script somehow. Hence my proposal for an ethnography of erotic experience. Regards, Wojtek Sokolowski Institute for Policy Studies Johns Hopkins University Baltimore, MD 21218 sokol@jhu.edu voice: (410) 516-4056 fax: (410) 516-8233 Opinions expressed above are those of this writer only. They do not represent the views or policies of the Institute for Policy Studies, the Johns Hopkins University, or anyone else affiliated with these institutions. From SocSteph@aol.com Tue Feb 24 09:16:10 1998 From: SocSteph@aol.com by imo16.mx.aol.com (IMOv12/Dec1997) id GYVPa00944; Tue, 24 Feb 1998 11:15:48 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 11:15:48 EST To: psn@csf.colorado.edu, revs@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Last Call for Marxist Section Roundtables Hi everyone: I want to thank people who have responded with roundtables for the 1998 ASA meetings to be held in San Francisco this August. This is the final call for submission as they have to be sent to the ASA by February 28th. If you have not heard back from me to confirm your submission, you may want to send me another message to make sure that you did not slip out into Cyberspace. So far, we have tables on class consciousness, the relevance of Marxism to Race, Class and Gender, "Reading, Writing and Revolution: Popular Education for our Times," Contemporary Politics in Southern Africa, Marxism and Popular Culture, Feminism and Marxism, Medicine under Capitalism, etc... Other ideas are welcomed!!!!! Hope to hear from some more people. Sincerely, Stephanie Shanks-Meile Associate Professor of Sociology Indiana Unversity Northwest From sokol@jhu.edu Tue Feb 24 09:21:56 1998 24 Feb 1998 11:19:58 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 11:08:57 -0500 From: Wojtek Sokolowski Subject: Re: Oral Sex In-reply-to: <004301bd40b3$bc6b1560$2029db8d@dassbach.aux.mtu.edu> To: "Carl H.A. Dassbach" At 06:35 PM 2/23/98 -0500, you wrote: >fortunately don't have TR's remarks becuase of a server glitch. > >Still, my reaction to this posting is: Oh come on, is this serious? This >reads like some kind of victorian Marxist prudism couched in some a >speculative anthropology of the worst sort. > >(BTW, the Marx family was, as far as I can tell, as bourgeois and prudish as >they come - read, for example, Jenny's article on being detained at the >French-Spanish border.) > Two quick reactions: First, I did not pretend to make a full fledged analysis of sexuality, juts threw a few ideas that I thought are worth further exploring. Second, and more subtantively, your missive implies a concept of sexuality as a dichotomy between "natura;" impluses and "cultural" norms that regulate them. I find that concept very simplistic. In my view, sexual act always involved multi-stage and mult-level production. First, the erotic eperience of the actors who are directly involved in it involves filtering of the here and now experienced stimuli - physiological, emotional, and intellectual -- through multiple cultural filters that range from memories of each actor's past experiences, to literary fantasies, and to ethical and legal norms. Moreover, erotic experience is interactive and cumulative, or dialiectical if you will, what I am doing to my partner will affect what my partner is doing to me, which affects what I will do to her next, etc. That simply means that far from being some "natural behavior" every erotic act (even the "wham bam thank you ma'am" variety) is a staged performance that involves multiple cultural and personal scripts and expectations. But that is not the end of the story. Erotic acts sublimate, in various forms, to differentr forms of cultural expressions. An that process of sublimation is profoundly affected by the realtions of production iof cultural symbols. To take a simple example, if women are prohibited from learning how read and write, as in some Islamic countries, they erotic scripts and fantasies will be confined to oral tradition they share with other women. Moreover, given the absence of written records of such scripts and fantasies, males are completely free free to construct their own scripts and fantasies without taking into account their feamle counterparts. Since those scripts and recorded fantasies are important factors affecting the erotic experience itself, it follows that division of cultural labor does affect the erotic experience itself. Or take another example, the avaialbility of free time and the pattern of that availability. To engage in erotic exploration, the actors not only must have sufficient free time (not just for the sex act alone which may take several hours, but resting and transition time from and to other activities), but also sufficient privace and acommodations. The sexual experience of the homeless or the working class is different from that of the bourgeoise mainly for those reasons, few working class people have sufficient free time and privacy to pursue erotic explorations the bourgeoisise can afford in their boudoirs. In sum, because of that muly-stage, multi level production invloving mutliple scripts, there is virtually nothing "purely natural" (i.e carnal) in the erotic act. Everu erotic experience involves an organic, iseparable synthesis of the carnal, the emotional, the intellectual, and the cultural (in various forms). That fiels in the face of the conventional thinking of sex that is too much determined by the simplistic Christian-Cartesian dichotomy of body and soul, the material and the intellectual. regards, From jbandy@connecti.com Tue Feb 24 10:10:40 1998 Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 11:12:04 -0600 To: psn@csf.colorado.edu From: jbandy@connecti.com (John Bandy) Subject: Re: War Now or Bigger War Later? Meanwhile, Russian, French, Japanese, Chinese, and other imperialists are not likely to be willing to adopt a more congenial attitude toward a "global hegemon" (the US) whose political and economic position is eroding and declining. If the economic crisis spreads to the US and Europe, a worldwide resurgence of economic and political nationalism will follow. Several recent posts to the listserv have convinced me that my conceptual understanding of W-S structures and processes differ from those of others. Below is a capsule analysis which tries to highlight these differences. If this thread seems worth pursuing I will be glad to at least try to answer questions, and I welcome constructive criticism. Peace to All, John B. As I understand Wallerstein, Samir Amin, and others, the global economy underwent a long period of economic expansion-from the end of WWII to the 1970s. The bottom fell out of the global market in 1973 and ushered in a period of economic retraction which has lasted until the late 1990s (Wallerstein had predicted an upturn beginning in the early 1990s). Due to a number of factors (new leading edge industries, depletion of existing stocks, etc.) which I will not go into at this time, demand is again catching up with supply; the global economy of today is picking up speed, albeit unevenly, eg., Asia. It should be expected that states in the core of the W-S, and especially hegemonic states, would benefit earlier than states in the noncore from Kondratieff upturns. Assertions of a global deepening crisis of overproduction may be premature, by about 25 years! After WWII the U.S. (partly because its economic infrastructure was left relatively intact, and partly because it was in sole possession of the nuclear means of destruction) was able to wrest global hegemony from the U.K. After the Vietnam War and OPEC, the U.S. appeared to be losing hegemony. Nevertheless, this did not happen; partly I think, because the Ray-gun administration was able to drive the USSR into bankruptcy via the arms race of the 80s. I suspect that US attempts to remain hegemonic, eg., the cold war and that country's adventures in Panama, Libya, Iraq, even Grenada had the effect of retarding the opening of the next Kondratieff upturn. The US emerged from the cold war as the world's only remaining super-power. This is scary because the US no longer has a USSR to counter-balance its expansionist adventurism--the probability of a WMD war somewhere in the world actually went up with the demise of the USSR. John D. Bandy Ph.D. or Matilde Bandy Owner/Manager, No Que Know Books 1111 N Hwy 123 ByPass, #1110 Seguin, TX 78155 (830) 372-2723 URL http://www.abebooks.com/home/NOQUEKNOWBOOKS/ Minds are like books They only work when they're open. --Anonymous From e9602160@citynet.net Tue Feb 24 16:33:26 1998 Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 18:37:14 -0500 From: "Matthew F. Moore" Reply-To: e9602160@citynet.net To: PROGRESSIVE SOCIOLOGISTS NETWORK Subject: thesis This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --------------B6484B7FA3F59E52448336C3 To all, My name is Matthew Moore. I am working on my thesis in soc. at Marshall University. My topic is a critical review of Erickson, Weller, and other researchers who have applied the culture of poverty model to Appalachia. Here is a rough outline. I would greatly appreciate any information. 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AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAB4AMusAAAAAAAABAP8A/wBBTFBTIE1ELTEwMDAgKENvcHkgMikAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAEYxCUAHoAD6+AAQEAAQDqCm8IZAABAAcALAECAAEALAEBAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAQEAAAMAAAAA UyBNRC0xMDAwAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABMUFQxOgAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAB4AMusAAAAAAAABAP8A/wADgAEA4gMAAOIDAAAHAAEAAQDiAwAAAAAA aGVzaXMgT3V0bGluZS5kb2P/QEFMUFMgTUQtMTAwMCAoQ29weSAyKQBMUFQxOgBBTERSVjQA QUxQUyBNRC0xMDAwIChDb3B5IDIpAEFMUFMgTUQtMTAwMCAoQ29weSAyKQAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AARjEJQAegAPr4ABAQABAOoKbwhkAAEABwAsAQIAAQAsAQEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABAQAAAwAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAADsE8gZAAAAAAAAAgAAAAEAAwAAAAwAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACgFBTFBTIE1ELTEw MDAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAExQVDE6AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAHgAy6wAAAAAAAAEA/wD/AEFMUFMgTUQtMTAwMCAoQ29weSAyKQAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AARjEJQAegAPr4ABAQABAOoKbwhkAAEABwAsAQIAAQAsAQEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABAQAAAwAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAADsE8gZAAAAAAAAAgAAAAEAAwAAAAwAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACgFBTFBTIE1ELTEw MDAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAExQVDE6AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA ADkEAAAAAEEABwcAAAAAQQDQBAAAAABAABMHAAAAAEEAFQcAAAAAQQAgBwAAAABBACEHAAAA AEEAJQcAAAAAQQAtBwAAAABBAFEHAAAAAEEAeAcAAAAAQQBqDAAAAABBAOUNAAAAAEEAMg4A AAAAQQA/DgAAAABAAOAEAAAAAEEAbA4AAAAAQABwBQAAAABAAMQGAAAAADEAFRaQAQAAVGlt ZXMgTmV3IFJvbWFuAAwWkAECAFN5bWJvbAALJpABAABBcmlhbAAiAAQAcQiIGAAA0AIAAGgB AAAAAF69IiZvvSImZ70iJgMAEQAAAO4A --------------B6484B7FA3F59E52448336C3-- From cdfupdate@cdfig.childrensdefense.org Tue Feb 24 15:14:36 1998 Tue, 24 Feb 1998 11:38:31 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 98 11:00:13 EST From: "CDFupdate" To: Edward_DeJesus@together.org CDFupdate@automailer.com Subject: Re: MINORITY YOUTH Sender: owner-cdfupdate@automailer.com Here is a copy of the S.10 sign on letter that you requested. Please return by February 25, 1998. Thank you. Re: S.10: Violent and Repeat Offender Act of 1997 and Disproportionate Minority Confinement Dear Senator: We urge you to oppose S.10, the "Violent and Repeat Offender Act of 1997", and specifically its provision regarding disproportionate minority confinement. During the 1988 reauthorization of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA), the Act was amended to require states receiving grants to assess and address the disproportionate confinement of minority youth in secure facilities. In 1992, this requirement became one of four Congressional core protections under JJDPA and currently states are required to identify and assess disproportionate minority confinement as well as develop intervention plans to address it. The most recent statistics available indicate that disproportionate minority confinement of juveniles continues to plague state juvenile justice systems, particularly African Americans. As you progress further into the juvenile justice system, African Americans become more disproportionately represented. According to the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), African American juveniles make up only 15% of the juvenile population ages 10-17, but they comprise 26% of the juvenile arrests; 46% of the juveniles detained in public long-term facilities; and 52% of cases judicially waived to criminal court. Minority youth overall comprise one-third of juveniles ages 10-17, but two-thirds of juveniles in detention. Although minority youth continue to be confined in secure facilities at alarmingly disproportionate rates, S.10 proposes to abolish the JJDPA requirement that states assess and address this ongoing problem by simply requiring states to "provide assurances" that youth are being treated equitably. Assurances of equitable treatment by states are not enough to resolve the systemic racial disparity that exists at every level of the administration of juvenile justice in this country. At the very least, S.10 should preserve the statutory language under currently law which will encourage states to continue to identify reasons for the disproportionality of minority confinement and to develop intervention plans to address this problem. We urge you to support any amendment to preserve this language. From eric@stewards.net Tue Feb 24 16:07:55 1998 (envelope-from eric@stewards.net) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 18:07:47 -0500 (EST) To: PROGRESSIVE SOCIOLOGISTS NETWORK From: eric@stewards.net (Eric Sommer) Subject: DANGER OF WAR IN CHIAPAS - YOUR FEEDBACK REQUESTED >From Chiapas Alert Network. Website: httep://www.stewards.net/chiapas/10.htm email: staff@stewards.net Please Forward this message to all relevant listserves, organizations and activists: Hi there At a meeting of the Chiapas Alert Network committee in Vancouver last night we identified a series of `indicators' which, taken together, point to the possibility of an imminent or `near-imminent' military assault by the Mexican army on the Zapatista enclave in Southern Chiapas. At the very least, these indicators point to the possibility of greatly intensified repression against Indigenous civilians and their cooperative associations in the region. Here are the `indicators of war' to which I am referring: 1. The first indicator is a build-up in the past two weeks of Mexican military equipment in Chiapas, including heavy motorized cannon vehicles and amphibious vehicles of a type not seen before in Chiapas, not even during the brief war with the Zapatistas in 1994. 2. The second `indicator of war' is stepped-up efforts to deport and otherwise silence international human rights observers in Chiapas, including the deportation in recent days of several people, one of whom was Tom Hansen, a well-known former official with Pastors for Peace and a well- known human rights and technical-aid facilitator in Chiapas. Hansen's deportation was clearly illegal, and he was subjected to severe intimidation and denied due process under Mexican law in the process of being whisked out of the country. 3. The third `indicator of war' is recent statements by Mexican officials, some at high levels, to the effect that foreign `interference' in Mexican political affairs will not be tolerated. Such statements were made just before the massacre at Acteal, when Amnesty International and other international human rights organizations warned that paramilitary violence and intimidation were growing in the region and that further deaths could be expected. At that time Amnesty International and similar groups were told to `stay out' of `internal Mexican politics'. Since the Acteal massacre the Mexican government had not dared to say such things. But now, again, they are singing the song of `we will settle our own affairs'. 4. The fourth `indicator of war' is a reported build-up of paramilitary presence near the Guatemalan border, which is where the Zapatistas are located. 5. The fifth `indicator of war' is a reported build-up of paramilitary activity in other areas of Chiapas, including - unbelievably - the reappearance at Acteal, the site of the infamous massacre of 45 people on Dec. 22, of people associated with paramilitary activity. Viewed together, these indicators suggest that the Mexican government may be gearing up for war and/or intensified repression in Chiapas. It is also our committee's view that if the world's attention is diverted by bombing or other military activity in the middle east, the Mexican government might use the opportunity to `make their move' in Chiapas. I am writing to you in order to urgently request your feedback on the above scenario. Specifically, can you tell us: 1. How much danger of war and/or intensified repression do you believe exists in Chiapas at this time? 2. Assuming that the danger is real, what local, North American, and world strategies should we follow in attempting to combat the danger? Example: Call for worldwide demonstrations against danger of a `war in Chiapas'? Example: Bring a speaker from the Indigenous Associations and/or the Zapatistas to tour the U.S. and Canada to discuss the situation and the danger of war. Example: Hold press conferences. Example: Send email to lists, which we can buy, of millions of people. Ordinarily, such mass unsolicited emailings are frowned on and called `spaming'. But, where issues of human life and war and peace are involved, it might be morally justifiable to take such a measure to `get the word' out. We have already taken the precaution of raising the money necessary for a mailing of a million or so. Please share your insights and brainstorms regarding what we can do. Even wild and improbable ideas are welcome, for they may stimulate other more viable ideas. We have called a special meeting for this coming Monday to discuss the situation. Your input will be shared with the committee. Eric Sommer, For the Chiapas Alert Network From Bruce.Wearne@arts.monash.edu.au Tue Feb 24 21:00:13 1998 ("port 4701"@its-menz1.cc.monash.edu.au) psn@csf.colorado.edu; Wed, 25 Feb 1998 14:50:55 +1100 ; Wed, 25 Feb 1998 14:50:55 +1000 25 Feb 1998 14:50:49 +1000 Date: Wed, 25 Feb 1998 14:50:41 +1000 From: BRUCE WEARNE Subject: Re: Oral Sex To: PROGRESSIVE SOCIOLOGISTS NETWORK A colleague at Monash, Robert Wolfgramm, has responded to Dassbach in the following terms. ============================================ Dassbach wrote - > Where sexuality becomes problematic is when it is one sided - in particular, > directed towards male gratification and where the female is seen as an > object to gratify males. This is no longer eroticism but exploitation. Not so fast Mr Dassbach. No, sex is problematic at a much more fundamental level: when it finishes - no matter whom it involves. The fact is none of us knows exactly when sex BEGINS - either experientially or analytically. No point in a relationship can be consciously announced or analytically prescribed as `you are now having sex' (except for crude depictions of an interactive process as mere mechanics). Hence we cannot enter into a sex act/thought/relationship waving a contract - not even with a prostitute. We only know (relatively speaking) when sex ENDS and this is where the problem is because we have to retrospectively define what it is that we have just been through. If our definitions agree, fine. But what if they do not? As is often the case. I suppose that nature intended that two people who are similar in many other respects are more likely to define an interaction they have as `sex' and even `good sex'. But even there, one partner's eroticism may be another's exploitation. Hence the fact that partners may vary greatly (in social expectations such as age/ethnicity/size/etc.etc) does not add one iota of complexity to the issue. It just means that the social tendency to take sides will be made easier - ie. we'll side with the child (against the adult), or the man (against the woman), or the black (against the white) or whatever - when faced with competing definitions of the putative sexual reality. But who is right? This is surely why sex-related inquiries/trials/judgements are a murky phenomenological bog, why cultural variations are so, and why no one is safe from fluctuating social definitions/trends. RW (By the way, this conversation is not sex - do you agree?) ========================================= Bruce C Wearne Anthropology and Sociology, Monash University Clayton Vic 3168 AUSTRALIA 61-3-9905-2973 (Phone work) 5-2993 (Fax work) 61-3-9888-6014 (work) From apap@asanet.org Wed Feb 25 08:43:17 1998 From: ASA Academic Professional Affairs To: "TEACHSOC@poplar.lemoyne.edu" , PROGRESSIVE SOCIOLOGISTS NETWORK Subject: ASA Teaching Resources Date: Wed, 25 Feb 1998 10:42:13 -0500 One more ASA teaching resource is in need of a new editor to undertake revisions on the 1991 edition: Teaching Marxist Sociology: Syllabi and Instructional Material - mostly syllabi, innovative classroom techniques, special or unique obstacles to teaching Marx and Marxism, etc. If you are interested, please contact Carla or me directly. Our program e-mail address is apap@asanet.org Thanks! >Steve Hoffman >Academic and Professional Affairs Program >American Sociological Association >apap@asanet.org >(202) 833-3410, ext. 318 >http://www.asanet.org > From dhenwood@panix.com Wed Feb 25 09:51:24 1998 Date: Wed, 25 Feb 1998 11:51:15 -0500 To: psn@csf.colorado.edu From: Doug Henwood Subject: class i.d. What's good to read on the matter of Americans' class self-identification? Doug From war@spill.net Thu Feb 26 00:06:18 1998 From: Spill Industries To: "'psn@csf.colorado.edu'" Subject: War is Insane Date: Wed, 25 Feb 1998 23:15:14 +0100 ------ =_NextPart_000_01BD428E.E042B7E0 Dear All, Spill Industries would like to invite you to participate in a web site = protesting the use of aggression and the act of war. We feel that the = imminent aggression on the part of U.S. / U.K. forces against the people = of Iraq is unacceptable and have decided to use the web as a 'theater' = of protest. We invite submissions from artists, writers, designers -- = anyone really -- to put up on our 'war is insane' site which can be = found at: http://spill.net/war/ We have set up the site as a kind of public space / gallery to stimulate = the use of the internet as a means of making political statements, and = connecting people who wish to express their point of view regarding the = tragedy of war. We ask that your submissions be web-ready images or text = (or sound, vrml et al.), and not more than 50k. They can be sent to: war@spill.net We will make an effort to post your contributions as quickly as we can. = We also invite you to forward this invitation to any and all who you = feel might be interested in our efforts and/or interested in = contributing work to our 'war is insane' site.=20 We have primed the pump with 2 contributions; one from artist George = Chaikin of Ocean / Earth and Newsroom, and another from designers = evansandwong. We hope others will join us. Our Sincere Regards, Nicholas Chaikin Spill Industries ------ =_NextPart_000_01BD428E.E042B7E0 b3NvZnQgTWFpbC5Ob3RlADEIAQuAAQAhAAAAOEZERTM3QjUyQkFFRDExMTg4QjM0NDQ1NTM1NDAw MDAAAAcBDYAEAAIAAAACAAIAAQSQBgAgAQAAAQAAAAwAAAADAAAwAgAAAAsADw4AAAAAAgH/DwEA AABHAAAAAAAAAIErH6S+oxAZnW4A3QEPVAIAAAAAcHNuQGNzZi5jb2xvcmFkby5lZHUAU01UUABw c25AY3NmLmNvbG9yYWRvLmVkdQAAHgACMAEAAAAFAAAAU01UUAAAAAAeAAMwAQAAABUAAABwc25A Y3NmLmNvbG9yYWRvLmVkdQAAAAADABUMAQAAAAMA/g8GAAAAHgABMAEAAAAXAAAAJ3BzbkBjc2Yu Y29sb3JhZG8uZWR1JwAAAgELMAEAAAAaAAAAU01UUDpQU05AQ1NGLkNPTE9SQURPLkVEVQAAAAMA AEAAOQAAV7zYOkK9AR4AHgwBAAAABQAAAFNNVFAAAAAAHgAfDAEAAAAOAAAAd2FyQHNwaWxsLm5l dAAAAEAABzAAV7zYOkK9AUAACDAAV7zYOkK9AR4APQABAAAAAQAAAAAAAAADAA00/TcAAOoT ------ =_NextPart_000_01BD428E.E042B7E0-- From mkarim@moses.culver.edu Thu Feb 26 07:48:14 1998 26 Feb 98 08:59:22 -600 26 Feb 98 08:58:56 -600 Date: Thu, 26 Feb 98 08:53:24 From: "Manjur Karim" Reply-To: To: PSN@CSF.COLORADO.EDU, AHS-TALK@NCSU.EDU, CM150-L@MTU.EDU Today is the 150th anniversary of the publication of the Communist Manifesto. "The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have the world to win. WORKERS OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE!" From p.meiksins@csu-e.csuohio.edu Thu Feb 26 12:29:19 1998 Date: Thu, 26 Feb 1998 14:29:52 -0500 To: psn@csf.colorado.edu From: p.meiksins@csu-e.csuohio.edu (Peter Meiksins) Subject: class id Hi: It's a bit dated now, but still one of the best books about class in the United States is Vanneman and Cannon's The American Perception of Class. Jackman and Jackman also did a reasonably useful book, whose title I'm not remembering right now; it lacks a radical perspective on things, but I still found it useful. Cheers. Peter Meiksins Associate Professor and Chair Department of Sociology Cleveland State University Cleveland OH 44115 216-687-4518 From p.meiksins@csu-e.csuohio.edu Thu Feb 26 13:14:49 1998 Date: Thu, 26 Feb 1998 14:34:47 -0500 To: psn@csf.colorado.edu From: p.meiksins@csu-e.csuohio.edu (Peter Meiksins) Subject: book award Hi: This is a last call for those of you who wish to nominate a book for the SSSP Labor Studies section's Outstanding Publication award. Eligible books must be in the area of 'labor studies' broadly defined and must have publication dates of 1996 or 1997. Send all nominations to me asap. The deadline is March 1 (give or take a day or two.) Peter Meiksins Associate Professor and Chair Department of Sociology Cleveland State University Cleveland OH 44115 216-687-4518 From eric@stewards.net Thu Feb 26 13:06:50 1998 (envelope-from eric@stewards.net) Date: Thu, 26 Feb 1998 15:07:04 -0500 (EST) To: PROGRESSIVE SOCIOLOGISTS NETWORK From: eric@stewards.net (Eric Sommer) Subject: DANGER OF WAR IN CHIAPAS - YOUR FEEDBACK URGENTLY REQUESTED. I'm not certain as to whether the original mailout of the following emergencey communique got through to PSN. So I'm remailing it. ======================================================== Please forward to all relevant listservers, organizations, media outlets, and activists: Hi there At a meeting of the Chiapas Alert Network committee in Vancouver last night we identified a series of `indicators' which, taken together, point to the possibility of an imminent or `near-imminent' military assault by the Mexican army on the Zapatista enclave in Southern Chiapas. At the very least, these indicators point to the possibility of greatly intensified repression against Indigenous civilians and their cooperative associations in the region. Here are the `indicators of war' to which I am referring: 1. The first indicator is a build-up in the past two weeks of Mexican military equipment in Chiapas, including heavy motorized cannon vehicles and amphibious vehicles of a type not seen before in Chiapas, not even during the brief war with the Zapatistas in 1994. 2. The second `indicator of war' is a Stepped-up efforts to deport and otherwise silence international human rights observers in Chiapas, including the deportation in recent days of several people, one of whom was Tom Hansen, a well-known former official with Pastors for Peace and a well- known human rights and technical-aid facilitator in Chiapas. Hansen's deportation was clearly illegal, and he was subjected to severe intimidation and denied due process under Mexican law in the process of being whisked out of the country. 3. The third `indicator of war' is recent statements by Mexican officials, some at high levels, to the effect that foreign `interference' in Mexican political affairs will not be tolerated. Such statements were made just before the massacre at Acteal, when Amnesty International and other international human rights organizations warned that paramilitary violence and intimidation were growing in the region and that further deaths could be expected. At that time Amnesty International and similar groups were told to `stay out' of `internal Mexican politics'. Since the Acteal massacre the Mexican government had not dared to say such things. But now, again, they are singing the song of `we will settle our own affairs'. 4. The fourth `indicator of war' is a reported build-up of paramilitary presence near the Guatemalan border, which is where the Zapatistas are located. 5. The fifth `indicator of war' is a reported build-up of paramilitary activity in other areas of Chiapas, including - unbelievably - the reappearance at Acteal, the site of the infamous massacre of 45 people on Dec. 22, of people associated with paramilitary activity. Viewed together, these indicators suggest that the Mexican government may be gearing up for war and/or intensified repression in Chiapas. It is also our committee's view that if the world's attention is diverted by bombing or other military activity in the middle east, the Mexican government might use the opportunity to `make their move' in Chiapas. I am writing to you in order to urgently request your feedback on the above scenario. Specifically, can you tell us: 1. How much danger of war and/or intensified repression do you believe exists in Chiapas at this time? 2. Assuming that the danger is real, what local, North American, and world strategies should we follow in attempting to combat the danger? Example: Call for worldwide demonstrations against danger of a `war in Chiapas'? Example: Bring a speaker from the Indigenous Associations and/or the Zapatistas to tour the U.S. and Canada to discuss the situation and the danger of war. Example: Hold press conferences. Example: Send email to lists, which we can buy, of millions of people. Ordinarily, such mass unsolicited emailings are frowned on and called `spaming'. But, where issues of human life and war and peace are involved, it might be morally justifiable to take such a measure to `get the word' out. We have already taken the precaution of raising the money necessary for a mailing of a million or so. Please share your insights and brainstorms regarding what we can do. Even wild and improbable ideas are welcome, for they may stimulate other more viable ideas. We have called a special meeting for this coming Monday to discuss the situation. Your input will be shared with the committee. Eric Sommer, For the Chiapas Alert Network Background information Chiapas Alert Network is an organization of 30 organizers based in Vancouver, Canada but interconnected through internet facilities with people and organizations across the U.S. and Canada, as well as with several of our organizers who work with the Indigenous cooperative economic and political associations in Chiapas Mexico. Website: http://www.stewards.net/chiapas/10.htm To join our Chiapas listserve for organizers seeking to halt the paramilitary and military violence and intimidation directed against Indigenous people in Chiapas: Put the single word subcribe in the `subject' line of an email message, and put Chiapas-l@alternatives.com in the `To' line. Put nothing at all in the message area. From sokol@jhu.edu Fri Feb 27 08:16:48 1998 27 Feb 1998 10:14:48 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 27 Feb 1998 10:03:44 -0500 From: Wojtek Sokolowski Subject: Polling Clinton's Appeal To: pen-l@galaxy.csuchico.edu, psn@csf.colorado.edu, psn-cafe@csf.colorado.edu, demsoc-l@LISTSERV.AOL.COM, marxism-feminism@jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU The March 9 issue of The Nation has an article _Polling Clinton's Appeal_. The main conclusions are: 1. Polls reveal a general public misconcpetion about Clinton's political standing; 2. People generally perceive him as being much farther to the left than he actually is, "most people place Clinton somewhere between Paul Wellstone and Jesse Jackson" - most like as a result of the corporate media portrayal of him; 3. That perception does not hurt his popularity; in fact his popularity surged despite him being perceived as more liberal than his actually is; 4. The article suggests that Clinton politics may not be driven by polls as many seem to believe, but by the political agenda of the right wing of the Democratic party. The full report of poll results by Lewis, Morgan and Jhally can be found at: www-unix.oit.umass.edu/~commdept (under "reports and resources"). Wojtek Sokolowski Institute for Policy Studies Johns Hopkins University Baltimore, MD 21218 sokol@jhu.edu voice: (410) 516-4056 fax: (410) 516-8233 Opinions expressed above are those of this writer only. They do not represent the views or policies of the Institute for Policy Studies, the Johns Hopkins University, or anyone else affiliated with these institutions. From rsaute@email.gc.cuny.edu Fri Feb 27 08:50:45 1998 Date: Fri, 27 Feb 1998 10:50:37 -0500 (EST) To: psn@csf.colorado.edu From: ROBERT SAUTE Subject: 1998 Socialist Scholars Conference --=====================_888605449==_ --=====================_888605449==_ 1998 Socialist Scholars Conference "A World to Win: From the 'Manifesto' to New Organizing for Socialist Change" March 20 to 22, 1998 Borough of Manhattan Community College 199 Chambers Street NYC ***** Join Michael Moore, Katha Pollit, Stephen Jay Gould, Frances Fox Piven, Manning Marable, Ellen Willis, Reverend Al Sharpton, Samir Amin, Doug Henwood, Stanley Aronowitz, Ellen Meiksins Wood, David Abdulah, Leith Mullings, Harry Magdoff, Daniel Singer, Paul Sweezy, Sal Albanese, Elaine Bernard, Aijaz Ahmad, Paco Ignacio Taibo II, Bill Fletcher, David Harvey, Jakob Moneta, John Bellamy Foster, Bogdan Denitch, Tom Frank, Kim Moody, Angela Ards, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Hector Figueroa, Edward Herman and dozens more... for a weekend of debate & dialogue. For an updated schedule, registration form, and other information regarding the 1998 Socialist Scholars Conference, check out our web page at or email us at or call (212) 642-2826. Early registrations postmarked by March 6: $30.00 regular income $20.00 low income $ 8.00 high school/undergraduates $15.00 one day make checks payable to: Socialist Scholars Conference c/o Sociology, CUNY Grad Center 33 West 42nd Street New York, NY 10036-8099 rsaute@email.gc.cuny.edu --=====================_888605449==_-- From j9470388@wlv.ac.uk Fri Feb 27 06:00:02 1998 by ccug.wlv.ac.uk with smtp (Exim 1.80 #3) Date: Fri, 27 Feb 1998 12:56:54 -0800 From: Alan Harrison To: ah7301r@ACAD.DRAKE.EDU Subject: Re: class i.d. Andrew Herman wrote, in response to Christopher Gunn: > > Unfortunately, research that approaches class from this perspective, > especially in an American context, are few and far in between. The problem is > compounded by the fact that American's rarely think singularly and clearly > through the prism of class when talking about their identity. Take, for > example, one of the best books on working class identity, AMERICA'S WORKING > MAN by David Halle. The workers Halle talked to have a split or dual sense of > class identity-when they think about their work, they define themselves as > working class; when they about their life outside of work (particularly in > terms of home and lifestyle), they think of themselves as middle class. The question of class identity in the USA is difficult for Europeans to understand, especially when the term "middle class" is extended to cover groups of workers who would unequivocally be regarded by others, and would probably regard themselves, as skilled working class. I don't think that we see the phenomenon described by Andrew to anything like the same extent (or at least not so overtly expressed) in Britain. > Kathleen Newman, an anthropologist, has written two of best recent > books on PMC identity-FALLING FROM GRACE and DECLINING FORTUNES. In these > books she examines the experience of downward social mobility among PMC-er's > caught in the vise of corporate downsizing. Their language speaks volumes > about the perceived entitlement of autonomy, authority, and prestige attendant > upon their class position as professionals or managers, yet rarely do they > explicitly talk about class-rather, they talk about what is due to them on the > basis of merit as individuals who have education and expertise. This does seem more familiar in Britain. There is, I think, a deep ambiguity about such workers' attitudes to their jobs and to class. The British white-collar union ASTMS (now part of MSF) played on this when it advertised by using a man who "made his first mistake when he picked up a pen rather than a shovel". My recent research has shown some disillusion with the concept of the "career" among professional engineers, but this very often takes the form of a belief that they SHOULD have a career, but that the company for which they are working doesn't provide a "career" but only a "job", with great uncertainty about their security of employment. > Yet the emergent PMC of Kenosha, those who envision > shopping malls, marinas, and condominiums displacing the traditional places > of working class labor, leisure and life, view the worker's plight with little > sympathy. They say that the middle class status of the auto-workers was > "unnatural" and totally out-of-line with what the workers were really "worth", > in an economic and moral sense, with their education, skills and nature of > their work. Again, this is not an uncommon feature in Britain. The appeal of the idea that "for too long we have been paying ourselves more than we earn" was potent during the Thatcher period. (It is also linguistically extremely interesting in that the politician using the first person plural included neither himself nor his audience in "we"!) However, I am not sure that British "professionals" would even see the allegedly unjustified prosperity of some skilled workers in terms of the latter being "middle class". Alan Harrison From band@unm.edu Fri Feb 27 12:23:47 1998 via sendmail with P:smtp/R:bind_hosts/T:inet_zone_bind_smtp (sender: ) id (Smail-3.2.0.101 1997-Dec-17 #6 built 1998-Jan-5) Date: Fri, 27 Feb 1998 12:20:59 -0700 (MST) From: "Anderson, Bob" To: psn@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Iraq note If the new world order circles and the Pentagon came out and said they wanted build a $100 billion series of permanent bases in the Mid East to protect Israel and the oil fields for the petroleum companies the Am people would revolt. So as a way to achieve this the on-off protracted war with Iraq establishes the same end, control over the oil of Iraq to keep it out of Russian, Chinese and French markets while securing the military presence for global cop work. Saddam is more valuable alive and in control of Iraq than he is dead, smart money is saying. A dismembered Iraq would invite regional fragementation as Turkey, Jordan and Iran grabbed for pieces, maybe even Russia. Oil could not take such disrutpions now in this region. Consider in this light the role of the IMF and World Bank in the neighborhood next door, Asia, and a picture of the new world order, by hook or crook, emerges. There are probably not any nation-states in the industrial-capital model of development not fully linked into this line of control/credit. 1984 has come and gone....it is later than we think, I fear. But the world appears pretty much aware of this too, which is our strength. Thanks, Bob ______________________ Robert L. Anderson 1823 Dartmouth Dr, NE #302 (New street address) Albuquerque, NM 87106-1702 Phone/fax 505-255-5462 band@unm.edu ______________________ From rsaute@email.gc.cuny.edu Fri Feb 27 13:38:04 1998 Date: Fri, 27 Feb 1998 15:37:53 -0500 (EST) From: "Robert Saute, CUNY Grad Center" To: pen-l@galaxy.csuchico.edu Subject: Re: Polling Clinton's Appeal In-Reply-To: <3.0.1.32.19980227100344.00b42390@jhuvms.hcf.jhu.edu> But if Clinton were further to the left wouldn't the business community portray him as to the left of Jesse Jackson and Paul Wellstone, and then wouldn't the "pollerate" find him even further to the left? Would the Democratic right-wing oppose his "liberal" policies even more? Isn't his popularity related to the perception that the economy is strong and wages are climbing for the first time in decades? Of course, I would love to have my skepticism proved unfounded. Could we run an experiment where Clinton moves to the left and see how it affected poll results? Just wondering. Best, Robert Saute rsaute@email.gc.cuny.edu On Fri, 27 Feb 1998, Wojtek Sokolowski wrote: > The March 9 issue of The Nation has an article _Polling Clinton's Appeal_. > The main conclusions are: > > 1. Polls reveal a general public misconcpetion about Clinton's political > standing; > > 2. People generally perceive him as being much farther to the left than he > actually is, "most people place Clinton somewhere between Paul Wellstone > and Jesse Jackson" - most like as a result of the corporate media > portrayal of him; > > 3. That perception does not hurt his popularity; in fact his popularity > surged despite him being perceived as more liberal than his actually is; > > 4. The article suggests that Clinton politics may not be driven by polls as > many seem to believe, but by the political agenda of the right wing of the > Democratic party. > > The full report of poll results by Lewis, Morgan and Jhally can be found at: > www-unix.oit.umass.edu/~commdept (under "reports and resources"). > > > Wojtek Sokolowski > Institute for Policy Studies > Johns Hopkins University > Baltimore, MD 21218 > sokol@jhu.edu > voice: (410) 516-4056 > fax: (410) 516-8233 > > Opinions expressed above are those of this writer only. They do not > represent the views or policies of the Institute for Policy Studies, the > Johns Hopkins University, or anyone else affiliated with these institutions. > > > > From mjerin@saunix.sau.edu Fri Feb 27 11:20:47 1998 Date: Fri, 27 Feb 1998 12:24:33 -0600 To: psn@csf.colorado.edu From: Mike Jerin Subject: Family Self-Sufficiency I have a group of graduate students who are doing a piece of research on family self-sufficiency as it relates to issues of welfare and welfare reform. At this point in the project they are having some difficulty locating prior reserach in the area. If anyone out there in the PSN community has any citations on selfl-sufficiency or related issues they would be willing to share, they would be most appreicated. Please direct any responses to this request to me (mjerin@saunix.sau.edu), and I'll forward them onto the students. Thanks for your help on this matter. Mike Jerin St. Ambrose University From tell@acsu.buffalo.edu Fri Feb 27 18:35:54 1998 Date: Fri, 27 Feb 1998 20:35:48 -0500 (EST) From: "Shawgi A. Tell" To: Progressive Sociologists Network Subject: Middle East Peace Process: Appeal To Boycott International Conference In Israel Greetings, It is as clear as clear can be that the terrorist Israeli State, which is fully backed by U.S. imperialism, is hell-bent on intensifying its violations of international law and further trampling all over the rights of the Palestinian people. For these servants of U.S. imperialism there are no laws, no treaties, no conventions - nothing. TML is printing below an appeal issued by the Communist Party of Israel and the Palestinian People's Party for the information of our readers. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Israeli Communist Party Central Committee and the Palestinian People's Party Central Committee extend to you their warmest comradely greetings, bringing to your attention that the Israeli Netanyahu government, which has devoted its activities to sabotaging the Israeli-Palestinian peace process since the first day it took office, is escalating its measures along this trend. It is not enough that the Israeli government is rejecting implementing the signed agreements; it is also exploiting the fabricated crisis over Iraq through stepping up its activities to seize additional Palestinian lands and extend colonial settlement activities over them, especially in occupied Arab Jerusalem. This Israeli policy is made clear through the latest Israeli government decision to build a new Jewish settlement in the heart of Ras Al-Amud neighbourhood in occupied Arab Jerusalem, in addition to the escalating steps to connect Ma'ale Adumim Settlement with Jerusalem, towards achieving the Israeli "Greater Jerusalem" project. In the context of the activities geared towards destroying the peace process, the Israel government and the Israeli Olmert Municipality called for the holding of an international conference in Jerusalem during the period from March 2 to 5 of next year, to be attended by representatives of various municipalities from all over the world, under the claim that they are celebrating the Jubilee of the establishment of the state of Israel. It is clear that this provocative measure is an attempt to snatch international recognition of annexing occupied Arab Jerusalem to the state of Israel, contrary to international law and resolutions of international legitimacy and the rejection of the international community to this forceful annexation. Therefore, our two parties are appealing to you to exert all efforts with the concerned parties in your municipal councils to boycott this conference, which constitutes a blatantly destructive step against the peace process, taking into consideration that the Oslo Accords signed between both the Palestinian and the Israeli sides in 1993 stipulated that the status and future of all of Jerusalem, its western part and the occupied Palestinian eastern part, shall be discussed and agreed upon in the final phase of the Palestinian-Israeli peace process. Hoping that our appeal will be met with your usual understanding and loyal solidarity. Representative of Palestinian People's Party The Marxist-Leninist Weekly, 2/22/98 Shawgi Tell Graduate School of Education University at Buffalo tell@acsu.buffalo.edu