From gimenez@csf.Colorado.EDU Fri May 1 08:27:00 1998 Date: Fri, 1 May 1998 08:26:51 -0600 (MDT) From: Martha Gimenez Reply-To: Martha Gimenez To: PSN@CSF.COLORADO.EDU Subject: Haymarket and the history of May Day (fwd) ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Thanx to Luther Gaylord for sending this history of May Day and Chicago. Seth Wigderson, H-Labor Moderator +++++ +++++ +++++ +++++ +++++ +++++ +++++ +++++ From: "X341366 (Luther Gaylord)" MAY DAY--THE REAL LABOR DAY May 1st, International Workers' Day, commemorates the historic struggle of working people throughout the world, and is recognized in every country except the United States, Canada, and South Africa. This despite the fact that the holiday began in the 1880s in the United States, with the fight for an eight-hour work day. In 1884, the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions passed a resolution stating that eight hours would constitute a legal day's work from and after May 1, 1886. The resolution called for a general strike to achieve the goal, since legislative methods had already failed. With workers being forced to work ten, twelve, and fourteen hours a day, rank-and-file support for the eight-hour movement grew rapidly, despite the indifference and hostility of many union leaders. By April 1886, 250,000 workers were involved in the May Day movement. The heart of the movement was in Chicago, organized primarily by the anarchist International Working People's Association. Businesses and the state were terrified by the increasingly revolutionary character of the movement and prepared accordingly. The police and militia were increased in size and received new and powerful weapons financed by local business leaders. Chicago's Commercial Club purchased a $2000 machine gun for the Illinois National Guard to be used against strikers. Nevertheless, by May 1st, the movement had already won gains for many Chicago clothing cutters, shoemakers, and packing-house workers. But on May 3, 1886, police fired into a crowd of strikers at the McCormick Reaper Works Factory, killing four and wounding many. Anarchists called for a mass meeting the next day in Haymarket Square to protest the brutality. The meeting proceeded without incident, and by the time the last speaker was on the platform, the rainy gathering was already breaking up, with only a few hundred people remaining. It was then that 180 cops marched into the square and ordered the meeting to disperse. As the speakers climbed down from the platform, a bomb was thrown at the police, killing one and injuring seventy. Police responded by firing into the crowd, killing one worker and injuring many others. Although it was never determined who threw the bomb, the incident was used as an excuse to attack the entire Left and labor movement. Police ransacked the homes and offices of suspected radicals, and hundreds were arrested without charge. Anarchists in particular were harassed, and eight of Chicago's most active were charged with conspiracy to murder in connection with the Haymarket bombing. A kangaroo court found all eight guilty, despite a lack of evidence connecting any of them to the bomb-thrower (only one was even present at the meeting, and he was on the speakers' platform), and they were sentenced to die. Albert Parsons, August Spies, Adolf Fischer, and George Engel were hanged on November 11, 1887. Louis Lingg committed suicide in prison, The remaining three were finally pardoned in 1893. It is not surprising that the state, business leaders, mainstream union officials, and the media would want to hide the true history of May Day, portraying it as a holiday celebrated only in Moscow's Red Square. In its attempt to erase the history and significance of May Day, the United States government declared May 1st to be "Law Day", and gave us instead Labor Day--a holiday devoid of any historical significance other than its importance as a day to swill beer and sit in traffic jams. Nevertheless, rather than suppressing labor and radical movements, the events of 1886 and the execution of the Chicago anarchists actually mobilized many generations of radicals. Emma Goldman, a young immigrant at the time, later pointed to the Haymarket affair as her political birth. Lucy Parsons, widow of Albert Parsons, called upon the poor to direct their anger toward those responsible--the rich. Instead of disappearing, the anarchist movement only grew in the wake of Haymarket, spawning other radical movements and organizations, including the Industrial Workers of the World. By covering up the history of May Day, the state, business, mainstream unions and the media have covered up an entire legacy of dissent in this country. They are terrified of what a similarly militant and organized movement could accomplish today, and they suppress the seeds of such organization whenever and wherever they can. As workers, we must recognize and commemorate May Day not only for it's historical significance, but also as a time to organize around issues of vital importance to working-class people today. As IWW songwriter Joe Hill wrote in one of his most powerful songs: Workers of the world, awaken! Rise in all your splendid might Take the wealth that you are making, It belongs to you by right. No one will for bread be crying We'll have freedom, love and health, When the grand red flag is flying In the Workers' Commonwealth. From jbandy@connecti.com Fri May 1 08:17:33 1998 Date: Fri, 1 May 1998 09:19:23 -0600 To: psn@csf.colorado.edu From: jbandy@connecti.com (John Bandy) Subject: May Day HAPPY MAY DAY TO ALL FELLOW PROLES, WE HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE BUT OUR CHAINS!!!! JOHN B. 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 dhenwood@panix.com Fri May 1 13:51:58 1998 Fri, 1 May 1998 15:50:51 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 1 May 1998 15:50:57 -0400 To: MARXISM-INTERNATIONAL@LISTSERV.CC.EMORY.EDU, marxism-thaxis@lists.village.virginia.edu, femecon-l@bucknell.edu, PEN-L@GALAXY.CSUCHICO.EDU, pkt@csf.colorado.edu, psn@csf.colorado.edu, ipe-cafe@csf.colorado.edu From: Doug Henwood Subject: new list I've started up a mailing l*st, LBO-talk. Details follow. Doug **************************************************************************** LBO-talk is a mailing list for the discussion of politics, economics, and culture, all expansively defined. It is sponsored by Left Business Observer , a newsletter mainly about economics, and moderated by its editor, Doug Henwood. Despite that sponsorship, I hope this list will be a forum for speaking across intellectual and social boundaries that have divided the left, such as it is, for too long. Among these oppositions I'd like to see worked through are ones like class/identity, cultural politics/"real" politics, Marxism/postmodernism, universal/particularist, economics/culture, nature/labor; nature/culture, and labor/culture. Subscriptions are open, and posts go right to the list without approval. But stupidity, prolixity, dogmatism, bigotry, cheap disruptiveness, and false or multiple identities are not welcome, and will result in warning, suspension, or ejection. TO JOIN Write to with the command subscribe lbo-talk in the body of the message. Majordomo will respond with an authentication request, to check that it's coming from a real address, and not a hacked version of Newt Gingrich's. **************************************************************************** Doug Henwood editor, Left Business Observer email: web: From hadjicosta_j@utpb.edu Fri May 1 12:01:27 1998 Date: Fri, 1 May 1998 12:01:18 -0600 (MDT) To: jbandy@connecti.com From: Joanna Hadjicostandi Subject: May Day:memories John, thank you so much for reminding me of the wonderful day today is. In the middle of the dessert in West Texas and trying to catch up with end of semester frantic life, I almost forgot it existed. I was actually thinking of the 150 years of the Communist Manifesto, the ASA elections and my everyday encounter of students who had never heard of the existence of such a document, or of multiple oppression and workers' struggle, and feeling quite depressed, before opening my mail. Well, well!!! will discuss all that some other time. Right now I am fludded with my teenage memories about MayDay and feel like sharing some with you. I cannot help remembering that in the country I come from, Greece, like in most other European Countries, May Day celebration was really a big deal. On this national holiday widespread workers' demonstrations and meetings were organized in the center of Athens and other cities and towns. Besides that, people took the opportunity to go and enjoy the open air. A traditional wreath made with flowers (usually wild) was placed at the front door or the balcony of almost every house. Around the city where I lived, Kavala, there were huge fields filled with wild flowers with a strong dominance of the beautiful red poppy. Although it was a family day, sometimes my friends and I went on a day excursion to the beech, where we played and enjoyed our boiled eggs and dolma lunch. On warm days the very courageous attempted their first dive of the season. Ooops, I'm still in Odessa, Texas. A little taste of a May Day in Greece, which according to my sister (whom I spoke to today) has not changed very much, at least in principle. It definately is still a holiday and a workers' day....... Back to papers and meetings!!! Hay, enjoy your May Day y'll, and keep the struggle going. Indeed those chains feel havier and havier as years go by, but the day will come.... In solidarity, Joanna At 09:19 AM 5/1/98 -0600, you wrote: >HAPPY MAY DAY TO ALL FELLOW PROLES, WE HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE BUT OUR >CHAINS!!!! JOHN B. > >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 > > > > ________________________________________ 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 sam.friedman@ndri.org Fri May 1 14:34:23 1998 id xma005911; Fri, 1 May 98 15:46:16 GMT Date: Fri, 01 May 1998 16:32:11 -0400 From: "Sam Friedman" To: psn@csf.colorado.edu Subject: May Day Did you all notice that the Morbidity and Mortality Monthly Review of April 24 has a first page box on "Workers' Memorial Day-April 28, 1998". This is to recognize persons who have died from occupational injuries or diseases, and opportunities to prevent these deaths. It is amazing that they go to such lengths to avoid recognizing May Day! But interesting that they call such a day at all. Does anyone know the politics behind this declaration? From smrose@exis.net Fri May 1 15:18:15 1998 From: "Steve Rosenthal" To: PSN@CSF.COLORADO.EDU Date: Fri, 1 May 1998 17:15:45 +0000 Subject: May Day is alive in USA Reading the messages from Joanna, Martha, and others about memories of May Day celebrations in other countries and in the past, I feel fortunate that I will actually be going to a May Day demonstration tomorrow in DC. The communist Progressive Labor Party celebrates May Day every year. I think they have been holding marches in Washington, Los Angeles, Chicago, and other cities around the world for several decades. These marches usually attract at least a couple thousand people. They're very multiracial and include a lot of young students and workers. They march not only to celebrate the international holiday of the working class, but to affirm continued struggle for an egalitarian classless, stateless society all over the world. It is evident that many on this list identify with the traditions of May Day and hope for the development of a new international workers' movement. I think these marches and the party that organizes them is trying to achieve that goal. Yesterday, Talk of the Nation on National Public Radio focused on May Day and the 150th anniversary of the Communist Manifesto. As some recent postings on PSN have noted, a modest effort is under way to hype this anniversary. Bourgeois experts are redefining Marx as a prescient predictor (and champion) of globalized capitalism. It seems that the same principles govern the production of commodities culture as well as the production of other commodities. Just as capitalists are compelled to maximize the rate of profit, they are compelled to reshape and redefine every important person who has ever contributed to the emancipation of the working class, from Karl Marx to Joe Stalin to Paul Robeson. Let them try. In the end it will be the bourgeoisie's history and the bourgeoisie itself that will be history! Steve Rosenthal From cdfupdate@cdfig.childrensdefense.org Fri May 1 18:35:31 1998 Date: Fri, 01 May 98 17:25:29 EST From: "CDFupdate" To: cdfupdate@automailer.com Subject: CDF Update 5-1-98 Sender: owner-cdfupdate@automailer.com Children's Defense Fund Update May 5, 1998 In This Issue: -- Child Care -- Children's Health *** Child Care *** --- IMPORTANT CHILD CARE VOTE COMING SOON! --- During the week of May 18th, the U.S. Senate will vote on a bill that is key to our child care effort -- a Senate tobacco tax bill. This tobacco tax bill is very important to our efforts to win a major investment in child care funding because it may include increased funding for the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG). This may be our best opportunity this year to win funding for a major increase for child care. It is clear that by promoting children's healthy development and learning and helping children make good choices, quality child care programs are effective tools to reduce teen smoking. After school programs have been found to be successful in reducing likelihood that children, particularly preteens and teenagers from engaging in risky behaviors like smoking and sex. However, an increase in funding for the CCDBG will not be included in the Senate tobacco tax bill unless we share this message with our Senators. Call your U.S. Senators today! Here's the message: "Vote for child care funding in the Senate tobacco bill when it comes to the floor on May 18th. This will help curb teen smoking and promote children's healthy development." You can reach Senators by calling the U.S. Congressional switchboard at 1-202/ 224-3121. The switchboard operator can help you identify your Senators and connect you to deliver your message. Please call as soon as possible! *** Children's Health *** ---ADVOCATES TOOL KIT FOR STATE CHILDREN'S HEALTH INSURANCE PROGRAM-- ** NOW AVAILABLE -- Advocates Tool Kit for the new State Children's Health Insurance Program. Tool kits can be purchased from CDF's publication department for $4.95, plus $2.00 shipping. This tool kit provides advocates with easy to use fact sheets, state tables, and in- depth information on uninsured children across the country. Order your copy today. If you are interested in receiving a copy, please send a check to: CDF Publications Division 25 E Street, NW Washington, DC 20001 Please include the a note with your check stating your check is for an Advocates Tool Kit for the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) and an address where you would like us to send your tool kit. ****************************************************************** -- 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 "Children are our most valuable natural resource." - Herbert Hoover From tell@acsu.buffalo.edu Fri May 1 19:55:29 1998 Date: Fri, 1 May 1998 21:55:23 -0400 (EDT) From: "Shawgi A. Tell" To: Progressive Sociologists Network Subject: Youth Unemployment Greetings, Unemployment is the product of the capitalist economic system. It is rooted in the fundamental contradiction between social labor and private ownership. A large pool of unemployed keeps wages down and job insecurity high. Unemployment also fosters crime, poverty and other extremely serious social problems. But unemployment is not the only work-related problem under capitalism. Under-employment is also a growing problem under capitalism. The deepening of the capitalist economic crisis is reflected in recent figures on youth unemployment. Unemployed youth age 24 and below --------------------------------- % unemployed male female total Spain 37 51 43 Finland 32 36 34 Italy 29 39 34 France 26 32 29 Greece 20 37 28 Belgium 19 27 22 Sweden 22 22 22 Ireland 18 16 17 Australia 17 16 16 Canada 19 14 16 Portugal 13 20 16 New Zealand 16 14 15 United Kingdom 16 11 14 United States 13 11 12 Germany 11 9 10 Netherlands 9 11 10 Norway 11 9 10 Luxembourg 8 8 8 Denmark 6 9 7 Japan 7 7 7 Austria 4 7 6 Switzerland 6 6 6 [Source: The Progress of Nations, UNICEF, 1997] Capitalism has entered a "jobless recovery" period, a period in which the productive forces are being destroyed rapidly. As a result, millions are swelling the ranks of the permanent unemployed and poor. In all this it is the youth and students who are the hardest hit. Their future looks bleak, even with an education. In order for society to progress, in order for the students and youth to have a bright future, the root-cause of this retrogressive and inhumane situation must be targeted. Needed today is an economic system based on the motive of satisfying the constantly rising material and cultural needs of the people. Youth unemployment is to be expected in a society based on an economic system which concentrates social wealth in fewer and fewer hands. The objective interests of the youth as a collective are actually negated by bourgeois society. The youth and students can secure their future by taking up the politics of empowerment. This will enable them to discuss what it is they as a collective can and must do in order to eliminate the havoc wreaked upon them by capitalism. Together they can determine their objective interests and develop plans to achieve their aims. The students and youth do not have a voice in bourgeois society. Their unemployment levels alone confirm this. And trying to bring about change for the better by participating in the illegitimate political set-up of the rich will only lead to the further marginalization of the students and youth. Ultimately, the students and youth have no choice but to take up the struggle to overthrow capitalism and usher in the New and modern. Shawgi Tell Graduate School of Education University at Buffalo tell@acsu.buffalo.edu From tell@acsu.buffalo.edu Sat May 2 08:00:16 1998 Date: Sat, 2 May 1998 10:00:09 -0400 (EDT) From: "Shawgi A. Tell" To: Progressive Sociologists Network Subject: 1998 UNESCO World Education Report: Teachers And Teaching In A Changing World Greetings, Over the last 20 years the ruling circles of many countries have been vigorously cutting expenditures in numerous vital public services, thereby destroying the fabric of society and ruining the lives of tens of millions. In the U.S. these deep cuts are expected to continue, and in all likelihood they will continue in Canada, Britain and elsewhere. Key features of this anti-social offensive are privatization, liberalization and Rule by Decree. The essence of this offensive is to dismiss the notion of a modern society and to deny the claims of humans on society. Humans, according to this logic, must fend for themselves like animals while the so-called "market" operates "freely." Such is the world outlook of the ruling circles. This offensive has nothing to do with the well-being of society and everything to do with the profits of the capitalist monopolies. Taking more and more money out of the economy and handing it over to the rich is not the way forward. It is the way back to medievalism. One of the spheres hardest hit by this offensive is education. The 1998 UNESCO "World Education Report: Teachers and Teaching in a Changing World" points out that the world's 57 million mostly-female teachers do not have the basic resources and support they need to work effectively. It emphasizes that insufficient funding is the cause of the deterioration in the quality of education. Teachers in many countries, for example, lack basics such as electricity, water and textbooks. As is well-known, many school facilities and buildings in the U.S. are in pathetic condition. The World Education Report goes on to highlight many other deplorable conditions in education: - Teachers' income and status have declined, while pressure on teachers to "pass" students has increased. - Many schools lack technology-friendly facilities, even in the most so-called "developed" countries. - Teachers are inadequately remunerated. - Teachers (mostly female) remain under-represented in leadership and management positions. - Roughly 150 million children aged 6-11 are presently not in school. - The practice of hiring "contract" teachers is a negative one. The American Federation of Teachers points out that the relative standard of living for teachers is the lowest in 40 years. Average teacher salary increase (2.2% in 1997) is also the smallest in 40 years. Teachers, educators, students and youth, must elaborate their own vision for the 21st century. They must take matters into their own hands if the anti-social offensive of the world bourgeoisie is to be defeated and replaced by a pro-social agenda. They must work to create the sort of modern arrangements which will put them in center-stage of society. Present-day arrangements, nationally and internationally, continue to favor the wealthy few in whose hands power and privilege are concentrated. Teachers' working conditions cannot be brought up to par with modern requirements so long as teachers lack substantive say-so in affairs. And so long as teachers and educators lack real decision-making power students' learning conditions will also continue to suffer. Shawgi Tell Graduate School of Education University at Buffalo tell@acsu.buffalo.edu From YLPSLL0@cpua.it.luc.edu Sat May 2 13:18:55 1998 Date: Sat, 02 May 98 14:18 CDT From: YLPSLL0@cpua.it.luc.edu To: psn@CSF.COLORADO.EDU Subject: Tell tells it right AS many have argued, the logic of globalized capital, no longer even feigning local/natinional concerns has been a re-invigoration of the crudest form of ascetic Protestantism, in which self sacrifice and denial, now based less on God's will than neo-liberalism, promises virtue and reward for those who sacrifice levels of consumption and retreat from the political and making political demands. Like the aristocrats of old, the new moneyed classes much value sacrifice and denial-on the part of their subjects-yet practice little themselves. At least they no longer suggest the subjects eat cake, too much sugar, processed flour, and instead, let them eat whole grain bread. But I would add to Tell's telling, that as an essential moment of this new phase of capital is the expansion of culture industries that produce a plethora of carnivals that provide sites of gratification and fantastic realization. Oh yes, I call this process of globalization and carnivalization, cyber feudalism that marks the end of the political On the day after May day, Lauren Langman From dhenwood@panix.com Sat May 2 14:54:58 1998 Sat, 2 May 1998 16:54:51 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sat, 2 May 1998 16:54:58 -0400 To: ipe-cafe@csf.colorado.edu, psn@csf.colorado.edu From: Doug Henwood Subject: list correction How embarrassing. The announcement of the LBO-talk l*st I sent out the other day had a typo in it, in the TO JOIN section, rendering my advice nearly useless. The corrected portion follows. TO JOIN Write to with the command subscribe lbo-talk in the body of the message. Majordomo will respond with an authentication request, to check that it's coming from a real address, and not a hacked version of Newt Gingrich's. Doug From susanp@uidaho.edu Sun May 3 22:02:18 1998 Date: Sun, 3 May 1998 21:01:39 -0700 (PDT) From: Susan Palmer To: psn Subject: Re: May Day (fwd) For all of PSN, Susan, I am writing to ask you to post the information to Psn. When you post only to PSN-CAFE, it appears only there and it would be good to share this information with everyone in PSN. Many thanks, Martha ***************** On Fri, 1 May 1998, Susan Palmer wrote: > > I have been on hiatus from the list for longer than I intended. > I thought May Day would be a good day to resubscribe. > > For your May Day enjoyment: > > http://www.peaceandfreedom.org/Internationale.htm > > ...especially good if you have a sound card. > > *-----------------------------------------------------------------* > Susan Palmer Phone: 208-885-6616 > Women's Resource Specialist FAX: 208-885-6285 > for Education Outreach, Gender Equity, and Research > Women's Center e-mail: susanp@uidaho.edu > University of Idaho susanp@moscow.com > Moscow, Idaho 83844-1064 > "People convinced against their will, > hold the same opinion still." > *-----------------------------------------------------------------* > From MGWENG01@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU Mon May 4 09:50:36 1998 From: MGWENG01@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU Date: 4 May 1998 11:48:16 EDT To: Subject: May Days, old and new... I want to second Steve's comments about the freshness of May Day, lest anyone be lost in melancholy "recherches du temps perdu" for May Days past, wherever they were experienced. Although too young (!) to experience them myself, I was, in my childhood, regaled with tales of what it was like in "Brunsville" (tr.: Brownsville, Brooklyn, NY) on May Day in the 1930s. Here is a note I received from a student this morning: ["Hi, I'm home and the March was all that I expected and more. It really boosts one's confidence to be surrounded with like-minded folk. But, as you always say, the revolution will not be televised. There were several other events going on yesterday, National Alliance for the Mentally Ill and their adversaries and the Race Against Racism, all of which were on the news; but our highly visible and extremely vocal several blocks-long demonstration didn't get even a mention. The people on the streets, particularly in the working-class neighborhoods where the march began, were generally quite receptive to us; but, when we got into the more affluent neighborhoods and around the government buildings, the response, while not exactly hostile, was less positive. A couple {of:MGW} people suggested that we go to Beijing. I didn'tunderstand why another capitalist, nationalist, elitist society would be an improvement over the one that we are familiar with. Oh well, my stupidity, I guess. Actually, I'm pretty tired and am nearly ready for bed. Just wanted to let you all know that we were back and that while this may have been my first May Day March, it most certainly won't be my last. I met some nice new people... honest, committed people. I still have some questions that I need to ponder (the winner of the Ky. Derby in 1949 was 'Ponder'); but, all in all, it was a very satisfying experience..."] Were it not for ill health, I would have marched this year. The weary sack of cells permitting, I will do so next year... (BTW: Gil Scott Herron does the "televised revolution" thing much better than I.) Along with Coolio (possible) and Pachelbel (impossible) "I'll see you when you get there...stand up for something..." and elsewhere "...when the revolution comes, I'm gonna' be up front..." In Star Wars, when the planet Alderan is blown up by the evil galactic imperialists, the Jedi knight Obi Wan kenobi says something like: "I felt a great disturbance in the Force, like millions of voices cried out in unison and then were suddenly silenced..." Without endorsing the BS mysticism of it all, I know what he meant... there will always be "great disturbances," but eventually the voices will not be stilled, and May Day celebrates just such a day in the past... let it mark such a day in the future... Morton Wenger TELEPHONE: (502) 852-6836 INTERNET: MGWENG01@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU From MGWENG01@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU Mon May 4 08:43:50 1998 From: MGWENG01@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU Date: 4 May 1998 10:41:08 EDT To: , Subject: "...to make the thieves disgorge their booty" In the secomd verse of the Internationale, there appears the above phrase. Some think it florid and inflammatory. I would say "untrue" about the first assertion, and "amen" to the second! That which is intrinsically inflammatory is the truth; e.g., the information that appeared on AP this morning. Check it out at: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/f/AP-Executive-Salaries.html This comes from the nyt web edition. If you don't currently get it, you may be asked to register by e-mail. It is ABSOLUTELY free, and most useful, particularly for the optically challenged, since you can adjust the font to suit yourself- a benefit not available in the print edition. Again, for most of you, simply clicking on the above address should get you there... TELEPHONE: (502) 852-6836 INTERNET: MGWENG01@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU From pshorne@central.murdoch.edu.au Mon May 4 16:13:14 1998 Date: Tue, 05 May 1998 06:10:22 +0800 To: PROGRESSIVE SOCIOLOGISTS NETWORK From: Priscilla Shorne Subject: May Day May Day marches in Australia were particularly strong this year. Our governemnt has been trying to destroy the union movement through industrial legislation and through encouraging workers to move away from awards and to negotiate enterrise agreements. Recently it was decided that the Maritime Union of Australia, as one of Australia's strongest and most determinedly left wing unions, had to be taken on. It would seem likely that certain members of the government conspired with Patrick, one of the stevedoring companies. Chris Corrigan, CEO of Patrick Stevedoring restructured the companies that employed MUA members by transferring assets, leases etc to other companies in the Patrick Group. This left the employing companies as "labour hire" companies. Patrick then shuffled its assets again and the companies were declared insolvent and the 1400 member workforce were sacked and a non union labour work force employed. While both the company and the Prime Minister claimed that this was all done in the name of productivity and improving the efficiency of the wharves, even those workers in prodictive wharves were sacked and the prime minister admitted they were sacked because they were members of the union. Fortunately the public rose to support the MUA and the picket lines swelled. While many people might have agreed that there were improvements in productivity and efficiency that might be made and in fact were being made albeit slowly, many people of various political complexions did not like to see the government so overtly conspiring with corporate asset strippers. There was also a recognition that there was a principle at stake here, the right to belong to a union. Opnion polls show that while people may not approve of the MUA, they do not want all power in the hands of corporate asset strippes who go to extreme lengths to sack an entire workforce regardless of whether workers at some sities are doign a good job. Secondary boycott provisions in the industrial legislation made it difficult for other unions to support the wharfies. However the public as individuals thronged to the picket line. Even though in one state, an injunction was granted forbidding people to picket, as one commentator noted, if they arested everyone, it could clog up the courst for years. One thing is for sure; if they arrested the public, more would show up. In the meantime, the battle has been taking place in the courts with a ruling on Monday that the wharfies had to be re-employed though the vanishing funds make that difficult. It certainly will not be the end of the court battles with charges of conspiracy being brought against Patrick stevedoring and the Minister for Indusrial Relations and maybe even the banks involved. It is ironic that the government's encouragement of Patrick's actions may have done more to revive the fortunes of the unions than any union recruiting action of recent times. Certainly in Fremantle, where I marched there were 7000 people which is much bigger than it has been for years. Priscilla Shorne From cdfupdate@cdfig.childrensdefense.org Mon May 4 12:45:05 1998 Date: Mon, 04 May 98 10:56:09 EST From: "CDFupdate" To: cdfupdate@automailer.com Subject: CDF Update Child Care Special Alert Sender: owner-cdfupdate@automailer.com Children's Defense Fund May 4, 1998 In This Issue: -- Child Care *** Child Care *** --- NATIONAL CHILD CARE NOW! CONFERENCE CALL THURSDAY MAY 7TH--- Join SENATOR EDWARD M. KENNEDY (D-MA) and MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN, President of the Children's Defense Fund, for an important Child Care Now! national conference call this THURSDAY, May 7th at 3:30 pm (EST). IT'S A FREE CALL AND ALL ARE INVITED! PLEASE NOTIFY YOUR NETWORKS! During the week of May 18th, the U.S. Senate will vote on funding for child care. This may be our greatest opportunity to fund a major increase for child care this year. We cannot win without broad-based support from advocates across the country. On the call, you will learn more about what is happening with child care on the federal level, and what you can do to help ensure a guaranteed investment in child care funding. NO RSVP NEEDED -- To join the call, follow these easy instructions: On Thursday, May 7th at 3:30 pm (Eastern Time), call 1-800-825-2125 and ask to be connected to the Child Care Now! conference call. MARK YOUR CALENDAR TODAY so you don't miss this important call! ****************************************************************** -- 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 > "Children are our most valuable natural resource." - Herbert Hoover From Dave.Byrne@durham.ac.uk Tue May 5 05:51:12 1998 Date: Tue, 5 May 1998 12:50:17 +0100 (BST) From: D S Byrne Reply-To: D S Byrne To: Priscilla Shorne Capital-and-Class@mailbase.ac.uk Subject: Re: May Day In-Reply-To: <1.5.4.32.19980504221022.006813b8@central.murdoch.edu.au> (1) I am glad May Day has gone well in other places. Here it didn't at least in Newcastle England where we have a long tradition of a May Day March (goes back to the founding of Newcastle Trades [union] Council in the 1870s). The turn out was miserable - only about 200 people compared with more than 1,000 on average in the 80s. The notable absence was the 'New' Labour Party (although the quotation marks should really be around Labour). There was no Labour speaker. This may not be unconnected with the recent defeat of the strike by the Magnet workers in Darlington who have been locked out in an official and legal dispute for more than two years. The New 'Labour' government did absolutely nothing for them, although Blair is actually one of their local MPs. This is quite different from previous Labour administrations which have generally defended basic trade union rights, whatever their other limitations. Summary impression - one of the world's oldest and strongest social democratic parties is social-democratic no longer, and not even christian democratic. (2) The socialist / labour May day event was on Saturday May 2nd. On Sunday May 3rd there was a May day event organised by various Green organizations. This took the form of an all day carnival. When we went there were more than 1,500 people present and I would guess 5 or 6 thousand would have visited during the day. The age profile was far younger with lots of teenagers and people in their 20s in contrast with the 40 and 50 year olds (me included) who made up the May Day Socialist March. There was a good deal of political content to the Green event, including third world solidarity stuff and various ecological politics. Is there a message here ? 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 Tue May 5 08:50:30 1998 Date: Tue, 5 May 1998 08:50:24 -0600 (MDT) From: Martha Gimenez To: PSN@CSF.COLORADO.EDU Subject: HAPPY BIRTHDAY KARL! *************************************************************************** ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| | /\ | | | |_____________ | | | |_____________} | | \ |__| / | | _ \ CAPITAL /_ | | $$$$$$$$$$$$$$ | | | | HAPPY 180TH BIRTHDAY KARL!!!!!! MAY 5, 1818-1998 | | | | | WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW From gimenez@csf.Colorado.EDU Tue May 5 10:00:23 1998 Date: Tue, 5 May 1998 10:00:14 -0600 (MDT) From: Martha Gimenez Reply-To: Martha Gimenez To: PSN@CSF.COLORADO.EDU Subject: New PSN home page Dear PSNers, Today is Karl Marx's birthday and in celebration, I created a new home page for PSN with his portrait. http://csf.colorado.edu/psn/ The server that hosts PSN, viz., CSF (Communications for a Sustainable Future) receives about one million visitors per year. PSN and the Marx library http://csf.colordo.edu/psn/marx receive a significant share of CSF visitors. We would be glad to share that visibility with you. Please send me URLs for your personal home pages, your syllabi and your electronically published work. I will place them in http://csf.colorado.edu/psn/whoswho/ http://csf.colorado.edu/psn/syllabi/ http://csf.colorado.edu/psn/authors/ I would also like to link PSN's home page to sites of relevance to our concerns. I have a few but would value your suggestions, so please send me those urls you think all PSNers should visit. in solidarity, Martha http://csf.colorado.edu/gimenez/ From Spectors@mail.netnitco.net Tue May 5 08:35:01 1998 Date: Tue, 05 May 1998 09:29:12 -0700 From: Spectors Reply-To: Spectors@mail.netnitco.net To: PROGRESSIVE SOCIOLOGISTS NETWORK Subject: Marxist Newsletter Editor Needed --------------E171B55EA662799BCB8F54A6 The Editor of the Section on Marxist Sociology's Newsletter (From the Left or FTL) will be retiring from that post at the end of the summer. TR Young, the tireless activist whose projects have encompassed so many aspects of movement building, from archiving valuable writings to boosting young Marxist and humanist scholars to working to develop Marxist theory in creative directions and, of course, to being the current editor of From the Left, will be leaving that post in August. TR's current activities include a comprehensive project to archive many, many papers--empirical, experimental, theoretical, conceptual--developed by writers with a wide range of interests. Many of these papers would likely be lost over the years, as the writers move on to other projects. How many of us have preliminary drafts of various projects from many years ago---drafts that are currently stored "somewhere"....on yellowing paper underneath some old journals in the bottom of a carton in the basement....papers that might be of interest to current researchers wanting to explore just how activists and scholars conceived of social issues in the 1960's and 1970's? How valuable it will be for current and future researchers to have access to the works that TR is currently assembling. The convergence of computers, the InterNet, and e-mail technology with TR's dedication to discovering, collecting, and archiving these works will prove to be a valuable resource for years to come. TR has expressed regret at leaving the FTL editorship, but wisely pointed out that younger sociologists need the experience and training at taking over the organizational forms of Marxist sociology as Marxist sociology will benefit from the insights of younger sociologists. To understand the importance of TR's work, just compare FTL to many of the other section newsletters. Many of them are mainly dry collections of members' recent publications--FTL has wide ranging theoretical think-pieces, book reviews, debates, as well as announcements of various sorts. We'll all miss TR's contributions, but he has proposed working closely with the new editor for an issue or two as needed. On to the job description: The Newsletter has been published 4 times/year. It has generally been six pages long (one 11" X 17" sheet folded in half, printed both sides for four pages, and one 8 1/2" X 11" sheet inserted, for another two pages). The editor should, of course, have some skills in word processing and document layout (how to do columns, etc.), although these can be learned rather quickly. More important is a dedication, almost a passion, for wanting to produce a quality newsletter. This means keeping a sharp eye on issues within society and within sociology and asking people with important insights to write for the newsletter. It means the ability to plan ahead, to solicit articles well in advance of the deadline, to evaluate which notices of conferences and publications are the most useful for Section members to read, and of course, the ability to remind contributors when the deadlines are fast approaching. I don't think that it is an overwhelming amount of work; the hours put in are very flexible, but it would require some organizational skills. For more info on the types and amount of work involved, you can contact TR personally. His e-mail is tr@tryoung.com The previous editor, Lauren Langmann, who also did a fine job with FTL would probably also answer any questions you might have about the particulars---his e-mail is YLPSLLO@cpua.luc.edu I hope the length of this message does not give the impression that the work is very time-consuming or tedious.The editorship gives the editor a chance to help shape the direction of debates and discussions; it is not simply a bureaucratic responsibility. This is a terrific opportunity to develop new skills and broaden one's contacts and relationships within sociology. It also makes a very valuable contribution to the maintenance and development of Marxist sociology. Please contact me if you are interested or if you know someone who might be a good candidate for this position. You can reach me at: SPECTOR@CALUMET.PURDUE.EDU or SPECTORS@NETNITCO.NET Thanks, Alan Spector Current Chair, Section on Marxist Sociology --------------E171B55EA662799BCB8F54A6     The Editor of the Section on Marxist Sociology's Newsletter (From the Left or FTL) will be retiring from that post at the end of the summer.  TR Young, the tireless activist whose projects have encompassed so many aspects of movement building, from archiving valuable writings to boosting young Marxist and humanist scholars to working to develop Marxist theory in creative directions and, of course, to being the current editor of From the Left, will be leaving that post in August.

    TR's current activities include a comprehensive project to archive many, many papers--empirical, experimental, theoretical, conceptual--developed by writers with a wide range of interests.  Many of these papers would likely be lost over the years, as the writers move on to other projects.  How many of us have preliminary drafts of various projects from many years ago---drafts that are currently stored "somewhere"....on yellowing paper underneath some old journals in the bottom of a carton in the basement....papers that might be of interest to current researchers wanting to explore just how activists and scholars conceived of social issues in the 1960's and 1970's?  How valuable it will be for current and future researchers to have access to the works that TR is currently assembling. The convergence of computers, the InterNet, and e-mail technology with TR's dedication to discovering, collecting, and archiving these works will prove to be a valuable resource for years to come.  TR has expressed regret at leaving the FTL editorship, but wisely pointed out that younger sociologists need the experience and training at taking over the organizational forms of Marxist sociology as Marxist sociology will benefit from the insights of younger sociologists.  To understand the importance of TR's work, just compare FTL to many of the other section newsletters. Many of them are mainly dry collections of members' recent publications--FTL has wide ranging theoretical think-pieces, book reviews, debates, as well as announcements of various sorts.  We'll all miss TR's contributions, but he has proposed working closely with the new editor for an issue or two as needed.  On to the job description:
 

    The Newsletter has been published 4 times/year.  It has generally been six pages long (one 11" X 17" sheet folded in half, printed both sides for four pages, and one 8 1/2" X 11" sheet inserted, for another two pages).  The editor should, of course, have some skills in word processing and document layout (how to do columns, etc.), although these can be learned rather quickly.  More important is a dedication, almost a passion, for wanting to produce a quality newsletter. This means keeping a sharp eye on issues within society and within sociology and asking people with important insights to write for the newsletter.  It means the ability to plan ahead, to solicit articles well in advance of the deadline, to evaluate which notices of conferences and publications are the most useful for  Section members to read, and of course, the ability to remind contributors when the deadlines are fast approaching.  I don't think that it is an overwhelming amount of work; the hours put in are very flexible, but it would require some organizational skills. For more info on the types and amount of work involved, you can contact TR personally.   His e-mail is tr@tryoung.com  The previous editor, Lauren Langmann, who also did a fine job with FTL would probably also answer any questions you might have about the particulars---his e-mail is YLPSLLO@cpua.luc.edu

    I hope the length of this message does not give the impression that the work is very time-consuming or tedious.The editorship gives the editor a chance to help shape the direction of debates and discussions; it is not simply a bureaucratic responsibility.  This is a terrific opportunity to develop new skills and broaden one's contacts and relationships within sociology.  It  also makes a very valuable contribution to the maintenance and development of Marxist sociology.

    Please contact me if you are interested or if you know someone who might be a good candidate for this position.

You can reach me at:  SPECTOR@CALUMET.PURDUE.EDU    or SPECTORS@NETNITCO.NET
 

Thanks,
 

Alan Spector
Current Chair, Section on Marxist Sociology --------------E171B55EA662799BCB8F54A6-- From gimenez@csf.Colorado.EDU Tue May 5 11:03:09 1998 Date: Tue, 5 May 1998 11:02:57 -0600 (MDT) From: Martha Gimenez To: PSN@CSF.COLORADO.EDU, lbo-talk@lists.panix.com, Social Class in Contemporary Societies Subject: Lelio Basso Prize (fwd) This message is in MIME format. The first part should be readable text, while the remaining parts are likely unreadable without MIME-aware tools. Send mail to mime@docserver.cac.washington.edu for more info. --------------AC82154D6A2DD079882FE3E0 *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** The Lelio Basso International Foundation for the Rights and Liberation of Peoples, Rome The Lelio and Lisli Basso Foundation -Institute for the Study of Contemporary Society (ISSOCO), Rome The Basso Family announce the offering of the INTERNATIONAL LELIO BASSO PRIZE FOR ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL ALTERNATIVES The Italian political theorist and militant socialist, Lelio Basso, always stood for a radical and, at the same time, democratic form of socialism during his life. Socialism without democracy, he elaborated on Rosa Luxemburg, is as unsustainable as a democratic order without social commitment. The development of true Socialism, he argued, is the result of a long lasting process of collective research and political action. As many people as possible should participate worldwide in this project, individuals as well as collective movements. Although Socialism in the former Soviet Bloc failed, the question of alternatives to the neoliberal dominance of the global market and the pressures of structural adjustment is again on the agenda. Political crises, military conflicts, social exclusion and ecological destructiveness are threatening the survival of human kind. The purpose of the International Lelio Basso Prize for Economic and Political Alternatives is to stimulate the search for alternatives in the tradition of Lelio Basso's understanding of "collective research". How is it possible to conceptualize the idea of a democratic and socialist society in the 21st century after the experiences of the 20th century? The Prize is dedicated to written works on theoretical and strategic aspects as well as on pratical political experiences. The International Lelio Basso Prize consists of two $ 10,000 awards to be given to the 2 prize winners. Works to be considered should be submitted by July 15th, 1998, to the Committee of the International Lelio Basso Prize, written preferably in English, French, Spanish or Italian, either elaborating crucial theoretical, strategic and political issues or describing and reflecting on practical political experiences. They should not exceed 50 pages. The Prize will be distributed during a conference to be held in Italy at the end of 1998, the 20th anniversary of Lelio Basso's death. The members of the Committee of the International Lelio Basso Prize are: Elmar Altvater (Berlin), Samir Amin (Dakar), Perry Anderson (London), Carlo Basso (Milano), Linda Bimbi (Roma), Monique Chemillier-Gendreau (Paris), Luiza Erundina (Sao Paulo), Pierre Galand (Bruxelles), Eduardo Galeano (Montevideo), Pablo Gonzalez Casanova (Ciudad de Mexico), David Harvey (Baltimore), Eric Hobsbawn (London), Corinne Kumar (Bangalore), Milos Nikolic (Beograd), Oda Makoto (Nishinomiya), Leo Panitch (Toronto), Adolfo Perez Esquivel (Buenos Aires), Marco Revelli (Torino), Fran=E7ois Rigaux (Bruxelles), Stefano Rodot=E0 (Roma). Secretariat: Raffaele Piria c/o Prof. Elmar Altvater Freie Universit=E4t Berlin, Dpt. of Political Science, Ihnestr. 21, Berlin D-14195 Tel: +49-30-838 4964 Fax: +49-30-838 4066 E-Mail: piriaraf@zedat.fu-berlin.de For more information please contact the Secretariat or look at the Homepage of the International Foundation: www.grisnet.it/filb --------------AC82154D6A2DD079882FE3E0 e1xydGYxXGFuc2lcYW5zaWNwZzEyNTJcdWMxIFxkZWZmMFxkZWZsYW5nMTAzM1xkZWZsYW5n ZmUxMDMxe1xmb250dGJse1xmMFxmcm9tYW5cZmNoYXJzZXQwXGZwcnEye1wqXHBhbm9zZSAw MjAyMDYwMzA1MDQwNTAyMDMwNH1UaW1lcyBOZXcgUm9tYW47fXtcZjFcZnN3aXNzXGZjaGFy c2V0MFxmcHJxMntcKlxwYW5vc2UgMDIwYjA2MDQwMjAyMDIwMjAyMDR9QXJpYWw7fQ0Ke1xm MjVcZnJvbWFuXGZjaGFyc2V0MFxmcHJxMntcKlxwYW5vc2UgMDIwMjA0MDQwMzAzMDEwMTA4 MDN9R2FyYW1vbmQ7fXtcZjE4M1xmcm9tYW5cZmNoYXJzZXQyMzhcZnBycTIgR2FyYW1vbmQg Q0U7fXtcZjE4NFxmcm9tYW5cZmNoYXJzZXQyMDRcZnBycTIgR2FyYW1vbmQgQ3lyO317XGYx ODZcZnJvbWFuXGZjaGFyc2V0MTYxXGZwcnEyIEdhcmFtb25kIEdyZWVrO317XGYxODdcZnJv 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1998 20:43:32 +0000 ([gmt]) 05 May 1998 20:43:31 +0000 ([gmt]) Date: Tue, 05 May 1998 20:42:33 +0000 (GMT) From: Terrence Mc Donough Subject: Job Opening in Ireland To: psn@csf.colorado.edu The Department of Political Science and Sociology at the National University of Ireland, Galway has a two year opening in a new branch campus type program in Sligo. There is potential for renewal. The deadline for application has been extended for two weeks. Anyone with questions can contact me at terrence.mcdonough@ucg.ie or email the professor of the department Chris Curtin directly at c.curtin@ucg.ie From jnaiman@acs.ryerson.ca Tue May 5 16:36:07 1998 Date: Tue, 5 May 1998 18:38:16 -0400 (EDT) From: Joanne Naiman To: psn@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Library resource for progressives For any of you who might find your way to the Toronto area before July 10, I thought you might be interested in knowing about an exhibit that has just opened at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library at the University of Toronto. It is entitled "Radicals and Revolutionaries: The History of Canadian Communism from the Robert S. Kenny Collection." Bert Kenny was a long time activist and member of the Communist Party of Canada. He was also a scholar, bibliophile, and, if this exhibit is any indication, a compulsive hoarder. In 1983, _Books in Canada_ noted that Bert was a man well-known to every bookseller in Toronto, and who had "amassed an enormous collection of almost every left-wing book, pamphlet, newspaper, and manifesto every printed in Canada." He also collected many international books and documents, including those from the U.S. Of particular interest to scholars and historians are documents from the socialist and communist movements of the early period of this century. For those who cannot see the exhibit, fear not, as the entire collection will be housed at the U of T. It would be a wonderful resource for all progressive researchers and students. Kenny's biographical sketch in the catalogue concludes: "The magnificent collection he painstakingly assembled, now permanently housed in the Thomas Fisher Library, is a precious resource for all those who come after him who share his commitment to the struggle to end the 'despotism of capital over labour.' Please feel free to pass this information on to any individual or list you think might be interested in this collection. Cheers, __________________________________ 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 From sosh@alinga.newcastle.edu.au Wed May 6 01:02:03 1998 From: sosh@alinga.newcastle.edu.au Date: Wed, 06 May 1998 17:01:41 +1000 To: psn@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Re: Fanon In-Reply-To: Dear PSN'ers I am presentingly writing a thesis on Frantz Fanon. Is anyone else out there who wants to correspond about his work, knows anything about good web sites or discussion groups. Let me know. Also anyone have any info on contemporary Algeria, or Islamic fundamentalism especially from a Marxist/Left kind of angle. Thanks Shane From smrose@exis.net Wed May 6 12:29:42 1998 From: "Steve Rosenthal" To: PSN@CSF.COLORADO.EDU Date: Wed, 6 May 1998 14:26:56 +0000 Subject: Marxist Section Book Award Nominations I would like to encourage you to nominate a book or books for the Distinguished Scholarship Award of the Section on Marxist Sociology of the American Sociological Association. I am serving as chairperson of the Award Committee. Levon Chorbajian of UMass Lowell and Manuel Moreno from Los Angeles have agreed to serve on the committee. So far I have received nominations from one person, and I would like to urge you to submit additional nominations. As Alan Spector emphasized in his earlier announcement, the book need not have a 1997-1998 publication date, and need not be written fully from a Marxist perspective. Please submit your nominations as soon as possible, so that committee members will have sufficient time to review the books. Thanks. Steve Rosenthal From YLPSLL0@cpua.it.luc.edu Wed May 6 20:41:54 1998 Date: Wed, 06 May 98 21:41 CDT From: YLPSLL0@cpua.it.luc.edu To: psn@CSF.COLORADO.EDU Subject: The Pomo president Check out current Nation, Ann Douglas has a short piece on Clinton as pomo president, if Raygun was a fake, Slick Willie is hyperfake, the perfect president for telepolitics when morphing is commonplace, he changes opinions, policies and even self before your very eyes. Now we know Raygun was not fully conscious of what he said/did. But Clinton is more like a hologram on the holodeck of the Enterprise/DS9/Voyager While looking, checkout Wellman for president. Lauren From splctr@lucs-01.novell.leeds.ac.uk Thu May 7 03:10:59 1998 Thu, 7 May 1998 10:10:40 +0100 (BST) From: "C.T. RUSSELL" To: PROGRESSIVE SOCIOLOGISTS NETWORK , YLPSLL0@cpua.it.luc.edu Date: Thu, 7 May 1998 10:10:41 GMT0BST Subject: Re: The Pomo president Date: Wed, 06 May 98 21:41 CDT Reply-to: YLPSLL0@cpua.it.luc.edu From: YLPSLL0@cpua.it.luc.edu To: PROGRESSIVE SOCIOLOGISTS NETWORK Subject: The Pomo president Check out current Nation, Ann Douglas has a short piece on Clinton as pomo president, if Raygun was a fake, Slick Willie is hyperfake, the perfect president for telepolitics when morphing is commonplace, he changes opinions, policies and even self before your very eyes. Now we know Raygun was not fully conscious of what he said/did. But Clinton is more like a hologram on the holodeck of the Enterprise/DS9/Voyager While looking, checkout Wellman for president. Lauren A British Perspective, Have you been following the doings/sayings of our 'labour' (read authoritarian social-conservative) Prime Minister ? He Believes quite literally in NOTHING (expect surfing the latest moral panic and cheerleading casino capital - the latter can of course be seen as very PM - free floating acceleration symbols of exchange). Is our 'maximum leader ' more PM than yours ? P.S Don't forget he cleverly exploited the spectacular role/simulacra known as 'Princess Diana' during our touchy-feely little 'moral panic' last year. Regards, Conrad From j9470388@wlv.ac.uk Thu May 7 05:29:17 1998 by ccug.wlv.ac.uk with smtp (Exim 1.80 #3) Date: Thu, 07 May 1998 12:28:45 -0700 From: Alan Harrison To: splctr@lucs-01.novell.leeds.ac.uk Subject: Re: The Pomo president C.T. RUSSELL wrote, responding to Lauren's post re. Clinton: > > A British Perspective, > > Have you been following the doings/sayings of our 'labour' (read > authoritarian social-conservative) Prime Minister ? He Believes quite > literally in NOTHING I'm no keener on Blair than Conrad is, but I don't think that the idea that Blair "believes in nothing" (or the common allegation that he is "rootless") helps. Certainly, Blair is a careerist, who has in the past jumped through the hoops expected of Labour MPs when the left was apower in the party, such as his opportunistic membership of CND. (Even here he doesn't go quite so far as his unpleasant subordinate Joan Ruddock, who was chair of CND for several years, and has now airbrushed this aberration out of her potted ministerial biography!) However, I think that Blair does believe the bullshit that he now spouts. He does actually believe that it makes sense to give the job of moving people from welfare to work to a bastard who as boss of Barclay's bank sent several thousand clerks in the other direction, and to give the same man an unelected seat in Parliament as a member of the House of Lords. He does believe that the poor are feckless and should pull themselves up by their bootstraps. (I write as a middle aged bloke, unemployed except for a few hours teaching here, and vconfess to being totally devoid of feck.) Above all, Blair believes in the right of Anthony Blair, Ll.B. and otehrs like him to pursue a career, within the present system. There are some interesting glimpses of Blair at work in John Pilger's latest book, which I began reading yesterday. I've only met Blair once, and was NOT impressed. Alan Harrison From shawna@portal.ca Thu May 7 00:23:58 1998 Date: Wed, 6 May 1998 22:47:30 -0800 To: shawna@portal.ca From: Radical Women Subject: Memorial celebration for feminist Clara Fraser N E W S A N D C A L E N D A R R E L E A S E 6 M A Y 1998 FROM Radical Women Rebel Centre 2278 East 24th Avenue Vancouver, BC V5N 2V2 CONTACT Shawna Hellenius, Radical Women Telephone 604 874-9041, Fax 604 874-9058 FOR RELEASE Immediately DO NOT USE AFTER 17 May 1998 RE Memorial celebration for feminist Clara Fraser MEMORIAL MEETING PLANNED FOR IRREPRESSIBLE FEMINIST CLARA FRASER A public meeting celebrating the life of Clara Fraser, author, labour, civil rights agitator and a leader of the women's movement will be held Sunday, May 17. She died in Seattle on February 24 of emphysema. Fraser reshaped North American politics through her pioneering work which connect feminism, socialism, ethnic, lesbian/gay and labour struggles. Long before diversity and multiculturalism were catch words, Fraser advocated the interconnected nature of various forms of oppression and the pivotal leadership role of women of colour in all the social movements. She co-authored Revolutionary Integration, a groundbreaking analysis of the Black freedom struggle. Fraser taught socialist economics courses in Vancouver in the late '50s and early '60s at the behest of League for Socialist Action organizer and NDP activist Ruth Bullock. Fraser and Bullock's ardent defense of women's rights during this period helped set the stage for the mass feminist movement which followed. "Clara imparted a simple message that real equality for the masses of women under the private profit system is an impossibility. We have to work for women's liberation and for fundamental social change at the same time. She was an inspiring role model for the kind of gutsy, tenacious woman out to achieve both," says Vancouver youth activist Shawna Hellenius, of Radical Women an organization Fraser co-founded. Raised in East Los Angeles by Jewish immigrant parents, she studied literature and education at UCLA. She worked briefly as a screen writer, then joined the Socialist Workers Party (SWP). In 1946, Fraser moved to Seattle to help build its branch there. A leader in the 1948 Boeing strike, she pressured the union to represent women and minorities. When the strike was broken, Fraser was blacklisted and hounded from job to job by the FBI. In 1965, Fraser helped lead the Seattle branch of the SWP in an exodus from the national organization, founding the Freedom Socialist Party (FSP). In 1967, she and her friend Gloria Martin co-founded Radical Women (RW) to teach a new generation of young women leadership skills, theoretical know-how, and workingclass consciousness. For three decades she shepherded Radical Women and the party as they grew from small, local groups into international organizations with affiliates in Canada and Australia. "When FSP and RW first took root in Vancouver in the early '90s, Clara was at our side sharing her enormous insights into Canada's unique conditions, wisdom she had acquired during her rich collaboration with Ruth Bullock. Her affinity, humour and guidance were crucial to our development," recalls Marcel Hatch, Vancouver FSP organizer. South of the border, Fraser is best known as the woman who beat Seattle City Light in a 7-year-long sex and political discrimination case. The utility fired her in retaliation for her leading role in a massive 11-day wildcat strike and her defense of a first-of-its-kind program she designed to bring women into the electrical trades. Among her many other achievements, she helped write Washington state's first divorce-reform bill, led the state's first abortion rights rally, fought on behalf of tribal fishing rights, protested apartheid in South Africa, campaigned for childcare and defended the Black Panther Party. A popularizer of socialist ideas, Fraser wrote a regular column for the Freedom Socialist newspaper. These witty, analytical and optimistic columns, along with numerous never-before-published speeches, are collected in her new book Revolution, She Wrote. Politically active to her final day, Fraser died peacefully at home after a long struggle with emphysema. She is survived by her sons, Marc Krasnowsky and Jon Fraser, daughter-in-law Moira Ferguson, sister and brother-in-law Flory and Bennie Adler, three grandchildren, four nieces and nephews, their spouses and children. The memorial begins at 2:00pm on Sunday 17 May at Rebel Centre, 2278 East 24th Avenue, Vancouver (one block west of Nanaimo SkyTrain station). Colleagues and community activists will honour her through poetry, music and reminiscences, followed by a meal of her favourite foods. All are welcome. Remembrances may be sent to Red Letter Press for the Clara Fraser Memorial Publications Fund at Rebel Centre. For more information or childcare call 604 874-9041. # # # More information on Clara Fraser's life can be found at: http://www.socialism.com/Clarasmemorial.html R A D I C A L W O M E N Rebel Centre, 2278 E 24 Ave, Vancouver, BC V5N 2V2 Tel 604 874.9041, Fax 604 874.9058, Email shawna@portal.ca From YLPSLL0@cpua.it.luc.edu Thu May 7 08:02:35 1998 Date: Thu, 07 May 98 09:02 CDT From: YLPSLL0@cpua.it.luc.edu To: psn@CSF.COLORADO.EDU Subject: Apres pomo le feudal I was surprised how many commented on my blurb on holographic leaders like Clinton, and as some of British colleagues note, Blair. We could add many others tothe list such as Cardoso, a sociologist by training who went into the holosuites a Marxist dependency theorists and came out a free market sycophant. (I suspect an alien force got into the computer circuits to rearrange neural circuits and erase some-that force is in the service of the U of C's econ dept.) Between Postman's Amusing ourself to Death, Edelman's Political Spectacl and a recent paper by Gottdiener on the pomo president, an important trend is evident. If we take seriously Jamison and Harvey, and can see pomo not as very good theory (rehash of Nietzsche, labelling theory and contructivism-most old wine that is still intoxicating), but rather pomo describes the nature of current culture-due in large part to the now world domination of capitalist mass media that includes the net. The basic point is that feel good simulation, whether theme parks, restuarants or political candidates, interchangeable momenst of a con- umerism that is now total and totalizing (yes, I am a Frankfurter), fosters the gratification of colonized desires in the consumption of fungible experiences from Disneyland and Los Vegas-family fun, to Rainforest, Hard Rock, Planet Hollywood-food fun, and Clinton, Blair Cardoso-electoral fun. (I will soon post a thing I did on Sex, Lies and audiotapes) The question is what comes next. Many folks, myself included, have seen an emergent neo-localism, a withdrawal from concerns with the larger world. We might note the declining participation in voting, and the up coming California elections seem to draw little attention. Now if we note how the new globalized political economy is creating a new class of superich elites-like the folks that will profit from the Chrysler Daimler Benz merger, and a neo peasant class. (Hey, this follows Robert Reich-hardly the fanatic leftie). Now when we add the carnival- ization of the world through media and consumption, the decline of reason, growing violence in everday life what does this sound like. Hey back to your Western History, this is like feudal society. Now if we add Elias to the mix, we can see that we are now witnessing a decivil- izing process that encourages the growth of what I call cyberfeudalism. So when my students-who love pomo fluff- ask what comes next, I tell them, a new feudalism, the one feared by Jefferson, Toqueville and Weber Enjoy cyberspace, Lauren From smrose@exis.net Thu May 7 08:32:09 1998 From: "Steve Rosenthal" To: PSN@CSF.COLORADO.EDU Date: Thu, 7 May 1998 10:29:31 +0000 Subject: Po-Mo Prez? Several PSN'ers have commented on the article by Amy Douglas in the current (May 18) issue of The Nation "Our Medium-in-Chief," which analyzes Bill Clinton as "our first postmodern President." Because this article has a more specific focus than most po-mo writing, it offers a particularly good opportunity to demonstrate that po-mo sociological analysis is wrong. Douglas's specific aim is to interpret the significance of the "Clinton scandals." She says that Clinton is a "hyperfake," whose personality type perfectly suits the radically transformed media as interpreted by Baudrillard. Television is the post-modern medium, having replaced the earlier dominant forms of the press, movies, and radio. " Sibling rivalry has always been the law of media development." Thus, competition between older "real fake" media and the computer generated "hyperfake" media drives the ever-expanding coverage of scandal-mongering and explains the division between the Bill Clinton and Kenneth Starr forces. Scandal also distracts the nation from any critical post-Cold War self-examination. This technological determinist interpretation, seasoned with just a pinch of criticism of capitalism, is offered up in characteristic po-mo fashion, that is, without any supporting evidence. If we actually investigate the persistent and sharp conflicts within the U.S. ruling class, we can actually discover diverse and shifting material and interests that are expressed in these political and cultural battles. We are not merely witnessing a fixed and choreographed professional wrestling match, a po-mo version of "bread and circuses." We are seeing capitalist bosses battling for survival in a global crisis of overproduction that affects different sectors of the U.S. capitalist class in different ways. Battles for domination of telecommunications, banking and finance, aerospace, and auto are symptoms of this crisis. The confrontation between Bill Gates and the U.S. Government is a good example of Old Money seeking to bring New Money into the fold. NY Times columnist Thomas Friedman explained what this is about. He pointed out that Microsoft and Silicon Valley as a whole depend upon the state to maintain the global U.S. empire, in order to have access to cheap labor, raw materials, and markets. So Gates should wise up and stop supporting anti-Old Money forces, if he realizes what's good for him. This is not a battle over "real fake" versus "hyperfake," nor is it a fight over the question of monopoly, which neither side opposes. When bosses and politicians engage in anti-trust battles, they are fighting over who will come out on top. Early in this century, J.P. Morgan financed Teddy Roosevelt's third party anti-trust campaign as a weapon against his main rival, John D. Rockefeller. The main thrust of all po-mo analysis is to reject Marxism as no longer applicable to a new post-modern age. Marxism provides us with the best tools for analyzing the divisions within the capitalist classes of the world. Without this analysis, we not only won't be able to figure out what is going on; we are also more likely to get sucked into supporting one camp or the other in these battles, as The Nation always does (i.e., Wellstone). The unstated but implicit premise of Douglas' article is that the working class is mesmerized by media manipulation (a la Marcuse's "one-dimensional man" and Orwell's 1984). For this insight I am particularly indebted to my friend Morton Wenger's article of po-mo in "Critical Sociology." Workers are influenced by the "ruling ideas" of the ruling class, but they generally see the world much more clearly than post-modernists ever will. Steve Rosenthal From LLang944@aol.com Thu May 7 08:14:09 1998 From: LLang944 Date: Thu, 7 May 1998 10:13:49 EDT To: PSN@Csf.Colorado.edu Subject: More pomo presidency As noted in earlier post, I did a piece that might be of interest, Martha said I should post it...this seems like a good time. LL AS WASHINGTON TURNS The amorous exploits of presidents goes back to the very earliest days of our republic. As many have recently noted, the extramarital lives of political leaders in Europe or Asia raise few eyebrows or concerns. Why is America once again "exceptional"? A few years ago Disney replaced USX, formerly US Steel on the Dow Jones index of leading indicators. In a bizarre way this was one of those culture markers that led to the lurid tales of presidential sex, lies and audiotapes. How might these events be related. In the earlier part of our century, as industries like steel, autos and meatpacking flourished in the growing cities, we can also trace the origins of our contemporary consumer culture as providing profitable diversions from the conditions of urban industrial production and management. With the growth of radio and advertizing, as well as talking movies, part and parcel of that consumer culture was mass mediate entertainment. But by 1960's, with greater affluence and the proliferation of television, the entertainment culture of infinite amusement became wide spread. This began to affect politics, perhaps one of the telling moments of this transformation was the now famous Kennedy-Nixon debates in which viewers thought JFK was the winner and listeners thought Nixon the winner. The effect of television on electoral politics has radically transformed the nature of political parties, campaigns, financing etc. But the important sub text of telepolitics has been the transformation of elections into marketing and politics into entertainment. As has been often noted, in general, the taller, more attractive, more telegenic candidate, he or she who is more entertaining-read telecharismatic, has an advantage of a few percentage points in the elections. Ever since the earliest days of television, there has been an inherent conflict between its need to maximize audiences for its sponsors and legacies of Puritanism that would limit erotic content. The Puritans were thrown out of every European country until eventually they found a home-in the English colonies. Three hundred and some year later, puritanical values of self control and restrictions, if not the denial of sexuality endure live and well. Despite the reality that few people today remain virgins past their teens, and many are unfaithful at some point in their marriages, it is evident that the spirit of Puritanism endures. The concerns with V-chips to block adult internet sites, ratings for movies and rarity of nudity on American television are good examples of the persistance of puritanical values. The debates over abortion are reality more concerned with the sexuality of the woman than a concern with the fetus. Consider the controversies over the nature of sex education and availability of contraception in the high schools. As has been noted, most Europeans find it odd that such issues and debates are still debated. While on the one hand the restrictive values of an earlier time endure, mass media has and continues to push the limits of toleration. As America has become an amusement society with an entertainment culture and the producers of entertainment seek to expand their shares of the market, we see that sex sells and scandalous sex sells even more. Thus we see that in the last 30 some years, what was once shocking and outrageous has become quite ho hum and ordinary. Playboy that once seemed to cross the limit seems innocuous compared to to XXXX movies and the many sites of live cyberborn that have become a multi billion dollar business. Television, a medium that is typically watched in private has progressively exposed more of the private realms of scandalous sex. From the days of Dallas, Dynasty and Knots Landing to the first talks shows of Donahue and Oprah, to the sexposes, the lurid soaps and bare butts of today, scandalous, titilating sex/violence (Springer) brings audiences, market share and profits. This brings us to the current tabloid phase of our entertainment culture. As some commentators have noted, many presidents have been less than faithful to their wives. But their privacy was respected. At the time, some journalists knew about the relationships of FDR, Eisenhauer, Kennedy and Johnson but there were unwritten rules of toleration. But as scandalous sex became a marketable commodity in an entertainment culture, the rights to a private life, sexually or otherwise, have waned. The OJ trial, with all its sexual overtones including Nicole's oral sex and a possible dalliance between Clark and Darden held the television viewers enthralled for months. The wide interest in Di came from the concerns of what Di did and with whom she did it. Thus millions watch the talks shows, Springer is now extraordinarily popular and the tabloid presses sell many millions of papers every week. But the respectable presses and news organizations such as the NYT, Newsweek and ABC, part and parcel of contemporary entertainment culture have themselves become major players in the discovery an reporting of scandalous sex. While I have no competance in disentangling the legal issues, nor any special insights into the details of the current episode of As Washington Turns, as the next presidential race begins, parts of the case will fall apart and interest in the story will wane. A new story will capture our attention for a while and then another sexual scandal will be in the news. Janet Reno may be seen entering a motel with her Martian lover. "Laissez le bon temps roullez" ! From aaustin@utkux.utcc.utk.edu Thu May 7 08:50:18 1998 Date: Thu, 7 May 1998 10:50:09 -0400 (EDT) From: Andrew Wayne Austin To: Steve Rosenthal Subject: Re: Po-Mo Prez? In-Reply-To: <199805071432.KAA05514@marlin.exis.net> Steve, I appreciated your observations. The problem with postmodernism is that it presupposes modernism, itself an ideal construction. By supplanting a description and explanation of reality that uses material categories (such as capital) with a vague and ideal construction about cultural spirit (modernity), post-modernists leave the impression of a post-capitalist world when they assume a post-modern one. Their view is myopic, taking their middle-class lives, deindustrialized and convenient, as the world most people live in. This is the same for notions of post-industrial society. Post-industrial for who? Post-modernists presuppose the very thing they are in reaction to - the grand narrative of modernity. Their existence is dependent on the tacit acceptance of an objective thing they claim was never real. Andy From davidf1@concentric.net Thu May 7 10:37:21 1998 by darius.concentric.net (8.8.8/(98/04/23 5.10)) [1-800-745-2747 The Concentric Network] by newman.concentric.net (8.8.8) id MAA04570; Thu, 7 May 1998 12:37:10 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 07 May 1998 11:32:16 -0500 To: psn@csf.colorado.edu From: David Fasenfest Subject: Mother's Day Mother's Day was not originally conceived as a consumer gimmick. It began in 1870 as a rallying cry for mothers who lost husbands and sons in the U.S. Civil War, and as a renunciation of war, militarism, and patriarchy. Here is the Mother's Day Proclamation, penned in Boston by Julia Ward Howe, a Unitarian, in 1870: ------------- Proclamation for Mother's Day ***************************** Arise, then, women of this day! Arise all women who have hearts, whether our baptism be that of water or of fears! Say firmly: "We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies. Our husbands shall not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We women of one country will be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs." From the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with our own. It says "Disarm, Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice." Blood does not wipe our dishonor nor violence indicate possession. As men have often forsaken the plow and the anvil at the summons of war, let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel. Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead. Let them then solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace, each bearing after their own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar, but of God- In the name of womanhood and of humanity, I earnestly ask that a general congress of women without limit of nationality may be appointed and held at some place deemed most convenient and at the earliest period consistent with its objects, to promote the alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement of international questions, the great and general interests of peace. Julia Ward Howe Boston 1870 Professor David Fasenfest, Director Center for Urban Studies College of Urban, Labor and Metropolitan Affairs Wayne State University 313.577.2208 313.577.1472 (fax) From rross@clarku.edu Thu May 7 11:54:01 1998 Date: Thu, 07 May 1998 13:52:38 -0400 From: "Robert J.S. Bob Ross" Subject: [Fwd: Studentship] To: Patty Ewick , Debbie Merrill , Eric Gordy , Shelly Tenenbaum , Bruce London , Robert Ross , Progressive Sociology Network This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --------------D8C7554464D62B1CDD049452 -- 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 --------------D8C7554464D62B1CDD049452 Return-path: Date: Thu, 07 May 1998 15:35:39 +0100 From: "C.G.Pickvance" Subject: Studentship Sender: owner-comurb_r21@email.rutgers.edu To: comurb_r21@email.rutgers.edu Delivered-to: comurb_r21-og@email.rutgers.edu X-attachments: C:\EUDORA\DEPTSTUD.DOC; --=====================_894580367==_ Please could you draw the enclosed information to the attention of any suitable candidate. The studentship can be used in support of degrees in Social Policy or Urban Studies.It covers fees at the home student rate (includes EU). Top up awards can be applied for by students outside the EU. (N.B.If you hold a good second class degree - or equivalent - rather than a first class degree it is still worth applying.)=20 UNIVERSITY OF KENT AT CANTERBURY=20 SOCIAL AND PUBLIC POLICY GRADUATE STUDENTSHIP 1998 Applications are invited for two Graduate Studentships in the Department, tenable for three years from October 1998, linked to registration for a MPhil/PhD degree. Candidates will be selected on the basis of academic excellence and will be expected to hold a first class honours degree in a relevant social science subject. The studentship will cover tuition fees at the home rate and offer a maintenance grant of =A35,500 per year. The successful candidate will be expected to undertake teaching for a maximum of two hours per weeks during term time. The Department is one of the leading centres for social and public policy research in the country. It has achieved the highest rating in each of the three Research Assessment Exercises carried out by the Universities=92= Funding Body. The Department is particularly keen to receive applications from students with interests in the following areas: * Development and impact of the * Social, community and family=09 =91new public management=92 based case * Employment issues in east and * Social policy in Europe=09 central Europe. * Social policy theory * Family finances * Social security and poverty * Health policy, provision and * The politics of Social policy=09 management * Urban and environmental issues * Homelessness and housing policy (including in the Third World) * Museums, arts and cultural policy * Violence against women * Social Attitudes and Social policy * Vocational training policy and apprenticeships Application forms are available from the address below. Candidates should complete an application form and include with their application a research proposal and a covering letter indicating why they would like to study at Kent. More information about the Department can be obtained from the Departmental and University Graduate Prospectus and from the Department=92s web page: http://www.ukc.ac.uk/DSPP/ Please return completed applications to the address below before the closing date of May 31st 1998. Denyse Menne, Social and Public Policy University of Kent at Canterbury, Department of Social and Public Policy, Darwin College, Canterbury, CT2 7NY --=====================_894580367==_ x-mac-type="42494E41"; x-mac-creator="4D535744" 0M8R4KGxGuEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAPgADAP7/CQAGAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABAAAAAgAAAAAAAAAA EAAADQAAAAEAAAD+////AAAAAAMAAAD///////////////////////////////////////////// //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////9S 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12:22:28 1998 Date: Thu, 7 May 1998 13:22:22 -0500 (CDT) From: Dennis Grammenos To: psn@csf.colorado.edu Subject: AP: Judgment Day in Colombia Town ================================== In January, more than 50 residents of Puerto Alvira sent a letter to the federal human rights office asking for protection from a paramilitary attack they felt was imminent. Help never came. ____________________ ================================== ASSOCIATED PRESS Thursday, 7 May 1998 Judgment Day in Colombia Town ----------------------------- BY VIVIAN SEQUERA PUERTO ALVIRA, Colombia -- The village priest knows who must have sent the gunmen that afternoon, the gunmen who worked from lists and checked their watches as they stabbed, shot and burned: The devil. ''When I went to bed that night, I asked God that every punishment might befall those people for what they did, for this wickedness,'' the Rev. Ernesto Diaz recounted Wednesday, two days after about 200 fatigue-wearing paramilitary fighters systematically slaughtered 20 village men and a 6-year-old girl in Puerto Alvira. ''Who are these people? They're unhinged beings sent by the devil to destroy. They're animals,'' Diaz cursed. On Wednesday, the priest was one of only a few villagers willing even to make eye contact with a reporter asking questions about Monday's carnage in Puerto Alvira, a village town 180 miles southeast of Bogota and a gateway into rebel territory. The gunmen arrived in a five-truck convoy at 1 p.m., firing automatic weapons in the air. Diaz first saw them through a rectory window and realized: The fearful rumors circulating since July were coming true. His home - a town whose 2,000 people have little livelihood beyond rebel-controlled coca production was going to be made an example of by Colombia's paramilitary armies. ''They came in shooting, shouting, pulling everyone out of their houses,'' Diaz, the lone authority in a town without a mayor or police, told The Associated Press. ''You could hear screams, sobbing. They shot those who tried to run away and they told others to run, then shot them in the back.'' Fanning himself with a cap in the intense heat of Colombia's eastern plains, the priest chronicled 2 1/2 hours of terror, describing how the gunmen didn't just kill, but tortured, those they singled out from their list of alleged rebels sympathizers. Some villagers were stabbed in the throat and choked on their own blood. A shot to the head finished them. Others, gravely wounded but still alive, were doused with gasoline and set ablaze. The unwanted visitors also looted, loading television sets, VCRs, jewelry, cash, the parish motorcycle and bicycles in their trucks. They burned homes and businesses, blew a crater in the middle of the town airstrip and destroyed the gas station that mostly serviced boats on the Guaviare River. The gunmen were constantly checking their watches, he said. ''Thank God they spent so much time looting. That gave them less time to murder,'' Diaz said. No one among the dead they left behind, when they finally did leave, were rebel sympathizers, Diaz said: ''Those who were had left town.'' Landowner-backed paramilitary units from Colombia's north opened a beachhead in July in this traditional rebel stronghold, where the rebels extort ''taxes'' from the coca industry. That time, they flew into a military-controlled airport in chartered planes and slaughtered about 30 people in the nearby town of Mapiripan. On Wednesday, the paramilitaries sent a statement to a Bogota radio network accusing President Ernesto Samper's government of overzealousness in peace overtures toward the rebels and announcing an offensive against ''narco-bandits'' in this jungle region. Diaz was angry with the same government. But not because its military has shown neither the will nor the ability to counter the growing rebel threat. In January, more than 50 residents of Puerto Alvira sent a letter to the federal human rights office asking for protection from a paramilitary attack they felt was imminent. Help never came. ''No one cares about us,'' said Cesar Chavez, a 60-year-old farmer who had been forced off the road by one of the paramilitary trucks on Monday while bicycling into town. When he arrived, columns of black smoke were rising skyward and the raiders were gone. Before departing, the gunmen told residents they had eight days to leave or be killed. But only a handful have left. ''I didn't do anything. If they kill me, they kill me. But I'm not going,'' said Chavez, who said he used to grow coca, the plant that produces cocaine, but now raises cattle. Some people had packed up their belongings and were hoping planes would arrive to pick them up. But the only planes that landed brought journalists, Red Cross workers, 20 soldiers and a team of judicial investigators. On Tuesday, four guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia showed up for a brief look, then disappeared before the soldiers arrived. Samper deplored the massacre, but not even a minor government official arrived to show concern. ''I don't know what's happening in this country,'' lamented Chavez. ''It's as if it was asleep.'' Copyright 1998 Associated Press ________________________________________________________________________ *********************************************************************** * 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 CSN's website http://www.igc.org/csn Read COLOMBIA BULLETIN * * For free copy and info contact CSN, P.O. Box 1505, Madison WI 53701 * * or call (608) 257-8753 fax: (608) 255-6621 Email: csn@igc.apc.org * *********************************************************************** From brook@california.com Thu May 7 17:28:34 1998 Date: Thu, 7 May 1998 16:25:02 -0700 (PDT) To: flatta@ceb.ucop.edu, theperegri@aol.com, rice@dpls.dacc.wisc.edu, DLEVINE@BPL.ORG, s-frum@nwu.edu, econdevl@intrnet.net, mjkinnuc@umich.edu, browning@sfsu.edu, rross@jack.clarku.edu, shomer@pacbell.net, amharrington@ucdavis.edu From: CyberBrook Subject: San Francisco is an MAI Free Zone! >From: Julietbeck >Date: Thu, 7 May 1998 18:11:07 EDT >To: brook@california.com, 50-years@igc.org >Subject: San Francisco is an MAI Free Zone! > >Please post to your listserves > >On Monday, April 20, 1998, the campaign against the MAI and corporate >globalization scored a big victory when the San Francisco Board of Supervisors >voted unanimously to approve a resolution to oppose the MAI and "similar >international agreements that could restrict San Francisco's ability to >regulate within its jurisdiction, decide how to spend its procurement funds >and support local economic development." > >With this resolution, which was drafted in part by the city attorney's office, >San Francisco has taken a hard line not only against the MAI but also future >economic pacts that give more powers to international investors while >attempting to tie the hands of local government to regulate them. This >proactive stance sends free-traders and the White House a much needed reality >check: what's good for multinational corporations is not necessarily what's >best for our communities, working people, the environment and human rights. > >We have not only staked out San Francisco as an MAI-free zone, but in thinking >globally and acting locally, have reclaimed some of the power being lost to >the corporations driving the global economy, and now you can too! > >Getting a resolution passed is fun and meaningful. It is about educating >decision makers, the media and the public about the real corporate agenda >behind these undemocratic agreements like the MAI. If every city, county and >state followed suit - we could redefine the terms of the globalization debate >by truly returning economic-decision making to the local realm, a place where >values and people matter. This is grassroots democracy at work, folks! >Globalization from the bottom up! > >Below I have included the following: >- an account of how the MAI resolution was passed >- a sample press release >- a San Francisco Chronicle article illustrating local impacts >- a copy of the SF resolution, which you can use as a model > >Please contact me if you are considering this process and would like a more >detailed "how to pass a resolution" emailed to you. I'd be happy to answer >any questions, and provide hard copies of these materials and any additional >info and advice. Good luck and have fun! > >Juliette Beck, julietbeck@aol.com 415 986-3585, ext. 231. >Coordinator of the California Fair Trade Campaign > >So how did we do it? > >A small, dedicated group followed the tenets of effective organizing: >educate, advocate and activate. > >The resolution process got started when two people marched down to the city >hall one day and started talking to staff members of the Board of Supervisors. >The key to getting the attention of the elected officials was doing homework >to determine the local laws and policies that would be threatened by the MAI. >Our initial co-sponsor, Supervisor Tom Ammiano, was so incensed that the MAI >would endanger San Francisco's selective purchasing ordinance against Burma >and a law requiring corporations to pay domestic partners equal benefits that >he introduced the resolution that very same day. Identifying the local >impacts makes the MAI hit home. > >Once the resolution was introduced, we started a broader education process and >sent out a press release, followed up with calls to the media to explain what >this treaty was about, and reached out to other groups- including small >business owners- to enlist their support in getting the resolution passed. > >One of the most important things we did was to focus on educating the city >attorney's office. City lawyers attended our public forum, we talked on the >phone, and followed up by sending a big packet of information to them. A city >attorney provided the testimony at a committee meeting that was quoted >extensively by the media (see article below) and helped rewrite the resolution >to cite the particularly harmful MAI provisions and any future economic >agreements that contains these elements, which is what makes this resolution >so far-reaching. > >At the third meeting of our MAI task force held a week before the vote, only a >few people showed up. But these four people helped generate enough pressure >(phone calls from constituents, letters/faxes, visits) that all of the Board >of Supervisors voted in favor of the resolution. By Friday before the vote, >we had nailed down enough co-sponsors to ensure passage. > >On the day it passed, we held a press conference with people holding 'Make San >Francisco a MAI Free Zone' and 'MAI will Handcuff Democracy' signs and >stickers. Some of our local coalition partners - Victor Menotti from the >International Forum on Globalization, Henry Holmes of Sustainable Alternatives >to the Global Economy, and representatives from Global Exchange, Alliance for >Democracy, Sierra Club, SF Labor Council and other labor unions, and San >Franciscans for Tax Justice were all there to voice support. We didn't have >much press, but later on inside the city chambers, we spoke with the press and >helped them craft their stories. > >During the supervisors' meeting, the vote took place with no debate. >Supervisor Ammiano thanked the local coalition for bringing this important >issue to bare and then one by one, all of the others chimed in their support >for the resolution. The unanimous vote signifies that even the most pro- >business elected officials realized that the MAI and the trend of giving >international investors more "rights without responsibilities" could hamper >local economic development. > >All in all, this was a tremendously rewarding endeavor in grassroots democracy >and moved our city one more step along the path of economic justice! > >Sample Press Release > >California Fair Trade Campaign >417 Montgomery St, Ste 300, San Francisco, CA 94104 (415) 986-3585x231 FAX >(415) 392-8505 > >FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE >APRIL 20, 1998 > >S.F. Supervisors Vote Against International Investment Pact >MAI is a threat to local government, local businesses > >San Francisco - On Monday, April 20, 1998 the San Francisco Board of >Supervisors voted unanimously on a resolution to oppose a far-reaching new >economic pact, the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI). > >An increasing number of public officials and citizens' groups oppose the MAI >because it will limit lawmakers' ability to design economic development >policies that favor local, small, or minority owned businesses, while granting >foreign investors new powers to challenge domestic laws and sue for damages in >international tribunals. > >A recent San Francisco Chronicle article stated, "If it (the MAI) became law >in the United States, the treaty would bind local, state and federal >governments to treat foreign investors the same as domestic companies. That >means foreigners could challenge a whole host of San Francisco laws," (Page >A22, Friday, April 10, 1998). > >For example, a new S.F. ordinance requiring uniforms used by city employees to >be purchased from local garment manufacturers would be illegal under the MAI. > >"The MAI would effectively outlaw policies that protect local businesses, >workers, human rights, the environment, and regulate foreign corporations >operating in our communities. Under the MAI, local governments' ability to >ensure corporate accountability is severely handcuffed," said Supervisor Tom >Ammiano. The vote signifies a growing resistance to global economic policies >that grant more rights to multinational corporations without enforceable >social and environmental standards and respect for local autonomy. > > Juliette Beck, coordinator of the California Fair Trade Campaign, helped >galvanize support for the anti-MAI resolution as part of a nationwide, >grassroots effort to inform the public and decision makers about the >undemocratic nature of the proposed treaty. "The MAI-- an agreement written >by and for multinational corporations- is clearly at odds with local economic >development policies. Cities and counties everywhere, like San Francisco, >should become 'MAI-free zones,'" she said. > >The U.S. and 28 industrialized countries are currently negotiating the MAI at >the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris, >France. The deadline for completing the MAI has been set for April 27 and >28, the date of the OECD's annual meeting, but with growing political >opposition, the outcome of the April meeting is uncertain. > >More information on the MAI can be found at the following web sites: >www.citizen.org; www.rtk.net/preamble; >www.westgov.org/wga/publicat/maiweb.htm >www.appletonlaw.com/MAI/MAI-municipal.htm >### > >Trade Treaty Opposed by S.F. Supervisors Panel >Edward Epstein, Chronicle Staff Writer > >Friday, April 10, 1998 > >c1998 San Francisco Chronicle > >A San Francisco supervisors committee voted yesterday to weigh in against a >proposed international treaty that critics say would sweep away a host of >local laws on the environment, labor and contracting and hiring preferences >for city residents. > >The Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) is being negotiated by 29 >members of the Paris- based Organization for Economic Cooperation and >Development, a group of the world's wealthiest countries that includes the >United States. > >Treaty proponents say it would eliminate a host of barriers to trade and >investment that hinder economic growth. > >But critics call it ``NAFTA on steroids'' and are scrambling to get its terms >changed before the treaty is presented to the U.S. Senate for ratification. >They are trying to get cities like San Francisco to express their concern >about the treaty and try to get it changed. > >``I found a lot to be alarmed by in the terms of the MAI,'' said > >Christiane Hayashi, a deputy city attorney who studied the draft treaty at the >request of Supervisor Tom Ammiano. > >If it became law in the United States, the treaty would bind local, state and >federal governments to treat foreign investors the same as domestic companies. >That means foreigners could challenge a host of San Francisco laws. > >These could include the city's domestic partners law, its program for giving >local small businesses preference in opening shops at the airport or its >ordinance suggesting the city not do business with companies that do business >in Burma. It could also doom Supervisor Mabel Teng's proposal to have all >uniforms of city workers made in the city. > >If a foreign company sued, San Francisco might not get to defend itself. Under >the draft treaty, cases could go directly to an arbitration panel in which the >federal government would represent the city. > >``So a company could claim that our domestic partners law impedes them doing >business here, and we could not defend ourselves?'' Ammiano asked. > >``If it's before the international tribunal, San Francisco's > >participation would be at the mercy of the State Department,'' Hayashi said. > >The United States has already said it plans to make numerous exceptions to the >treaty, including programs for helping minorities and some environmental >measures. > >The economic cooperation group says that is allowable. ``Nonconforming >measures can be maintained if specific reservations or exceptions are >lodged,'' a statement from the organization said. > >It also said the treaty is not aimed at doing away with current U.S. laws. >``Governments will remain free to regulate in most fields, provided the >nondiscrimination rule (for foreign investors) is respected,'' the statement >read. > >But Ammiano wasn't buying it. ``The MAI is pernicious to any local >sovereignty,'' he said. > >c1998 San Francisco Chronicle Page A22 > > >SF ANTI MAI RESOLUTION >Below is a copy of the San Francisco anti-MAI resolution. > >EXPRESSING SAN FRANCISCO'S OPPOSITION TO PROVISIONS OF THE DRAFT MULTILATERAL >AGREEMENT ON INVESTMENT OR SIMILAR INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENTS THAT COULD >RESTRICT SAN FRANCISCO'S ABILITY TO REGULATE WITHIN ITS JURISDICTION, DECIDE >HOW TO SPEND ITS PROCUREMENT FUNDS AND SUPPORT LOCAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT. > >WHEREAS, The United States government, through the Organization for Economic >Development (OECD) has been participating in the negotiation of the >Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI); and > >WHEREAS, The Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution allows public >entities to place restrictions on the use of public funds when the public >entity is acting as a market participant; and > >WHEREAS, San Francisco has utilized the "market participant exception" to >the Commerce Clause in enacting the Burma and Equal Benefits ordinances in >order to condition receipt of public procurement dollars on compliance with >local, federal and international human rights laws; and > >WHEREAS, The "Expropriation" and "General Treatment" provisions of the MAI >draft text could prohibit public entities from conditioning the receipt of >public funds on compliance with human rights laws or other criteria >reflecting community values; and > >WHEREAS, The MAI, if adopted in its current form, could restrict the >ability of state, county and city governments to condition new major >investments within their jurisdictions from performance requirements, such >as local hiring requirements and requirements to support local economic >development; and > >WHEREAS, Government entities are currently allowed to regulate within their >jurisdiction, without causing a compensable taking of private property, to >the extent specified under existing interpretations of the Fifth Amendment >of the US Constitution; and > >WHEREAS, The MAI, if adopted in its current form, could supersede existing >constitutional interpretations of a government's regulatory rights under >the Fifth Amendment and restrict new regulation by state and local >governments; and > >WHEREAS, The "National Treatment" provisions of the MAI draft text could >prohibit the use of domestic procurement preferences and subsidies and >other benefits to local businesses for the purpose of encouraging local >economic development; and > >WHEREAS, The "Most Favored Nation" provisions of the MAI draft text could >prohibit state and local governments from prohibiting contracts with >entities that violate international human rights, labor and environmental >laws; and > >WHEREAS, The MAI, if adopted in its current form, could bar Congress, state >legislatures, boards of supervisors and city councils from using trade >sanctions to punish nations for human rights violations or other violations >of international law; and > >WHEREAS, The MAI, if adopted in its current form, could create a dispute >resolution mechanism for investors against governments that is external to >the United States federal court system and could be unrestricted by >existing judicial interpretations of U.S. constitutional principles; now, >therefore, be it > >RESOLVED, That the Board of Supervisors of the City and County of San >Francisco hereby urges its state and federally elected officials and >lobbyists to actively protest any provision in the MAI draft text or >similar provision of any international agreement that would restrict San >Francisco's ability to regulate within its jurisdiction, decide how to use >its public procurement dollars, and extend benefits to encourage local >economic development in a manner consistent with the U.S. Constitution. > >SUPERVISOR AMMIANO >BOARD OF SUPERVISORS > > > > > From draperm@socio.unp.ac.za Fri May 8 06:50:25 1998 Date: Fri, 08 May 1998 14:44:27 +0200 From: Malcolm Draper To: psn@csf.colorado.edu, m.hoover@csu-e.csuohio.edu Subject: Marketing Marx to Sleeping Beauty Mathew Hoover forwarded BARBARA EHRENREICH's amusingly irreverent piece which said amongst other things that "As for the nation-state, it continues to do what it has done best since Carthage and Rome, which is not feeding the hungry or running the steel mills, but mustering the troops for war." That put me in mind of something in Ernest Gellner's latest and, some may be relieved to know, last book on "Nationalism". This was his favourite hobby horse which he rode to some interesting places in his life. He somewhat disarmingly observed a shared feature of nationalism and Marxism. Let me quote the offending passage from the chater titled "A short history of the world" and ask what you make of it. Who knows, this might make for a thread in the PSN tapestry a tad more colourful for us on the periphery than the characters of presidents of powerful nations or sociologists for that matter . . . . "Marxists maintain that conflict 'really' occurs between strata (classes), but though this occurs sometimes, in special circumstances (notably in partially commercialised city-states, whose brilliant literature has disproportionately influenced the European vision of history and so made it Marxism-prone), it is not GENERALLY true. Marxists could save the theory from the contrary facts only by having their own version of the dormission theory: where nationalists maintain that nations are asleep or somnolent, Marxists make the same claim on behalf of classes. Classes 'in themselves' need to become classes 'for themselves' before the ever latent conflict becomes manifest for those meant to be participating in it. Marxists, like nationalists, saw themselves primarily as Awakeners: they just had a different Sleeping Beauty. . . In fact, generally speaking, history is the story neither of of class nor of National conflict. Men throughout history have fought, loathed and killed each other without too much regard to race, ethnicity, creed or colour. They did not discriminate in murder or exploitation. . . . " From YLPSLL0@cpua.it.luc.edu Fri May 8 07:35:03 1998 Date: Fri, 08 May 98 08:34 CDT From: YLPSLL0@cpua.it.luc.edu To: psn@CSF.COLORADO.EDU Subject: Nationalism The questions of the Nation-State raised by Ehrenreich/Gellner raised by Draper are well worth considering. This is one of the things I work on-and could write reams. As those who know me/my work know, while a Marxist, as a Frankfurter, I tend to not be very orthodox. While nationalism may well serve bourgois goals, there are many cases where nationalism came niether from a bourgeois class nor really served their interests, Japan, Turkey, Finland or Greece for example. But I would argue that a la Gramci, nationalism serves the interest of the hegemonic class, it provides a world view, myth and vision of an invented or in Arnold's term, imaginary community. But further, insofar as for AG hegemony secures willing assent, nationalism as an ideology appeals to fundamental human motives (YES I am an essentialist who thinks people have needs for community/attachements, a sense of pride and dignity, a feeling of agency/empowerment, and a wish to allay anxiety. These are basic feelings that while culturally shaped, are not simply signifiers/simulations or hypereal. Nationalism secures hegemony for the ruling assholes, and almost all are by providing for these desires. Military parades are more inspiring than econ policies that feed the poor, or steel output. While there are humanistic nationalisms that valorize the uniqueness of a culture, Goethe/Beethoven Hugo/Bizet Jerry Springer/Beach Boys, more often nationalisms take reactionary forms eg Nazii Germany, Turkey Rwanda, Bosnia etc. The future....while the econ aspect of the Nation State wanes in face of globalization, as more workers get screwed, the nation-State not only does a good job making war, but keeping domestic peace. Or to paraphrase constittions, when folks wish to protest, then a national militia that bears arms shall be called out to dispel them. Hell I learned this as a grad student getting gassed in front of Hilton in the 68 protests. AS Hobsbawm put it, noone sympathetic to nationalism should study it. Lauren Langman From Dave.Byrne@durham.ac.uk Fri May 8 08:11:11 1998 Date: Fri, 8 May 1998 15:10:35 +0100 (BST) From: D S Byrne To: YLPSLL0@cpua.it.luc.edu Subject: Re: Nationalism In Europe (Western I mean - I have fallen into the habit of thinking of the European Union as Europe, which makes me jump when I realise it) at the moment what I think is particularly interesting is the substitution of regionalism for nationalism. On the whole I think this is a good thing because regions are constituted in terms of economic functionality and some form of civic republican identity. For example in Scotland there is no really serious prospect of the development of a fully fledged nation state with an independent aggressive capacity. Ireland, a region sized nation with a really bloody nationalist history (and considerable historical justification for it) has never really functioned as a military nation. It is only when ethnicity is compounded with regional nationalisms e.g. in the Basque country and former Yugoslavia, that the old style of nationalism emerges. Compare the bourgeois civic republicanism of Catalonia or the Irish Republic with that. However, there is a down side. Aggression for Western Nations is now a specialised task for specialized groups. There is no call for or need for mass armies. Regrettably one of the major bases of the extension of political and social rights in T.H. Marshall's sense, was the reality that the mass of citizenry (this included women in the UK in WWII) might be called to the colours. Citizen armies had to be fit to fight and were awkward buggers after wars if sold out. The actual origins of the UK, Australian and New Zealand welfare states (? Canada too ?) owe a lot to simple sustaining of the imperial muster rolls pre WWI when Churchill was simply one among many social imperialists. The generalization post WWII of much more extensive welfare depended on the collectivist political attitudes expressed with particular force by the young adults who had sustained the war effort. 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 sshank@iunhaw1.iun.indiana.edu Fri May 8 10:33:26 1998 From: "Stephanie Shanks-Meile" To: psn@csf.colorado.edu Date: Fri, 8 May 1998 10:36:51 CST Subject: And More Elitism in the ASA I sent this earlier with the wrong subject heading-- Sorry for the confusion!!!! Dear Fellow Progressives: I am writing in concern over recent actions that the ASA Executive Council has taken to eliminate a number of Standing Committees to include the one that I co-Chair on Hate/Bias Incidents 0n College Campuses. As the ASA re-organized itself, a number of committees representing minority interests were eliminated and given the choice to apply for Task Force status. This action further concentrates power within the ASA. One only had to look at this year's amendments on the ballot to notice the escalation of elitism and the process was terribly undemocratic. As far as I know, there is no mechanism to even protest the actions they took earlier in the year. At one point they were only giving the dissolved committees one month to write a proposal for Task Force status, but that was extended to September 15th after the committees meet in San Francisco. I just wanted to inform you of the actions taken by the ASA in attempt to stir up some dissent. Any ideas????????? For justice-- Stephanie Shanks-Meile Stephanie Shanks-Meile, Associate Professor of Sociology E-Mail Address: SSHANK@IUNHAW1.INDIANA.EDU Telephone: 219-980-6787 Stephanie Shanks-Meile, Associate Professor of Sociology E-Mail Address: SSHANK@IUNHAW1.INDIANA.EDU Telephone: 219-980-6787 From jsalt@alpha.utampa.edu Fri May 8 11:19:11 1998 Date: Fri, 08 May 1998 13:20:29 -0400 From: Jim Salt To: PROGRESSIVE SOCIOLOGISTS NETWORK Subject: Class, Race, & Gender Syllabi wanted Can anyone recommend books, forward a syllabus, or make other recommendations for a course entitled Class, Race, and Gender (previously entitled Social Inequality)? Thank you kindly. -- 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 smrose@exis.net Sun May 10 20:28:02 1998 From: "Steve Rosenthal" To: PSN@CSF.COLORADO.EDU Date: Sun, 10 May 1998 22:24:51 +0000 Subject: Nominated Books--Marxist Section Award I have now received nominations for the Marxist section book award from seven or eight people. Our committee will have quite a bit of work to do! In order to make this process feasible for the committee, I am asking everyone who nominated a book or books to arrange to have the publisher or author send copies of the book to members of the committee. Their names and addresses are: Manuel Moreno 3602 west Estates Lane, #211 Rolling Hills Estates, California 90274 Levon Chorbajian 79 Gray Street Billerica, MA 01821 Steven Rosenthal 1406 Bolling Ave. Norfolk, VA 23508 Because we have begun this process late, we should try to move forward quickly. Please try to get publishers or authors to get these books to the three committee members within the next 30 days, that is, by June 10. That will give us time to review the books, make a decision, notify authors, etc. Thanks very much for the many responses. We, of course, welcome further nominations, as long as we can get the books by June 10. I will post a list of nominated books and authors on PSN in a few days. Steve Rosenthal From draperm@socio.unp.ac.za Mon May 11 06:22:31 1998 Date: Mon, 11 May 1998 14:23:36 +0200 From: Malcolm Draper To: psn@csf.colorado.edu, msrggdjl@fs1.ec.man.ac.uk Subject: Re: Nationalism David Levy wrote that >As you reject the ideas of class and nationality >for the causation of war, what do you regard as the primary >factor(s)? >Perhaps human nature? >Perhaps the anarchical international system? Umm . . . well since I was only quoting and not endorsing Ernest Gellner I don't think I have to answer that. Gellner is now dead so can't. Fortunately Lauren Langman who has some ideas about hate and dying and killing for stangers could help. Davis Byrne's ideas on regionalism are interesting too. Here in South Africa a local newspaper ran an April fool's day story about Mandela buying Mozambique for consolidation with us. Many a true word is said in jest. We have a regional initiative with Swaziland and Mozambique -- I know I promised to stay away from Presidents, but Mandela's woman love is in Mozambique. Along with this, transfrontier superparks and game reserves are belong formed, softening and widening borders while transnational capital and population migration (legal and illegal) permeates them. We in South Africa have seen how a society can redefine itself symbolically and geographically in a short space of time and, like many Europeans, can appreciate the temporary nature of national formations, especiallly since ours were imposed by colonists and have been repected by the Organisation of African Unity for convenience sake. Romanticism, as Gellner contends in the chapter titled "Roots against reason", is a major force behind nationalism and provided it with its idiom and style. 'Rationality cannot, simply cannot, define the membership of exclusive clubs: feelings CAN.' It is romanticism's role in feeding conflict in my region, KwaZulu-Natal, that interests me. Enter my current research interest: John Aspinall a British billionaire who ran for Sir James Goldsmith's Eurosceptic Referendum Party which feared the loss of British sovereignty in the last British elections. Aspinall, according to Ian Player (the South African conservationist and global wilderness luminary), is *a man deeply devoted to the care and propagation of endangered species and a great admirer of the Zulu people. . . He has poured millions of pounds into his private zoos and his efforts to save the gorilla in central Africa.' Aspinall has also poured considerable sums into saving the Zulu ethnic nationalism of Buthelezi's Inkatha Freedom Party which has been threatened with political extinction by the more inclusive African nationalism of the congress tradition and conspired with the apartheid regime even in its death throws. Aspinall, a self-confessed romantic, has been a fan of Rider Haggard since his boyhood. As he puts it; *What choice do we have but the gateway to romance? What other paths but the paths of legend and mystery?' Thank goodness we have Donna Haraway who has provided us with astoundingly alternative paths along which to wander and marvel at the 'traffic between nature and culture'. From ncw@magi.com Mon May 11 09:49:49 1998 by mail.magi.com with smtp (Exim 1.80 #5) Date: Mon, 11 May 1998 11:50:08 -0400 From: Joanne Roulston To: cathy_winters@hc-sc.gc.ca, "Ward, Brian" , "Vandergraaf, Nick" , "Tsoukalas, Spyridoula" , jtrickey@travel-net.com, lwrothman@aol.com, MPrince@HSD.UVic.CA, rpopham@web.net, mmurray@front.net, "Moscovitch, Allan" , lmons@interlog.com, "Lero, Donna" , "Kyle, Irene" , "Kellerman, Maureen" , lcjohnso@fes.uwaterloo.ca, "Irwin, Sharon Hope" , "Irwin, Glenn" , "Coffin, Kathy" , "Friendly, Martha" , cfreiler@CPAG.com, Progressive sociologists , Health Promotion on the Internet Subject: Poverty Profile 1996 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CANADA MISSES THE MARK IN THE FIGHT AGAINST POVERTY Canada's child poverty rate hit a 17-year high in 1996 during the United Nations International Year for the Eradication of Poverty, the National Council of Welfare said in its latest Poverty Profile. "Five years after the 1990-1991 recession, it seemed reasonable to expect that poor people would share in the return to prosperity," the report said. "Instead, we found the poverty rate had inched up every year. In the depths of the recession, the rates were 14.6 percent in 1990 and 16 percent in 1991. By 1996, the poverty rate was up to 17.6 percent, and child poverty had reached a 17-year peak." Particularly disturbing were higher poverty rates for families headed by people under age 65. The 1996 poverty rate for all types of families of all ages was 14.8 percent. The poverty rate for married couples under 65 with children under 18 was 11.9 percent, and the rate for couples under 65 without children was 10.3 percent. At the same time, the rate for the other major group of non-elderly families, single-parent mothers under 65 with children under 18, had risen to 61.4 percent. Rising poverty rates among families meant rising poverty rates for children. The child poverty rate in 1996 rose to 20.9 percent, and the estimated number of poor children jumped to 1,481,000. One reason the plight of many poor Canadians has worsened is the meagre opportunities in the low-wage part of the economy. The number of "working poor" Canadians who get 50 percent or more of their total incomes from earnings has grown in recent years, but the ranks of the poor overall have grown even faster. The other emerging trend of great concern to the National Council of Welfare is the decline in the income support provided by government programs, especially welfare and unemployment insurance. For 30 years, the federal government shared the costs of welfare with the provinces and territories under the terms of the Canada Assistance Plan. On April 1, 1996, CAP was replaced by the Canada Health and Social Transfer. The federal government's support for welfare, social services, medicare and post-secondary education dropped from $29.7 billion in the 1995-1996 fiscal year to $26.9 billion in the 1996-1997 fiscal year. "Welfare, the program that supports the poorest of the poor, was particularly hard hit by the change," the report said. "Even before the cuts to transfer payments, many provincial and territorial governments reduced their welfare programs, often in concert with other deficit-reduction measures. As a result, the incomes of most welfare recipients in Canada were reduced, sometimes dramatically. Cuts to the eligibility requirements and the benefit rates of unemployment insurance also targeted people who were already down on their luck." The impact of these cuts on poor people was hard. The total incomes of the poorest 20 percent of Canadians dropped significantly from 1995, at the same time that the richest 20 percent got richer. Statistics Canada concluded that this occurred because of a combination of lower earnings, and the cuts to transfer payments from governments. Winning the war on poverty is not an unrealistic goal. Statistics Canada estimates that the cost of bringing all poor people out of poverty in 1996 would have been $17.8 billion. That's not an outrageous amount of money in a country where the federal, provincial and territorial governments spent $386 billion in 1996 and where the value of all the goods and services produced was $820 billion. "Even though we missed the mark for the International Year for the Eradication of Poverty, there is a second chance for the fight against poverty in Canada," said Armand Brun of Shediac, New Brunswick, the Council's vice-chairperson. In 1989, the House of Commons resolved unanimously to eliminate child poverty by 2000. "If we're going to take these commitments seriously, we have to see real progress on child and family poverty," said Mr. Brun. "It's unrealistic to think we can wipe out child poverty by 2000, but we have to turn the tide." "Now that we have eliminated the federal deficit, the government can support the programs we need to live up to our commitment to children and their families," said Mr. Brun. "We are calling on the federal government to dedicate the next budget to reducing child poverty." Poverty Profile 1996 is the latest in a series of annual reports by the National Council of Welfare based on factual material collected by Statistics Canada. It includes many statistics for 1996 and poverty trends dating to 1980. The National Council of Welfare is a citizens' advisory body to the Minister of Human Resources Development. ______________________________ For further information or to arrange an interview, telephone National Council of Welfare 1010 Somerset Street West, 2nd Floor Ottawa K1A 0J9 (613) 957-2961 May 11, 1998 -- Senior Researcher and Policy Advisor/ Conseillère principale en politiques et recherche National Council of Welfare/Conseil national du bien-être social Government of Canada/Gouvernement du Canada 1010, rue Somerset Street West/ouest, Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0J9 phone (613) 957-0679, fax/télécopieur (613) 957-0680 From mkarim@moses.culver.edu Mon May 11 10:33:51 1998 11 May 98 10:42:07 -600 11 May 98 10:41:37 -600 Date: Mon, 11 May 98 11:35:36 From: "Manjur Karim" Reply-To: To: psn@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Fwd: Black Radical Congress Call and Principles of Unity ----- Forwarded message begins here ----- From: Nathan Newman Date: Mon, 11 May 1998 08:46:16 -0700 Subject: Black Radical Congress Call and Principles of Unity On June 19-21, a Black Radical Congress will convene to bring together african-american activists from the diverse strains of radical activism in this country. Following is the initial call and organizing pamphlet, followed by the principles of unity. There is a Web site at http://www.blackradicalcongress.com/ which includes more documents and resources, including a growing directory or key organizations and individuals. Pamphlet: Black Radical Congress | June 19-21, 1998 Copies of this pamphlet are available from the Black Radical Congress, P. O. Box 5766, Chicago, Illinois 60680, tel. (312) 706-7074. What is the Black Radical Congress (BRC)? On Juneteenth , 1998, on the campus of the University of Illinois at Chicago more than 1,000 Black radicals--activists, scholars, and artists will gather to reflect on our collective past, analyze our contemporary reality and explore strategies and visions for the future. Speakers and panels will examine a variety of key topics. Black political prisoners, the eradication of welfare, police brutality, the advance of technology and the erasure of jobs, the prison industrial complex, the impact of sexism and homophobia on the Black community, and the crisis of leadership in our community. We will also celebrate the long and rich tradition of Black resistance from Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman to Paul Robeson, Malcolm X, Ella Baker and Audre Lorde. There will also be cultural celebrations and remembrances: music, performance and poetry. Books, magazines, posters, t-shirts and a range of literature will be available in a virtual marketplace of radical ideas. This will be an historic gathering bringing together in the same room and on the same platform individuals who have been deeply engaged in political struggle for several decades alongside younger activists who we understand are the freedom fighters of the future. What is the history of the BRC and Why is it Being Held? The BRC grew out of a series of discussions among five veteran activists, from very different political backgrounds about the current political crisis facing African Americans and other oppressed people in this country. This small core group then began to talk to others about how we might more effectively respond to the situation. We all were and are angered and outraged by the sharp attacks being waged against our people: the attacks on Affirmative Action, the brutal assault on services to the poor and homeless, the erosion of public affordable housing, the shrinking number of jobs and rapid growth of prisons, and the call for male-dominated families as our salvation. All of these developments combined send a signal that we are confronting an urgent situation rendered even more urgent by the growing visibility of conservative and reactionary forces within our community; forces that would have us believe that we, rather than the system we live under, are our worst enemy. This expanded group then began to talk about the fragmented state of the Black radical movement at a time when such leadership is needed the most. We agreed that if we can learn anything from the right it was their ability to transcend ideological and organizational differences in order to mobilize around issues like abortion. They were able to successfully sustain a campaign, shift the dialogue and the underlying assumptions governing that dialogue and maximize their use of resources, including the media. It seemed to us the idea of bringing together the varied sections of the Black radical tradition -- Socialists and Communists, revolutionary nationalists, and radical Black feminists and womanists -- was long overdue. We began talking with others about the idea and possibilities for such a gathering. In march of 1997, some 70 activists from more than twenty cities across the country came together in Chicago to begin planning for a Black Radical Congress. Those who gathered reflected a broad spectrum of the radical tradition. Participants came as individuals but represented connections to groups ranging from New Afrikan People's Organization, Black Workers for Justice, The Labor Party, The Communist Party, The Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, African American Agenda 2000, The Chicago Ida B. Wells Forum and the Committees of Correspondence. This group agreed to host a Black Radical Congress and constituted itself as the continuations committee. In order to expand and diversify the planning group even further, each participant was asked to invite one additional person to the next national meeting. The discussion at the Chicago meeting was positive and energetic. The group established principles of unity, committees, and a timetable for moving forward. Three subsequent national meetings of the continuations committee were held in Washington, D. C., in May of 1997, in Atlanta in September, 1997, and most recently in New York City in January of 1998. A "Call for the Congress"was drafted and issued with the names of over 100 conveners. Some of those who endorsed the call and have participated in the process include: Abdul Alkalimat, Bill Fletcher, Jr., Manning Marable, Leith Mullings, Barbara Ransby, Barbara Smith, Cornel West, Salim Muwakkil, Charlene Mitchell, Angela Y. Davis, Amiri and Amina Baraka, Sonia Sanchez, Sam Anderson, Evelynn Hammonds,Julianne Malveaux, Jarvis Tyner, General Baker, Ahmed Obafemi, Cathy Cohen, Robin D. G. Kelley, and many others. As this effort gained momentum, 300 plus people have participated in the planning process. Why do we need to look at radical solutions to the problems facing people of African descent? The mainstream media would have us shrink from the term "radical." Political radicals in recent years have been portrayed as religious fanatics and violent terrorists. In the most basic sense, radicalism means "getting to the root." Black radical politics means looking at some of the fundamental injustices in American society and attempting to root them out. For generations we have engaged in reform struggles that have made gradual small changes in the society. But we gain ground and we lose ground. At the present moment we see a backlash in which the victories that many people fought, marched, went to jail and died to win in the 1950's 60's and 70's are now being systematically reversed. We need radical solutions for the 21st century because the problems we are experiencing are deep rooted, long-standing and fundamental. For starters, we have to question a profit system in which the rich get richer, with the richest 1 % of the population controlling 90 % of the wealth. There is something fundamentally wrong with a society in which some people live in multi-million dollar homes while others hover in tunnels and abandoned buildings because they have no home. At the same time, poor Black women are vilified as an excuse for denying them welfare benefits. There is something fundamentally wrong with a government that spends more on parties and state dinners than it is willing to spend on basic subsistence for poor families. We want to critique the political and economic realities of American capitalism on this fundamental level, at the same time that we map out strategies for day to day survival and advancement, and even more importantly, dare to dream and fight for something better. We embrace an identification with the term "radical," insist on a radical critique of the society we live in, and celebrate the radical tradition as noble and venerable. When we look at the past we are reminded that many political leaders and visionaries who are accepted and revered today were viewed as "radical" in the past. In this category, we think of Denmark Vesey, Cinque and the Amistad rebels, Sojourner Truth, Malcolm X, Fannie Lou Hamer, and even Martin Luther King, Jr. In South Africa, Nelson Mandela was labeled a radical and a "terrorist" for his opposition to Apartheid. Today, he serves as the still-troubled nation's first democratically elected president. We need to challenge negative associations with radicalism and in contrast embrace a radical tradition as our only hope for a more humane future and world. How can and why should other progressive forces support the BRC? Historically, Black resistance to American injustice has been a catalyst for other struggles, beginning with the militant anti-slavery freedom fighters of the ante-bellum days. At the same time we recognize that Black people don't have a monopoly on oppression. The BRC sees the struggle for peace with justice, at the same time we embrace the militant slogan - 'no justice, no peace,' as a global struggle. We are not narrow and exclusive in our political vision. Even the term 'Black people' encompasses a rich, diverse and international community spanning from Africa to the Caribbean to Latin America. More fundamentally, we understand we cannot assess our enemies or allies by skin color. We recognize the struggles of Puerto Ricans, Chicanos, Native and Asian Americans and poor whites as parallel to our own. We understand the importance of struggling on multiple fronts simultaneously. The BRC is one such front. We invite support and solidarity from our sisters, brothers, and comrades around the globe. What is going to happen after the BRC? There is no hidden agenda or predetermined outcome. At the same time, there are many possibilities. We can network and learn more about the many different struggles and projects we are collectively engaged in on local battlefronts throughout the country. We can identify a common ground statement of unity to connect us to one another. We can and will explore the likelihood of future such gatherings. We can endorse ongoing campaigns and perhaps identify new ones. We can and will build a national communications network to continue collaborations. Why should African American activists, intellectuals, organizers and artists attend, build and participate in the BRC? In Texas, California and Michigan, racist anti-Affirmative Action laws have closed the doors of higher education for thousands of students of color. From Rodney King to Abner Louima to Jeremy Mearday in Chicago, police brutality continues. Journalist and activist, Mumia Abu-Jamal, is still on death row and sister Assata Shakur is still in exile in Cuba for her role in the Black Liberation struggle. Black women are maligned as promiscuous welfare queens, quota queens, or domineering matriarchs outside of our communities, and unfortunately as bitches and hoes by a small but vocal array of forces inside our communities. The bottom line is that the Democratic Party will not save us. A 21st century messiah will not save us. We have to save ourselves. The radical self-help tradition is a tradition of collective struggle. We can only begin that process by coming together to learn, study, struggle and strategize. Please join us. Voicemail: (312) 706-7074 Website: http://www.blackradicalcongress.com P.O. Box 5766 Chicago, IL 60680-5766 ---- PRINCIPLES OF UNITY The Black Radical Congress will convene to establish a "center without walls" for transformative politics that will focus on the conditions of Black working and poor people. Recognizing contributions from diverse tendencies within Black Radicalism-- including socialism, revolutionary nationalism and feminism--we are united in opposition to all forms of oppression, including class exploitation, racism, patriarchy, homophobia, anti-immigration prejudice and imperialism. We will begin with a gathering on June 19-21, 1998. From there we will identify proposals for action and establish paths forward. The Black Radical Congress does not intend to replace or displace existing organizations, parties or campaigns but will contribute to mobilizing unaffiliated individuals, as well as organizations, around common concerns. 1. We recognize the diverse historical tendencies in the Black radical tradition including revolutionary nationalism, feminism and socialism. 2. The technological revolution and capitalist globalization have changed the economy, labor force and class formations that need to inform our analysis and strategies. The increased class polarization created by these developments demands that we, as Black radicals, ally ourselves with the most oppressed sectors of our communities and society. 3. Gender and sexuality can no longer be viewed solely as personal issues but must be a basic part of our analyses, politics and struggles. 4. We reject racial and biological determinism, Black patriarchy and Black capitalism as solutions to problems facing Black people. 5. We must see the struggle in global terms. 6. We need to meet people where they are, taking seriously identity politics and single issue reform groups, at the same time that we push for a larger vision that links these struggles. 7. We must be democratic and inclusive in our dealings with one another, making room for constructive criticism and honest dissent within our ranks. There must be open venues for civil and comradely debates to occur. 8. Our discussions should be informed not only by a critique of what now exists, but by serious efforts to forge a creative vision of a new society. 9. We cannot limit ourselves to electoral politics--we must identify multiple sites of struggles. 10. We must overcome divisions within the Black radical forces, such as those of generation, region, and occupation. We must forge a common language that is accessible and relevant. 11. Black radicals must build a national congress of radical forces in the Black community to strengthen radicalism as the legitimate voice of Black working and poor people, and to build organized resistance. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For more information or to register, contact Black Radical Congress, P. O. Box 5766, Chicago, Illinois 60680-5766 http://www.blackradicalcongress.com | abdul.alkalimat@utoledo.edu tel. (312) 706-7074 ------ Forwarded message ends here ------ From j9470388@wlv.ac.uk Mon May 11 04:07:35 1998 by ccug.wlv.ac.uk with smtp (Exim 1.80 #3) Date: Mon, 11 May 1998 11:02:08 -0700 From: Alan Harrison To: mweigand@usa.net Subject: Re: Daimler-Chrysler merger mweigand@usa.net wrote: > > Can anyone offer some analysis of today's announcement that Daimler-Benz has > taken over the U.S. Chrysler Corporation? Perhaps some of our European > colleagues can give us some perspective on Daimler-Benz. On another list, I have seen a report that neither German nor American unions are worried by the deal. How long this remains the case remains to be seen. > > My first question ... (Snipped, I don't know the likely answer.) > > Second, what is Daimler's record toward their factory workers? My understanding > is that German workers have much better working conditions and benefits, > including a 36-hour week and roughly one month annual vacation. If so, will > American workers actually be better off under Daimler-Benz? Yes, this is true. However, German companies are no better than others when investing overseas. It might be interesting, if you have access to the data, to compare Volkswagen's German employment policy with that it follows in Mexico or Brazil. When my former employer, GPT, became partially owned by Siemens in 1991, initial worker reactions were favourable, but the company sacked some 2,000 workers (me included) over the next couple of years. I think that the tendency is for any company to get away with as much as it can in a particular employment market. Thus, for example, Nissan may have a company union in Japan, a tame "sweetheart" deal with the AEEU in this country, and a non-union policy in the USA. The special prize should maybe go to the Korean company which opened a plant in South Wales because it could pay lower waged than back home! Alan Harrison From YLPSLL0@cpua.it.luc.edu Mon May 11 11:37:20 1998 Date: Mon, 11 May 98 12:36 CDT From: YLPSLL0@cpua.it.luc.edu To: psn@CSF.COLORADO.EDU Subject: Nationalism as essentially human Malcolm Draper notes how I consider nationalism so powerful that folks will give their lives and/or take the lives of others. I cannot even begin to suggest why in a short post but will simply note that one of the books that took me into soc was elementary forms. Now just as Freud appropriated Durkhiem in Totem/Tabu, I would suggest that there is a synthesis, society not only needs to affirm its shared identities, such as Kangaroo/Wallabee and maintain solidarity through rituals that dramatize the group, but except for hermits and postmodernists, most people have a need to be with other people. I personally go along with the English analysts like Winnicott, Bowlby etc, but the theory is not really important. Simply humans seek relationships and relationships provide certain emotional gratifications. In societies like the Ik where such attachments attenuate, the society dies. But as societies get mor complex than Arunta, with literacy a class of priests emerge who then add to the belief systems, that some God/Gods said certain folks are entitled to more of the wealth. Thus we have the beginnings of hegemony when ideologies are crafted that secure willing assent to particular blocs. Otherwise said, elites craft identity granting cultures that are gladly espoused in that they provide bonds that provide affective gratifications. Thus people accept God, Ra, Allah, Baal, etc. But with capitalism and rationality, as well as the breakdown of trad itional ties/communities, a new hegemonic bloc begins intellectual wars of position that culminate in bourgeois revolutions in which a new identity granting culture sustains the new bourgeois interests in national markets-NATIONALISM. Compte understood the need for the what Draper/Gellner see as the emotional satisfactions of nations, eg the romantic when he proposed the new religion of humanity. But instead there came about "imagined communities" (Anderson) or abstract "commun- ites" (James) in which millions of the poor and working class would die and kill for their nation. Further, the sucess of the nation in] mobilizing folks led to its adaption by lower ranking elites in a variet of clearly non bourgois states from Japan to Finland in the last century or Turkey or Egypt today. The fundamental point is that nationalism, provides emotionally gratifiying identities to modern masses who are gladly willing to die so their elites can live well. As Hobsbawm put it, noone who supports nationalism should study it. Lauren Langman From agfrank@chass.utoronto.ca Mon May 11 14:06:37 1998 Mon, 11 May 1998 16:10:49 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 11 May 1998 16:10:49 -0400 (EDT) From: Gunder Frank To: "Marilyn A. Levine, Lewis-Clark State College" , Pat Manning , jeff sommers , eh.res@eh.net, WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK , psn@csf.colorado.edu, Michael Perelman Subject: landes final - amen! Here is my final version of my comment on McNeill/Landes. I hope it is now ready for posting as is, except that I have tried and failed untold times to append at the beginning the EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION that Marilyn kindly wrote for H-Asia. I will try to send that to your separately for your insertion at the beginning and posting if you wish. Or you can write your own, or post this without any intro, or not post it at all, as you wish If you wish to cordinate your posting and possible replies with others, I suggest you contact Pat Manning or Jeff Sommers at the address above agf THE WEALTH OF NATIONS AND THE POVERTY OF DAVID LANDES by ANDRE GUNDER FRANK University of Toronto 96 Asquith Ave. Toronto, Ont. Canada M4W 1J8 Tel:416-972 0616 Fax:416-972 0071 e-mail: agfrank@chass.utoronto.ca http://www.whc.neu.edu/whc/resrch & curric/gunder.html The opening sentence of David Landes' The Wealth and Poverty of Nations [reviewed in NYRB April 23, 1998] is that "my aim in writing this book is to do world history." The reviewer, William McNeill, shows that Landes missed his target completely. Indeed, "Landes does not try to understand this history....[Instead his] vision of the human past remains shaped (and I would say skewed) by ... European economic history .... Nothing else matters much to him." I join McNeill in arguing "that there are serious defects in his approach," but I shall demonstrate several of the many more that McNeill missed or was too diplomatic to point out. It is alarming therefore that this book has received rave reviews in other media and is endorsed by Nobel laureates in economics and by the statement of John Kenneth Galbraith that this book is "truly wonderful." For in reality, it is instead dreadful that Landes fails even to attempt any global world history, which also leads him to misinterpret the comparative not to mention relational places of the West and the rest within it. Following my more detailed critiques, below I offer the outlines of an alternative much more world historical, not to mention realistic, analysis in which the predominance of Asia until 1800 foreshadows its re-emergence today. The opening sentence of McNeill's review is a quotation from Landes, which is reproduced in all other reviews I have seen as well: "If we learn anything from the history of economic development, it is that culture makes all the difference." For other reviewers, that seems to be the principal virtue and success of the book. For McNeill and myself it is the second major failing of the book and its author. Granted that we all make mistakes, but some of us try with time to correct them. McNeill (1990) himself revisited his own the Rise of the West twenty-five years later and found that he had been mistaken in neglecting world systemic connections in the past and excessively reflecting American domination in the present. I myself now revise the 1967 core-periphery and the 1978 world accumulation versions of development/underdevelopment that were based on presumptions of Eurocentrism and replace them by ReOrient: Global Economy in the Asian Age (1998). But what has Landes learned since he addressed the same issue in his Unbound Prometheus in 1969? Only more of the same 'West vs. the Rest' to quote Samuel Huntington's similarly misguided and [temporary] winner-take-all version of history. However doing any kind of history, let alone world history, like that had already been shown to be wrong three decades ago, and it is even more clearly wrong again to do the same now. For, as the Islamicist and world historian Marshall Hodgson already wrote before his death in 1968 All attempts that I have yet seen to invoke pre- Modern seminal traits in the Occident can be shown to fail under close historical analysis, once other societies begin to be known as intimately as the Occident. This also applies to the great master, Max Weber, who tried to show that the Occident inherited a unique combination of rationality and activism (Hodgson 1993:86). Hodgson (1993) and Blaut (1991,1992,1993,1997) derisorally call this "tunnel history" derived from a tunnel vision, which sees only "exceptional" intra- European causes and consequences and is blind to all extra-European contributions to modern European and world history. But Landes remains steadfast and still ignores or denies all of the world history we have learned since then. Witness that McNeill can justly write that Landes "assumes an unchanging culture [in China] ... and his chapters on Latin America, the Muslim lands and China [also Russia] bluntly attribute their fumbling in making progress toward modernity to defects in the culture and institutions of the peoples concerned." McNeill calls many of these "assumptions" "unabashedly triumphalist dubious assertions" that are reflected in Landes' terminology like dour, dull, diligent; avaricious, sanctimonious, hypocrites; intrinsic capabilities, curiosity quotient, highly competitive, dumb submission; simulacrum of homogeneity and docility in Iberian society where skills, curiosity, initiatives and civic interests wered wanting; Gallic bete noire and can't trust the Brits; Mediterranean religious and intellectual intolerance; self-imposed archaism, cupidity and inefficient Ottoman yoke; Egypt's social and cultural incapability; the Russians were worse [and] used to poverty and ignorance. India dreamt wistfully of technological revolution but was not ready for it because that would have required imagination outside the Indian cultural and intellectual experience and used to poverty and ignorance. Yet India not only dominated the world cotton textile market as we all know; but the Indians produced better, longer lasting and cheaper sailing vessels, which the British East India Company bought and even commissioned until after 1830 they were replaced by steamships. Although Landes writes "anyone who wants to understand world economic history must study China," [23] his 'study' finds that also the Chinese lacked range, focus, and above all, curiosity; they were a culturally anbd intellectually homeostatic society that could live with little change; they had indifference to technology, technological and scientific torpor; lacked institutions for finding and learning [in the world's most literate society!]; abhorred mercantile success, and were not motivated by greed and passion. They showed deliberate introversion, isolationism, risk aversion, irrationality, xenophobia, arrogance, haughtiness, stunned submissiveness, self-defeating escapism; were insecure and brittle, and so on and on. Yet even Landes seems aware of some contradiction with reality, and indeed with himself, since he also writes that "some of these may sound like a collection of cliche's" [523] and he even observes that "these stereotypes held an ounce of truth and a pound of lazy thinking" [174] by others. Then what about his own assumptions and allegations of "what lay inside: culture, values, initiative" [253] and the institutions that "make all the difference" ? Moreover, Landes contradicts himself and the evidence again and again elsewhere as well, for as McNeill rightly notes "Landes seemingly cannot make up his mind": Portugal had intellectual shortcomings [137] and Iberia missed the train of the so-called scientific revolution [180], but a Portuguese professor of astronomy and mathematics invented the nonius to give navigational and astronomical readings a major boost [204]. Spain easily conquered the Aztecs because they were divided [102]; but "Spain, though nominally united, was divided" [249] and Catalonia was "exceptional" [250]. Guilds assumed a zero-sum game of costs and benefits [42]and therefore offered resistance to change [445], but "guilds were found all over the world - in Europe, but also in Islamic lands, India, China, and Japan" [242]. These and many other instances in which Landes' account is contradicted by the evidence and indeed often by himself all derive from this original Eurocentric sin that McNeill also identifies: "his assumption that only what happened in Europe really mattered, while the rest of the world reacted to innovations that Europeans thrust down their throats. This is intrinsically improbable ... [as is] dismissing economic changes elsewhere as trivial ... [since] most of humankind - four fifths or thereabouts - descend from non-European peoples." However, neglecting to look seriously at the historical reality of the much of rest of the world, not to mention of the world as a whole, also leads Landes to make at least three dozen 'factual' statements and propositions about them that are flatly contradicted by the bulk of historical evidence itself. That in turn also vitiates his comparisons with 'the rest' of the alleged 'exceptionalism of the West,' which has long since been disconfirmed by historical research and social theory, most recently again by Jack Goody (1996) under the title The East in the West. So many of Landes' central and derivative propositions reflect factually mistaken Eurocentrist assumptions whose uses and repetitions he could have avoided it he had taken due account of the past three decades and more of serious scholarship. Yet Landes also goes on to make many other statements that are totally contrary to fact, such as "interruption of Islamic and Chinese intellectual and technological advance" [200] "clearly Chinese agriculture could not run fast enough" [24]; Europe's shipping could have run circles around the Chinese in 1450 and then "Europe could now plant itself anywhere on the surface of the globe within reach of a naval cannon" [89 Landes' italics]; and "two hundred and fifty years ago, this [income] gap ... between Europe and, say East or South Asia (China or India) was around 1.5 or 2 to 1." In reality, none of the above, and many more of Landes' beliefs have any basis in reality. Indeed, mostly the opposite has been historically and empirically demonstrated again and again. But not to Landes, who also instead makes claims such as "Britain made itself" [215] and "in Britain, enterprise got nothing from the state" [265], which also draws critique from McNeill for disregarding state military demand and protection. So why does and how can Landes incur all these and so many other grievous historical errors? He himself provides the answer when he writes "just because something is obvious does not mean that people will see it, or that they will sacrifice belief to reality" [493] and in his dismissal of it regarding India in one page [165]: "Numbers deserve credence only if they accord with the historical context." Therein Landes himself hits the nail on the head, and indeed into his own. He does not realize how much he hangs on to his beliefs against all reality precisely because he got the world historical context all wrong. That is why all the long since historically and empirically demonstrated facts that Landes either cannot see or still denies "seem to me [Landes] implausible in the light of the gulf between European and Asian techniques," which contrary to Landes vastly favored Asia until 1800. For the problem, as McNeill stresses but still insufficiently documents, is that Landes' extreme Eurocentrism and Weberianism [yes and Marxism!] totally blinds him to the realities of the world economy and its history. In claiming that "culture makes all the difference; (here Max Weber was right on)" [516] Landes does exactly what he himself criticizes in Aristotle, "to explain phenomena by the 'essential' nature of things" and neglects and denies the very world history he 'aims' to write. Instead, as McNeill notes, fully one third of Landes' chapters are devoted to European "exceptionalisms." The most important is the alleged European "invention of invention" [chapter 4] and the "seventeenth-century scientific revolution." Yet Landes himself cites Newton's belief in alchemy and the transmutation of matter and writes that still "scientists of the eighteenth century could not have explained why and how a steam engine worked" [206]. So how could it be, as Landes also claims on the same page 206 that "scientific method and knowledge paid off in application - most importantly in power technology"? "The fact of Western technological precedence is there.... My assumption of the ultimate advantage and benefience of [Western] scientific knowledge and technological capability is today under sharp attack, even in the Academy [and is] couched in preferences for feeling over knowing.... (514, 513 italics in the original and exemplifying footnote reference to "thus A.G. Frank"). But whatever his or my feelings, Landes' own knowledge and assumptions are based on "facts" that are wrong. The fact is that Western science did not contribute to technology before 1870, as was recognized by scientific authorities from Francis Bacon (1561-1626) to Thomas Kuhn (1967). Robert Adams (1996) reviews case studies and the work of other authorities on the question and himself concludes on a dozen occasions that science had no impact on technology whatsoever until a full century after the industrial revolution. Indeed Steven Shapin (1996) even denies that there was any so-called seventeenth century scientific revolution and Floris Cohen (1994:500) says that "the concept has by now fulfilled its once useful services [to the likes of Landes]; the time has come to discard it." But not for Landes. Apart from the logical fallacy stressed by Jack Goody (1996) of deriving novel changes like scientific and industrial revolution in the world from permanent "qualities" in Europe, not only are the alleged causes of this transformation historically or empirically false, but so are many of his other assertions. For not only are, as McNeill rightly insists, four fifths of the world non-European; but Asian, and particularly Chinese and Indians, were also richer, more productive and much more competitive than the still quite marginal Europe in the Eurasian world economy and history before 1750-1800, as Adam Smith noted time and again in 1776. The legendary East-West "Oriental" trade earned them far less than the silver the Europeans brought to the intra-Aasian "country" trade; and in that, as the Director of the British East India Company himself recognized in 1688, at any major Indian port all Europeans' share put together was less than ten percent of the Asians' Indian Ocean trade among themselves. In the flourishing South China Sea trade, the Europeans were even more marginal; and in the North China Sea, not to mention in China itself, Europeans were altogether absent. Nor was Europe and the West nearly as dominant there more recently as Landes' triumphalism falsely alleges. McNeill mentions several other reasons for Landes' many failings, including a crucial one: "Landes simply neglects demography ... a fundamental aspect of the human condition - population growth and decay ... [and makes] a misleading, and probably false, proposition." Not just probably, but certainly! All recent empirical estimates, including those by the European authorities Bairoch and Maddison, whom Landes cites and whose help he even acknowledges in his preface, agree that in 1800 per capita income was still higher in China than in Europe in 1800. Their and other estimates all show the same basic pattern of total world and comparative regional growth of population, production, and income, which is exactly contrary to what Landes alleges: In the centuries leading up to 1800, European population remained stable at about 20 percent of the world population and produced less than that share of world output, while production in Asia grew enough to support the increase in its share of total world population from 60 percent to 66 percent, which also produced a significantly higher 80 percent share of world production (Frank 1998). That is contrary to Landes, still through the eighteenth century Asia and particularly China and India were far more productive than Europe; and their per capita levels of income and consumption, as well as their productivity and life expectancy, were also correspondingly higher and still rising faster than in Europe and even in Western Europe and Britain. McNeill also justly rebukes Landes for claiming that the world of Adam Smith was already taking shape 500 years before his time and that the sources of the 'Rise of the West' and the industrial revolution began in the year 1000. Yet after all that time, Smith was still unable to recognize them or even the industrial revolution itself in 1776; nor, as Landes himself notes, did Malthus and Ricardo one and two generations later. Yet with hindsight Landes now claims to see the causes of this sudden and unexpected transformation and that "the key factor - the driving force has been Western civilization and its dissemination" [513], which moreover have been embedded in almost time-less "Judeo-Christian" values since Biblical times [38,58], but only in Europe! Against the contrary proposition that "Europe is a latecomer," Landes claims "that is patently incorrect. As the historical record shows, for the last thousand years, Europe (the West) has been the prime mover of development and modernity" [xxi]. For still more alarming is that this counter-historical opinion is shared by the two dozen editors and scores of consultants who produced LIFE magazine' September 1997 special issue on "the Millennium" in which 83 of the 100 most important "movers and shakers" were of European extraction. Fernand Braudel exaggerated a bit when he said that Europeans invented history, but not when he added that then they put it to good use - for themselves. For all historical and conceptual challenge to this European "invention" of history, Landes dismisses as mere "Europhobia" and "anti-Eurocentric thought [that] is simply anti-intellectual; also contrary to fact" [514]. Nonetheless, it is Landes' own claim that is contrary to fact and patently incorrect: The historical record shows quite unambiguously that during the whole first half of that millennium Europe was only the most marginalized western peninsular outpost of development in Eurasia and especially in China, as McNeill also points out. Yet according to my reading of the historical evidence, even for the following three centuries from 1500 to 1800 Europe still remained at most a very minor player in the world economic casino, in which the only chips it had to ante up were the gold and particularly the silver from the Americas. Moreover, the calories derived from imported colonial sugar and Baltic wheat and the Indian cotton textiles that replaced home grown wool [thus requiring less sheep to eat less grass and "men" as the saying went] all supplemented capital and freed natural and human resources that could be used for investment and development in Western Europe. But all these supplements and replacements were prduced elswhere by slaves and serfs and/or were bought with American supplied silver and gold. Even so, just to be able to get and keep this parasitic seat at the world economic table, Europe had to ship and pay out the only export good it had, the silver that Europe was looting from the Americas. With that, Europe had to pay for its own the perpetual balance of trade deficit and help settle that of China, whose agriculture and manufacturing were the world's most productive and competitive, as Adam Smith still noted in 1776. So paraphrasing the motto of the New York Times that so highly praised Landes' book, everything that fits, we print. Alas, four-fifths of the world and its history does not fit into Landes and The Times Euro-Western centric scheme of things and is either omitted, or stereotyped and skewed, or dismissed as "a weird pattern of isolated initiatives and sisyphean discontinuities," as McNeill also notes. Again to quote Landes himself, "this is history cart before horse, results before data, imagination before experience. It is also wrong" [197]. Wrong indeed is it for Landes to make his dozens of mistaken comparisons of alleged essential essences, and wrong for Landes to write "no one has abrogated the law of supply and demand" [522]. For he has sought to abrogate it himself, albeit unsuccessfully so, in the next paragraph when he adds that "culture can make all the difference" for his many wrong assumptions about institutions here and there. Landes is even more wrong in failing to apply this law of supply and demand on a world-wide competitive market basis. Indeed Landes' theoretical and analytic procedures are the very opposite of being world historical or holistic, as he self-styles them on page 120. Landes observes that British coal "was [a] fortuitously suitable... lucky strike" [189] and that wages were high in Britain relative to continental Europe. But his analysis, if any, is only parochial. He does not even attempt to examine how local relative factor prices and availability of capital were derived from and responded to demand and supply in a competitive world market, eg. for textiles not to mention capital. Much less does he consider how differing but related demographic and ecological pressures [high wages and expensive wood] made investment in labor saving and energy producing technological change suddenly rational in some 'Newly Industrializing Economies' in Europe but temporarily not so in Asia where labor costs were lower even with higher incomes. Again to quote McNeill also regarding other shortcomings in this book, "Landes does not raise the question, much less answer it.... All this is absent from Landes's pages. Surely it belongs in any adequate explanation of how we got to where and who we are." In Landes' book instead, "Britain made itself" and his "explanation" is its alleged "nonmaterial values (culture) and institutions"! [215]. Landes also dismisses the contrary findings of the "New Economic History, beguiled by numbers" [231,193], Marxists [274,382] "leftist political economists and economic historians" [252}, "Europhobia [and] globalists" [514] and others, especially "the H-World site on the Internet - a magnet for fallacies and fantasies [and] the invention of folklore" [54n]. Moreover on the basis of only the briefest e-mailed excerpts on the H-World and Economic History nets based on my still forthcoming book, Landes also seems to apply these dismissals to me and writes that I am only an "iconoclast" [89n] who "would argue (thus A.G. Frank) that Europe's knowledge and know-how did not surpass those of other civilizations until the Industrial Revolution. Bad history" [514n]. What I write may today indeed be the work of what Landes calls an iconoclast. But it was still historical reality and standard knowledge even for mainstream Europeans like Leibnitz, Voltaire and Smith, whom Landes [mis]cites out of all historical context. Indeed Adam Smith's successors Malthus and Ricardo still held the same opinion, and except for a couple of iconoclasts in their own time like Montesquieu, "economists have not always felt this way" as Landes recognizes himelf. It was only since the mid- nineteenth century that Marx, Maine, Durkheim, Sombart, Weber, Parsons, Polanyi, Rostow and still Landes and their followers invented their own Eurocentric folklore, fallacies and fantasies, which are still all too widely shared today. I can only hope that, if not immediately iconoclast, such unabashed Eurocentrism and triumphalism will at least soon again become obsolete, the moreso as Asia is REgaining its 'traditional' place and role in the world, which itself ReOrients. My modest contribution to that end is my own book ReOrient: Global Economy in the Asian Age {University of California Press May/June 1998), which addresses - and redresses - the main theoretical concerns voiced by McNeill and myself about Landes, especially his disregard of the history of four fifth of humanity and his Weberian and other unfounded assumptions about their and Western institutions and culture. My only 400 page book also remedies many of the ommissions that McNeill noted in the 600 page book of Landes: Demography, agriculture, military and other technology as well as production and trade in Asia. Moreover, my book traces the historical development of the real world economy in which, until 1800, China and secondarly India have predominant roles, which are omitted or even denied by Landes and others. Most important unlike Landes and others, my book offers a truly global world economic/ demographic/ ecological analysis of how and why the subsequent Decline of the East and Rise of the West were mutually related and derivative from the structure and dynamic of the world economy itself, and not from any European miracle or exceptionalism. If if Landes will that he does none of the above and therefore also no world history at all, I will readily agree with Landes that I [still] do them badly. Indeed Landes himself observes rightly, alas not about himself, that "just because something is obvious does not mean that people will see it, or that they will sacrifice belief to reality; in the effort to have things both ways, or every way, to appease old interests, to encourage new" [493]. At least we can agree that "a good historian tries to keep his balance" [62] and "without controversy, no serious pursuit of knowledge and truth" [203]. So after Landes and others have had the opportunity to read both books and whatever else we may write, let reality, history and our readers themselves be the judge of the wealth of nations and the poverty of David Landes or myself. For let controversy, balance and cooperation flourish even between Landes and myself; and when all is said and done, let's just all try to do better. In closing, I wish to cite and make my own the very words with which Landes himself closes: "The one lesson that emerges is the need to keep trying. No miracles. No perfection. No millennium. No apocalypse. We must cultivate a sceptical faith, avoid dogma, listen and watch well, try to clarify and define ends, the better to chose the means" [524]. Then, instead of promoting Samuel Huntington's "Clash of Civilizations," perhaps even David Landes and I could agree to summarize the end with Wendell Wilkie's motto of "One World" and the means through the "Unity in Diversity" that Mikhail Gorbachev proposed to the United Nations. Respectfullly submitted Andre Gunder Frank May 6, 1998 [53rd anniversary of VE Day] . REFERENCES CITED Adams, Robert McC. 1996. Paths of Fire: An Anthropologist's Inquiry into Western Technology, Princeton: Princeton University Press. Blaut, J.M. 1992. Fourteen Ninety-Two. Political Geography XI,4,July 1992, reprinted in J.M.Blaut et al 1492. The Debate on Colonialism, Eurocentrism and History, Trenton, NJ:Africa World Press 1992. ------ 1993. The Colonizer's Model of the World: Geographical Diffusionism and Eurocentric History, New York/ London: Guilford Press, 1993, ------ 1997. "Eight Eurocentric Historians," Chapter 2 in Decolonizing the Past: Historians and the Myth of European Superiority [manuscript] forthcoming. Cohen, H. Floris 1994. The Scientific Revolution. A Historiographic Inquiry. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Frank, Andre Gunder 967. Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America. New York: Monthly Review Press. ------ 1978a. World Accumulation 1492-1789, New York: Monthly Review Press and London: Macmillan Press. ------ 1978b. Dependent Accumulation and Underdevelopment New York: Monthly Review Press and London: Macmillan Press. ------- 1998. ReOrient: Global Economy in the Asian Age. Berkeley: University of California Press. Goody, Jack 1996. The East in the West. Cambridge: Cambirdge University Press. Hodgson, Marshall 1993. Rethinking World History. Edited by Edmund Burke III. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Huntington, Samuel 1993, "The Clash of Civilizations?" Foreign Affairs 72, Summer. ------ 1996. The Clash of Civilizations and Remaking the World Order. New York: Simon & Schuster. Kuhn, Thomas S. 1969. "Comment" Comparative Studies in Society and History 11:426-30. ----- 1970. The Structure of Scientific Revolution. 2nd. Ed.Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Landes, David S. 1969. The Unbound Prometheus. Technological Change and Industrial Development in Western Europe from 1750 to the Present Cambrige: Cambridge University Press. McNeill, William 1963. The Rise of the West. A History of the Human Community. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ----- 1990. "The Rise of the West After Twenty Five Years" Journal of World History. I,1: 1-22. Shapin, Steve 1996. Scientific Revolution. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. From agfrank@chass.utoronto.ca Mon May 11 14:12:19 1998 Mon, 11 May 1998 16:15:21 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 11 May 1998 16:15:21 -0400 (EDT) From: Gunder Frank Reply-To: Gunder Frank To: Pat Manning , jeff sommers , "Marilyn A. Levine, Lewis-Clark State College" , eh.res@eh.net, WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK , Michael Perelman , psn@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Marilyn's introduction of agf/landes for H-Asia > EDITOR'S NOTE: > > The following is a response to a review in the _New York Review of > > Books_ about David Landes' work, _The Wealth and Poverty of Nations_. > > This response is by Andre Gunder Frank, University of Toronto, whose > > own work, _ReOrient: Global Economy in the Asian Age_, will be > > published May/June 1998 by the University of California Press. > > Professor Frank has been communicating with Professor Landes about > > making this a dialogue and we welcome and will publish a response > > from Professor Landes in the hopes of making this a better dialogue. > > Members of H-ASIA are certainly welcome to respond to the issues > > raised here, which are relevant to understanding both Asian and World > > History. > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 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 hadjicosta_j@utpb.edu Mon May 11 13:27:32 1998 Date: Mon, 11 May 1998 13:27:14 -0600 (MDT) To: psn@csf.colorado.edu From: Joanna Hadjicostandi Subject: Urban Sociology Any suggestions on pregressive books for a course on Urban Sociology I am teaching? I have not tought it in many years and my biblio is quite dated. Thanks Joanna From smrose@exis.net Mon May 11 16:57:26 1998 From: "Steve Rosenthal" To: PSN@CSF.COLORADO.EDU Date: Mon, 11 May 1998 18:54:45 +0000 Subject: Nationalism and Cynicism In this period when the old international workers' movement has died, and the new one is relatively small and unproven, cynicism often dominates our discourse. That has certainly been true of several recently posted messages about nationalism. Malcolm Draper began this thread by asking for responses to Ernest Gellner's assertion that communists have failed to wake up their "sleeping beauty," the working class, and that there has been more national struggle than class struggle. In reply, Lauren wrote that "society needs to affirm its shared identities. Lauren knows the difference between Marx and Durkheim, so he surely did not intend to reify what "society needs." The bourgeoisie needs to get the working class to believe in a shared national (patriotic) identity, and the working class needs to reject that identity and embrace internationalism. "Society" doesn't "need" anything. "Humans need relationships," Lauren points out. Workers have a relationship with capitalists, a class relationship of exploitation, which is "needed" by the bourgeois mode of production. Workers need a relationship of unity and solidarity with other workers, which capitalism constantly endeavors to prevent by means of the promotion of individualism, racism, nationalism, sexism, religious divisions, etc. Lauren continues: "Nationalism provides emotionally gratifying identities to modern masses who are gladly willing to die so that their elites can live well." There is truth in this statement, but it is one-sided. Masses of U.S. soldiers rebelled against the Vietnam War. The Bolsheviks won most of the soldiers and sailors in the Russian army and navy to turn their guns and ships around" and join their fellow workers and peasants in the first workers' revolution that conquered state power. Yet Lauren's statement implicitly points to the essence of nationalism. It unites workers with the exploiters of "their nation," and the most extreme expression of this unity is dying in imperialist wars. "Regional" pan-nationalisms serve imperialist ambition: Japanese fascism's Pan-Asian nationalism, the U.S.'s pan-Americanism, various Neo-Nazi pan-Europeanisms, and pan-Africanism. All are ideologies that justify conquests of markets and imperialist wars. Nationalists are almost without exception sexists as well, demanding that women serve their "fatherland" by raising patriotic children to be workers and soldiers. Oliver C. Cox, in "Caste Class, and Race" astutely noted that nationalism always breeds "counter-nationalism," hence war, and that it is one of the principle ideological devices by which fascism mobilizes for imperialist war. To suggest that nationalism provides profound emotional gratification implies that this poison tastes so good that its victims cannot resist it. Workers can resist nationalism and have often done so. The Chrysler-Daimler Benz merger reflects the struggle to survive the crisis of overproduction in the auto industry. Each giant mega-merger sharpens the conflicts and raises the stakes. We must learn how to fight nationalism, not just lament it, because we will surely have opportunities to fight it in the not too distant future. Steve Rosenthal From mweigand@usa.net Mon May 11 15:53:52 1998 Date: Mon, 11 May 1998 15:50:33 -0600 (MDT) From: mweigand@usa.net Subject: Watch out for these signs! To: psn@csf.colorado.edu We often wonder about lower SAT scores and other signs of cultural decline. Now we have empirical evidence! [] Sign next to an elevator in the Federal Reserve Bank building in Boston: In Case Of Fire, Evacuate The Building. Do Not Use Stairways Do Not Use Elevators [] Above an elevator button in a Denver office Building one finds this sign: Braille Instructions Please See Below [] On bulletin boards at a San Antonio hospital: Nurses are required to wear nothing but white hose [] On a Chicago department store: Bargain Basement Upstairs [] At the entrance of Texas A&M: National Collegiate Alcohol Awareness Week--Free Drinks in the Student Center Lounge [] In a Los Angeles dance studio: Due to circumstances beyond our control dance lessons will resume next week [] In a Santa Fe open-air market: Flea Market No Dogs [] On a Newark, NJ government office: The State of New Jersey has moved four blocks west [] In the window of a Woodsville, WA store: Out of Business Thanks to Our Customers [] Over cash register in Seattle clothing store: We Don't Change Underwear [] On a Hendersonville, NC restaurant: Open. Great food 'til 11 p.m. [] Painted on the side of a pickup truck: Sausage Deli Tucson's Alternative to Fine Dining [] At the approach to a bridge in New London, CT: Stop on White Line When Red [] In the Gardner, NC, YMCA: Anyone caught hanging from the rim will be suspended [] In a fast-food eatery: If your order is not satisfactory, please return the product to the counter and we will replace it with a smile [] Outside a cabinet-maker's shop in Sperryville, VA: Antique Tables Made Daily [] In front of a Parkville, MD seafood store: Parking for Parkville Crabs only [] Two signs, one over the other in Seattle: Planned Parenthood Free Delivery [] On a Newton, MA club: Live Lobsters Dancing Nightly [] In a pet shop: Large Birds Reduced [] In a Naples, NY cemetery: Positively no holes dug in this cemetery [] At a Sandwich, MA diner: We guarantee fast service no matter how long it takes [] On a farm near Elizabethtown, KY: Used Cows For Sale [] In auto repair garage near Seattle: We are sorry but we cannot accept any customer parts or fluids [] At a truck stop in Tulsa, OK: Kids with gas eat free [] In the Mammoth Caves in Virginia: Bottomless Pit--175 Feet Deep [] At the entrance of a one-way bridge in Sonoma, CA: When this sign underwater, this road is impassable [] At a diet center in Poughkeepsie, NY: Lose All Your Weight: $198 [] At the entrance to a bridge in Philadelphia: In Case of Enemy Attack Do Not Stop Drive Right Off Bridge [] In a Portland, ME parking garage: Tenants not paid by the 15th of the month will be terminated [] In a Baltimore restaurant: All food must pass through the cashier before entering the dining room From mweigand@usa.net Mon May 11 17:26:06 1998 Date: Mon, 11 May 1998 17:22:53 -0600 (MDT) From: mweigand@usa.net Subject: When the People Speak, the Corporations Squeak To: psn@csf.colorado.edu <---- Begin Forwarded Message ----> Date: Sun, 10 May 1998 17:43:17 -0400 (EDT) Reply-To: rob@essential.org From: Robert Weissman Subject: When the People Speak, the Corporations Squeak When the people speak, the corporations squeak. Having learned from the South African divestment movement that local actions can help stop egregious human rights abuses and bring democracy to countries around the world, citizens across the United States are increasingly mobilizing in support of state and local sanctions against countries such as Burma, Nigeria and Indonesia, all of which are ruled by brutal dictatorships. These sanctions typically leverage the power of government agencies as consumer, using "selective purchasing" laws to bar the government from doing business with companies that do business in the targeted country. Massachusetts and more than a dozen cities have adopted such laws. The idea is to encourage corporations to stop doing business in dictatorial countries, on the theory that income from their investments help prop up autocratic regimes. The South African example -- where state and local sanctions, along with university and private divestment campaigns and national sanctions unquestionably helped speed the end of apartheid -- lends strong credence to the theory. Facing a rising tide of state and local sanctions, Big Business has banded together into an outfit called USA*Engage to defeat and roll back grassroots efforts to influence where multinationals do business. USA*Engage has more than 600 members, including Aetna, Bechtel, Cargill, Caterpillar, Exxon, Mobil, Monsanto, Pepsi, TRW and United Technologies. In March, the state of Maryland was on the verge of enacting a selective purchasing law that targeted Nigeria. Nigeria is ruled by a military government that feeds of oil money (provided by companies like Shell and Mobil) and drug money. The government annulled a democratic election held in 1993, has jailed the victor in that election, allegedly killed his wife, executed Ken Saro-Wiwa, a leader of the Ogoni people, murdered and tortured thousands of citizens and jailed the nation's trade union leadership. All in all, Nigeria is an excellent candidate for sanctions. But not in the eyes of Big Business. It launched a furious campaign to defeat the selective purchasing proposal, arguing that sanctions are ineffective, unfairly disadvantage U.S. companies and undermine federal authority to make foreign policy. At the last minute, the Clinton administration intervened, saying Maryland's proposed law would violate U.S. trade treaty obligations. This tipped the balance against the bill. Big Business's lobbyists were smiling when they left Maryland. Now, the same band of companies is seeking to roll back Massachusetts's selective purchasing law which targets Burma, another military dictatorship which has killed thousands, jailed the nation's rightfully elected leader and thrives on oil money (especially from Unocal) and drug money. Late last month, the National Foreign Trade Council, another business coalition, with 550 U.S. manufacturing company members, filed suit against Massachusetts, claiming the state's selective purchasing law infringes on the federal government's foreign policymaking power. The lawsuit faces significant hurdles. It is not clear that the Trade Council has legal standing to bring the suit, nor that local and state sanctions interfere with federal powers in any constitutionally significant way. But while the suits winds its way through the federal courts, it sends a powerful, chilling message to state and local officials considering responding to citizen campaigns to adopt sanctions. The message: States and localities that seek to enact selective purchasing proposals will face unremitting pressure from politically powerful multinational corporations. They should expect massive corporate lobbying campaigns, threats of lawsuits, pressure from a federal government which is choosing to ally itself with business interests on sanctions and the threat of suit at the World Trade Organization and other trade bodies (indeed, the European Union and Japan have both threatened to call for the formation of penalty-wielding WTO dispute settlement panels to rule against Massachusetts's Burma law). The purpose of this corporate campaign of intimidation is clear: While multinationals may or may not prefer to do business with dictators, they certainly do not want citizens interfering with their commercial operations in authoritarian countries -- even if those operations help prop up dictatorships. At root, the suit over Massachusetts's Burma law is a clash between corporate internationalism and citizen internationalism. The outcome of the clash will have huge consequences. As citizen internationalists like to point out, if the corporate internationalists' argument had prevailed in the case of South Africa, Nelson Mandela might still be in jail. (c) Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman Russell Mokhiber is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Corporate Crime Reporter. Robert Weissman is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Multinational Monitor. Focus on the Corporation is a weekly column written by Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman. Please feel free to forward the column to friends or repost the column on other lists. If you would like to post the column on a web site or publish it in print format, we ask that you first contact us (russell@essential.org or rob@essential.org). Focus on the Corporation is distributed to individuals on the listserve corp-focus@essential.org. To subscribe to corp-focus, send an e-mail message to listproc@essential.org with the following all in one line: subscribe corp-focus (no period). Focus on the Corporation columns are posted on the Multinational Monitor web site . <---- End Forwarded Message ----> From Spectors@mail.netnitco.net Mon May 11 21:54:48 1998 Date: Mon, 11 May 1998 22:48:36 -0700 From: Spectors Reply-To: Spectors@mail.netnitco.net To: PROGRESSIVE SOCIOLOGISTS NETWORK Subject: ASA elections I realize that is is a little late--I sent the reply to Rhonda alone, mistakenly thinking that it was going to the whole list. In any case: I did want to thank Rhonda Levine for clearing up my questions about the ASA nominating process. I suspect that I wasn't the only one who thought that it was a curious coincidence, but Rhonda's explanation and those of others who explained the process to me makes sense. The fact that there is struggle/conflict/diversity among some of the ASA leadership, rather than tight hegemony is still consistent with an analysis that says that major, powerful members of the ASA are working to continue and deepen sociology's role as a partner in imperialism, capitalism, and developing fascism, whatever particular forms that fascism might take from Workfare to nationalism. It should not lessen our commitment to fight against these trends Alan S. From dicwc@omen.net.au Tue May 12 00:10:18 1998 From: "Deaths In Custody Watch Commitee (WA) Inc." To: "DICWC Members" Date: Tue, 12 May 1998 13:55:44 +0800 X-Distribution: Moderate Subject: Ministry Against Justice Reply-to: dicwc@omen.net.au "Oz Media" , "Pollies - Democrats" , "Pollies - Labor" , "Pollies - LibNats" , "Pollies - Other" , "Prison Watchers" media release DEATHS IN CUSTODY WATCH COMMITTEE (WA) Inc. Tuesday, 12 May 1998 Ministry Against Justice - Sailing "close-hauled" Mr Court The Premier's allegedly "super" ministry came within millimetres of facilitating the eleventh death in custody for 1998, last night. Chairman of the Deaths In Custody Watch Committee, Mr Glenn Shaw, said that "After nearly a week of advice from the Mother of a prisoner that he was 'at risk' of self harm, the Ministry's officers finally moved him from one of their horror cells, a Medical Observation Cell, to a new location - to Fremantle Hospital. It was in one of these Medical Observation Cells, supposedly safe places, where the observation obviously failed to prevent this attempt at self harm, and he slashed his wrists." "'Still, I suppose that Mr Court and his Minister will both continue to behave like ostriches', and deny that this department is in crisis. A crisis caused by both lack of staff and a lack of quality within some of those staff, but also importantly, by a lack of leadership and professionalism at the top." "This prisoner attended his fiancee's funeral last week and was predicably most upset on return to Casuarina. He asked to be placed in one of the Medical Observation Cells after being taunted by a Senior Prison Officer about his fiancee. He believed that being placed in one of these cells would protect him from further abuse by staff and deliver appropriate care to relieve his mental stress." Glenn Shaw said. "The 'Medical' cell failed to deliver the psychiatric or psychological care or the medical protection necessary, and he was admitted to Fremantle Hospital on Monday evening after an attempt at suicide." "The question begs Premier" said Mr Shaw: "If there have been ten deaths in custody this year, how many attempts at self harm have their been?" "We call upon you and your department, in your duty of care, to implement an AMA recommendation to the Royal Commission where it: ".recommended the establishment of an 'independent, professional medical service' for persons in . custody, and has indicated support for the input of Aboriginal health services into such services." Media contact: Glenn Shaw, Chairperson, Phone: (08) 9265 6960 "To monitor and work to ensure the effective implementation of the recommendations of the Royal Commission Into Aboriginal Deaths In Custody" From hadjicosta_j@utpb.edu Tue May 12 08:24:26 1998 Date: Tue, 12 May 1998 08:24:19 -0600 (MDT) To: psn@csf.colorado.edu From: Joanna Hadjicostandi Subject: (Fwd) Job >Return-Path: >Date: Mon, 11 May 1998 10:34:27 +0000 (ADT4AST) >From: Evangelia Tastsoglou >Subject: (Fwd) Job >To: hadjicosta_j@utpb.edu >Organization: Saint Mary's University >Priority: normal > >Dear Joanna, >could you please post the following job ad at PSN? >I seem to have lost my instructions on how to do it... >The ad is brand new, PSN is of course American-based but >subscribed to by many Canadians, both in the US and >Canada. >Thanks, >Evie > >Job Advertisement > >Saint Mary's University. Subject to administrative authorization, the >Department of Sociology invites applications for a 9-month >contractually-limited appointment at the rank of Assistant Professor >commencing September 1, 1998. Candidates should have a Ph.D., or be >near completion, and have a strong record of research and teaching in >the areas of feminist criminology, contemporary criminological >theory, gender, race and justice, and gender and law. The successful >candidate will be expected to teach courses in undergraduate and >graduate programmes (subject to approval). Applicants are requested >to submit a curriculum vitae, an example of recent work, and arrange >for three letters of reference to be sent directly to the Hiring >Committee Chairperson, Department of Sociology, Saint Mary's >University, Halifax, N.S. B3H 3C3. Applications will be considered >up till 15 June, 1998. Applicants are responsible for ensuring >that their files, including letters of reference, are complete. In >accordance with Canadian immigration requirements, this >advertisement is directed to Canadian citizens and permanent >residents. Saint Mary's University is committed to the principles of >employment equity. Visit the Saint Mary's University website at >Http://www.stmarys.ca or http://www.stmarys.ca/whatsnew/ > > >---------------------------------------------------------- >Evangelia Tastsoglou, Ph.D. >Associate Professor >Department of Sociology >Saint Mary's University >Halifax, N.S. B3H 3C3, Canada > >Tel: (902) 420-5884 (w) >Fax: (902) 420-5121 (w) >Tel/Fax: (902) 492-3067 (h) >---------------------------------------------------------- > > From hadjicosta_j@utpb.edu Tue May 12 09:34:16 1998 Date: Tue, 12 May 1998 09:34:07 -0600 (MDT) To: jsalt@alpha.utampa.edu From: Joanna Hadjicostandi Subject: Re: Class, Race, & Gender Syllabi wanted Hi Jim, I have used a book for the same course a very good book entitled "Race, Class and Gender" by M. Andersen and P. Collins (eds). Other suplementary books used: "Overcoming Racism and Sexism" by L. Bell and D. Blumenfeld (eds); "Black Wealth/White Wealth" by M. Oliver and T. Shapiro; "Great Divides" by Shapiro; and of course various autobiographies (ie A. Davis, Malcolm X etc), and/or novels. It will all depend on how you want to structure your course and the method you use. If you need more info and syllabi please forward your fax # and I'll be glad to send them to you. Cheers, Joanna At 01:20 PM 5/8/98 -0400, you wrote: >Can anyone recommend books, forward a syllabus, or make other >recommendations for a course entitled Class, Race, and Gender >(previously entitled Social Inequality)? Thank you kindly. > >-- >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 hadjicosta_j@utpb.edu Tue May 12 10:31:35 1998 Date: Tue, 12 May 1998 10:31:25 -0600 (MDT) To: psn@csf.colorado.edu From: Joanna Hadjicostandi Subject: re: urban soc. Dear folks out there in the world, I cannot tell you how impressed and grateful I am by your quick and so informative responce to my message. I think I am well on the road for a great course. It is conforting to know that the suggestions you get are going to be along your own philosophy. Many many thanks again, Cheers, Joanna From goertzel@crab.rutgers.edu Tue May 12 11:26:02 1998 Tue, 12 May 1998 13:25:03 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 12 May 1998 13:25:57 -0400 From: Ted Goertzel To: "psn@csf.colorado.edu" , ncw@magi.com Subject: Poverty in US vs Canada The News about poverty in Canada (from Joanne Roulston) is interesting, especially compared to the United States where poverty seems to be leveling off. and the rate of children in poverty is down. (for details, check the paper on welfare reform on my WEB site, http://crab.rutgers.edu/~goertzel I wonder what accounts for the difference? Are economic trends worse in Canada? Apparently they also have recovered from the 1990-91 recession. Have they not reformed welfare as we have? Anyone up there have ideas about why things are different? The Current Population Reports for the United States 1996 finds that: x The poverty rate and the number of people living below the official government poverty level remained statistically unchanged between 1995 and 1996. In 1996, the number of people in poverty was 36.5 (+/-0.9) million, representing 13.7 (+/-0.3) percent of the population. x The poverty rate for people residing inside central cities declined significantly between 1995 and 1996, from 20.6 (+/-0.8) percent to 19.6 (+/-0.8) percent. x Using an alternative definition of income that added the value of means-tested noncash transfers (e.g. food stamps, housing subsidies, and medicaid) to post-tax cash income from the private and government sectors would result in 27.1 (+/-0.8) million people being poor and a corresponding poverty rate of 10.2 (+/-0.5) percent. x Even though the poverty rate for Whites (11.2 percent) was lower than that of any other racial or ethnic group, the majority of the poor in 1996 were White (67.5 Children in Poverty figures for the US are as follows: 1991 21.8 1992 22.3 1993 22.7 1994 21.8 1995 20.8 1996 20.5 From ncw@magi.com Tue May 12 11:46:22 1998 by mail.magi.com with smtp (Exim 1.80 #5) Date: Tue, 12 May 1998 13:47:48 -0400 From: Joanne Roulston To: Progressive sociologists Subject: Ordering the Poverty Profile 1996 reports If anyone wants copies of the report on poverty we released yesterday, please just send me your name and address. The reports are free, and we are happy to send them outside Canada, too. -- Senior Researcher and Policy Advisor/ Conseillère principale en politiques et recherche National Council of Welfare/Conseil national du bien-être social Government of Canada/Gouvernement du Canada 1010, rue Somerset Street West/ouest, Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0J9 phone (613) 957-0679, fax/télécopieur (613) 957-0680 From ncw@magi.com Tue May 12 11:58:13 1998 by mail.magi.com with smtp (Exim 1.80 #5) Date: Tue, 12 May 1998 13:59:44 -0400 From: Joanne Roulston To: Progressive sociologists Subject: [Fwd: Poverty in US vs Canada] This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --------------589B43F94224 We are not sure why this increase in poverty is happening. Statistics Canada, from whom we buy the data we use for Poverty Profile, says that the reason for the increasing gulf between the very richest and the very poorest quintiles appears to be the cuts to social programs of all kinds in recent years (by all levels of government), and the absence of good jobs. We would concur with that. There are a number of regional factors which may explain other problems, too. For example, the East Coast has been devastated by the closure of parts of the fishing industry. Quebec's high poverty rate is due in part to the absence of certain income supports for seniors, and a low cost of living in Montreal which is compared to the same poverty line as we use for Toronto and Vancouver, which are more expensive and which therefore give higher income supports. In Canada, we have had an enormous reform to the various welfare systems in Canada, and our Council did do a report on this at the end of last summer. These reforms almost invariably included cuts to benefits to welfare recipients. Although we have no workfare programs of the US style, we have had some experiments with them, but on a relatively small scale. The report on welfare reform is free (as are all our reports), and if you want a copy, just send me your name and address. But please speculate on why this differs from the US . . . -- Senior Researcher and Policy Advisor/ Conseillère principale en politiques et recherche National Council of Welfare/Conseil national du bien-être social Government of Canada/Gouvernement du Canada 1010, rue Somerset Street West/ouest, Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0J9 phone (613) 957-0679, fax/télécopieur (613) 957-0680 --------------589B43F94224 with iSTAR POP Server istar-vpopper (v1.13 12.2.1996) Tue May 12 13:28:23 1998 X-From_: goertzel@crab.rutgers.edu Tue May 12 13:28:07 1998 by mail.magi.com with esmtp (Exim 1.80 #5) Tue, 12 May 1998 13:25:03 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 12 May 1998 13:25:57 -0400 From: Ted Goertzel To: "psn@csf.colorado.edu" , ncw@magi.com Subject: Poverty in US vs Canada The News about poverty in Canada (from Joanne Roulston) is interesting, especially compared to the United States where poverty seems to be leveling off. and the rate of children in poverty is down. (for details, check the paper on welfare reform on my WEB site, http://crab.rutgers.edu/~goertzel I wonder what accounts for the difference? Are economic trends worse in Canada? Apparently they also have recovered from the 1990-91 recession. Have they not reformed welfare as we have? Anyone up there have ideas about why things are different? The Current Population Reports for the United States 1996 finds that: x The poverty rate and the number of people living below the official government poverty level remained statistically unchanged between 1995 and 1996. In 1996, the number of people in poverty was 36.5 (+/-0.9) million, representing 13.7 (+/-0.3) percent of the population. x The poverty rate for people residing inside central cities declined significantly between 1995 and 1996, from 20.6 (+/-0.8) percent to 19.6 (+/-0.8) percent. x Using an alternative definition of income that added the value of means-tested noncash transfers (e.g. food stamps, housing subsidies, and medicaid) to post-tax cash income from the private and government sectors would result in 27.1 (+/-0.8) million people being poor and a corresponding poverty rate of 10.2 (+/-0.5) percent. x Even though the poverty rate for Whites (11.2 percent) was lower than that of any other racial or ethnic group, the majority of the poor in 1996 were White (67.5 Children in Poverty figures for the US are as follows: 1991 21.8 1992 22.3 1993 22.7 1994 21.8 1995 20.8 1996 20.5 --------------589B43F94224-- From hadji_j@utpb.edu Tue May 12 12:43:24 1998 Date: Tue, 12 May 1998 12:43:08 -0600 (MDT) To: psn@csf.colorado.edu From: Joanna Hadjicostandi Subject: European Master's Degree in Human Rights and Democratization (fwd) >Return-Path: >X-Authentication-Warning: ns2.africaonline.com: majordomo set sender to owner-okyeame@AfricaOnline.Com using -f >X-Smtp-Posting-Origin: listserv.brown.edu (listserv.brown.edu [128.148.128.155]) >X-Sender: kmills@uns2.aucegypt.edu >Approved-By: Kurt Mills >Date: Tue, 5 May 1998 15:14:17 +0300 >Reply-To: Academic Council on the UN System Discussion List > >From: Kurt Mills >Subject: European Master's Degree in Human Rights and Democratization (fwd) >Sender: owner-okyeame@africaonline.com > >> >>Mailto:todd@seralph18.essex.ac.uk (Todd Landman) >> >> >>European Master's Degree in Human Rights and Democratization >> >>A One-Year Multidisciplinary Post-Graduate Programme 1998-1999 >> >>Organized by 15 Universities in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, >>Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, >>Sweden, and the United Kingdom, with the support of the European Union, the >>Region of Veneto, and the Municipality of Venice. >> >>The Aim of the Programme is to educate professionals in the field of human >>rights and democratization according to an action- and policy-oriented >>approach. A multi-disciplinary academic programme, the Master's Degree >>reflects the indivisible links between human rights, democracy, peace, and >>development. Students have the opportunity to meet and be taught by some >>of the leading specialists >>in the areas of international relations, law, philosophy, political >>science, and sociology, while studying in an international environment. >>They will be prepared for work as academics, and as staff members or field >>workers with inter-governmental, governmental, and non-governmental >>organizations. >> >>The programme consists of course, research, and aspects of field operations >>concentrated around the following four thematic blocks: >> >>(1) Human Rights and Humanitarian Law >>(2) Politics, Policies, and Democracy >>(3) Human Rights and Democracy at the Regional Level >>(4) Human Rights and Democracy on the Ground >> >>Students are taught for the first semester (end September 1998 to January >>1999) in Venice by lecturers and tutors from 15 participating universities, >>as well as specialists and experts from intergovernmental and >>non-governmental organizations. In the second semester, students will be >>selected and hosted at the participating universities, where they attend >>courses and write a dissertation. The Master's Degree >>is conferred by the University of Padua in the Summer. >> >>Applicants are required to hold a university degree of a high standard in a >>field relevant to human rights, including disciplines in law, social >>sciences, and the humanities. Fluency in English and a reasonable command >>of French are also required. Practical experience in the area of human >>rights would be helpful. >> >>75 places are available for EU citizens, 5 to non-EU citizens resident in >>the EU, and 10 citizens of European Countries who have applied for EU >>membership. >> >>Deadline for application is July 1, 1998 >> >>Registration fee is 2000 ECU. Students will receive subsidised >>accommodation in the first semester and a mobility grant of 250 ECUs per >>month for the second semester. >> >>For application materials and further information, please send your name >>and address to the appropriate member state university: >> >>Austria >>University of Vienna >>Ludwig Boltzman Institute for Human Rights >>Professor Manfred Nowak >>Hessgasse 1 >>A-1010 Vienna >> >>Belgium >>Katholieke Universiteit Lueven >>Institute for Human Rights >>Professor Paul Lemmens >>Tiensestraat 41.3000 >>Lueven >> >>Denmark >>University of Copenhagen >>The Danish Centre for Human Rights >>Professor Martem Kjaerum >>Gruntvig Hus 38 >>Studiestrade >>DK-1455 >>Copenhagen >> >>Finland >>Abo Akademi University >>Institute for Human Rights >>Prof. Makku Suksi >>Gezeliusgatan 2 >>20500 >>Abo >> >>France >>Universite Robert Schuman (Strasbourg) >>Institut des hautes Etudes Europeennes >>Prof. Francois Flauss >>10 Rue Schiller 67081 >>Strasbourg Cedex >> >>Germany >>Ruhr University of Bochum >>Department of International Law >>Prof. Horst Fischer >>Universitatstrasse 150 >>Postfach 102148 >>44780 >>Bochum >> >>Greece >>Aristotle University of Thessaloniki >>Department of Psychology >>Prof. Dimitra Papadapoulou (UNESCO Chair) >>PO Box 10417 >>541 - 10 >>Thessaloniki >> >>Ireland >>University College, Dublin >>Department of Politics >>Dr. Attracta Ingram >>Belfield >>Dublin 4 >> >>Italy >>University of Padua >>Centre for Research and Training on Human Rights and Rights of Peoples >>Prof. Antonio Papisca >>VI Anghinoni 10 35121 >>Padova >> >>Luxembourg >>Centre Universitaire Luxembourg >>Prof. Paul de Bruyne >>162A Av. de la Faiancerie >>L-1511 >>Luxembourg >> >>Netherlands >>University of Maastricht >>Centre of Human Rights >>Dr. Fred Grunfeld >>Bouillonstraat 3 >>PO Box 616 6200 MD >>Maastricht >> >>Portugal >>University of Coimbra >>Faculty of Law >>Professor Lucas Pires >>Patio de Universidade >>3049 Coimbra Codex >> >>Spain >>University of Deusto (Bilbao) >>Institute of Human Rights 'Pedro Arrupe' >>Professor Jaime Oraa >>Apartado 1 48080 >>Bilbao >> >>Sweden >>University of Lund >>Raoul Wallemberg >>Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law >>Prof. Goran Melander >>PO Box 1155 >>22105 Lund >> >>United Kingdom >>University of Essex >>Human Rights Centre and >>Department of Government >>Todd Landman >>Wivenhoe Park >>Colchester, Essex CO4 3SQ >> >>URL: http://www.cepadu.unipd.it/sducdu/euromaster/welcome98.html >> >> >> >> **************************************************** >> * Todd Landman * >> * Director * >> * Visiting Graduate Scholars * >> * at Essex Programme (VGSEP) * >> * Department of Government * >> * University of Essex * >> * Wivenhoe Park * >> * Colchester, Essex CO4 3SQ * >> * United Kingdom * >> * Phone: 44-1206-872129 * >> * FAX: 44-1206-873598 * >> * E-mail: todd@essex.ac.uk or vgsep@essex.ac.uk * >> * URL:http://www.essex.ac.uk/government/index.html * >> **************************************************** >> > From CDFUPDATE@childrensdefense.org Tue May 12 15:22:14 1998 Date: Tue, 12 May 1998 13:14:13 -0400 From: "CDFupdate CDFupdate" To: CDFupdate@automailer.com Subject: Children's Defense Fund Update Sender: owner-cdfupdate@automailer.com Children's Defense Fund Update May 12,1998 In This Issue: -- Child Care -- Family Income -- Education *** Child Care *** --- CHILD CARE NOW! AND STAND FOR CHILDREN LAUNCH NATIONAL TOLL-FREE NUMBER TO CONGRESS --- The Children's Defense Fund and Stand for Children are excited to announce an opportunity for advocates to use a toll free number to let Congress know the importance of quality, affordable child care for America's children and working families. This is a fantastic opportunity for you and advocates across the country to be an effective voice for children in Congress. ** CALL TODAY - IT'S FREE! ** Call your U.S. senators toll-free. Dial 1-888-387-8263 (1-888-38 STAND UP) from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Eastern Time between May 11 and June 12. You will hear a short message about child care and then your call will be transferred to the U.S. congressional switchboard. The switchboard operator can help you identify your senators and connect you to deliver your message. Tell your senators to STAND UP for quality, affordable child care and support a $20 billion increase in guaranteed funds to the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) to help states meet the needs of working families and improve the quality of child care and after-school programs. CALL 1-888-38 STAND UP from May 11 - June 12 During the week of May 18th, the U.S. Senate will vote on a bill that is very important to our efforts to increase funding for the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) -- a Senate tobacco tax bill. This bill is important because it may include funding for the CCDBG. This may be our best opportunity this year to fund a major increase for child care. Throughout this month, we would like to generate thousands of calls from across the country to the Senate to give them the message that quality, affordable child care is important to the American families. I urge you to please forward this e-mail to your colleagues, friends, and family. You can also post this information on your organization's web site or include it in an upcoming newsletter or mailing. Free calls courtesy of Working Assets Long Distance. *** Family Income *** -- A CHANCE FOR FAMILIES ON WELFARE TO MOVE OUT OF POVERTY -- The reauthorization of the Higher Education Act (S.1882) is expected to come before the U.S. Senate soon. Senator Paul Wellstone (D-MN) will offer an amendment to the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act to allow states to count some post-secondary education as a means of fulfilling the work requirements under the 1996 federal welfare law. His amendment would give states the flexibility to allow up to two years of post-secondary or vocational education. It would also make it possible for more adults to participate in vocational education by not counting teen parents who are completing high school as part of a limited proportion of the caseload who are allowed to take vocational education courses. (Teens would continue to be required to attend high school or its equivalent.) The current law only allows one year of vocational education to be counted as fulfilling the federal work requirement, with only a small number of adults eligible. Other forms of post-secondary education (college, for instance) don't count under current law unless the individual is working at least 20 hours of work a week in addition to the course requirements. Children whose parents have little education are at extreme risk of poverty. About two-thirds (64 percent) of mothers who have not finished high school live in poverty with their children (1994 Census Bureau data). For each advance in educational attainment, more families escape poverty. Twenty-eight percent of mothers with 1-3 years of post-secondary education are poor, dropping to only 10.5 percent in poverty who have graduated from a four-year college. Senator Wellstone's amendment increases the chance that at least some parents will be able to get the skills and credentials they need to find an above-poverty job. CALL YOUR SENATORS! Ask them to vote for Senator Wellstone's Higher/Vocational Education amendment to the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act (S. 1882) (also thank its co-sponsors, Senators Wendell Ford (D-KY), Tim Johnson (D-SD), Carl Levin (D-MI), and Richard Durbin (D-IL). The Higher Education Act is likely to come up as soon as the week of May 18. *** Education *** -- SAVE THE E-RATE -- On February 8, 1996, President Clinton signed the Telecommunications Act of 1996 into law. Under the new law, universal service (which had previously been designed to guarantee affordable phone access to consumers) was expanded to include an "E-Rate" (education rate) for schools and libraries. As part of the E-Rate, telecommunication carriers now must offer their lowest rates to elementary and secondary schools and to public libraries. In addition, schools and libraries will receive 20-90% discounts for telecommunication services, internet access, and internal connections. The deepest discounts are available to the least well-off schools and libraries (those with the highest proportions of students eligible for the federal school lunch program), and schools and libraries in rural areas. An annual cap of $2.25 billion is set on the universal service fund to reimburse telecommunication providers. Rules for the new E-Rate were established by the FCC in May of 1997. The program began on January 1, 1998 with $625 million available for E-Rate discounts. Beginning on July 1, 1998, collections for the E-Rate are expected to increase for the year. To date, more than 30,000 schools and libraries have applied. While everyone can agree that up-to-date technology and internet access is critical to the education of our children, it appears that some local companies now want to pull the plug on this new program. A number of long distance companies appear to want to profit off schools rather than lend a hand to educate our future leaders. The telecommunication industry is flooding the FCC with requests to limit services and essentially gut the program. You can help save the E-Rate program for schools and libraries by using your internet browser to find http://congress.nw.dc.us/e-rate to access the "Save the E-Rate Campaign" automated e-mail action center. From there, you can send a message to Congress, the FCC, and telecommunication companies in support of the E-Rate program. Act now -- the telecommunication industry is, and they are powerful!!! Pass this alert along to others who may share our concern about the education of America's children. **************************************************************************************************************** -- 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 draperm@socio.unp.ac.za Tue May 12 06:29:26 1998 Date: Tue, 12 May 1998 14:15:12 +0200 From: Malcolm Draper To: psn@csf.colorado.edu, smrose@exis.net Subject: Nationalism, Cynicism, Feelings and Substance Thus far nobody has tried to repond directly and substantively to Gellner's disquieting comparison between Marxism and nationalism with which I baited this thread. Steve Rosenthal's response -- that the bait and its catch are cynical -- is similar in genre to the typical response nationalists make to their critics for not appreciating the feelings that nationalism engenders. In fact this one was frequently made against Gellner's work on the subject. Lauren Langman has called up Hobsbawm's directive that noone who supports nationalism should study it. Gellner possibly cynical explanation of nationalism does not mean that he is not sympathetic to the feelings that it engenders. As he put it in reply to such critics: "I AM deeply sensitive to the spell of nationalism. I can play about thirty Bohemian folk songs (or songs presented as such in my youth) on my mouth-organ. My oldest friend whom I have known since the age of three or four and who is Czech and a patriot, cannot bear to hear me play them because he says I do it in such a schmaltzy way, 'crying into the mouth organ. I do not think I could have written the book on nationalism which I did write, were I not capable of crying, with the help of a little alcohol, over folk songs, which happen to be my favourite form of music." I think a reading of Gellner might make it clear that he is not unfeeling about the plight of working class. He says that we might not have anticipated the age of nationalism, but with hindsight we can understand it. Workers might well be able to resist the poison of but have not yet in sufficient numbers, so what is the harm in revisiting our understanding of the world and, for a moment, suspending blind faith in the final instance. So Steve perhaps you are confusing knowing your enemy with sleeping with them and cynically lamenting their poor performance. From tell@net.bluemoon.net Tue May 12 19:00:55 1998 Date: Tue, 12 May 1998 21:00:38 -0400 (EDT) From: Shawgi Tell To: Joanne Roulston Subject: Re: [Fwd: Poverty in US vs Canada] In-Reply-To: <35588E10.3130@magi.com> Greetings, On Tue, 12 May 1998, Joanne Roulston wrote: > We are not sure why this increase in poverty is happening. Statistics > Canada, from whom we buy the data we use for Poverty Profile, says that > the reason for the increasing gulf between the very richest and the very > poorest quintiles appears to be the cuts to social programs of all kinds > in recent years (by all levels of government), and the absence of good > jobs. We would concur with that. The tendency for the rich to get richer and the poor poorer is a basic tendency of the anarchic, chaotic and violent capitalist economic system. This tendency is rooted in the fundamental contradiction between social labor and private ownership. Accumulation of wealth at one end basically leads to impoverishment at the other end. The anti-social offensive (privatization, liberalization and Rule by Decree) is only an expression of this basic tendency. Job loss, under-employment, poverty, homelessness, violence, hunger, etc., are all being aggravated by the anti-social offensive of the international financial oligarchy. Both in Canada and the U.S. the massive and ongoing privatization of vital public services is deepening the crisis of capitalism. In this connection, David Dembo and Ward Morehouse's book, "The Underbelly of the U.S. Economy: Joblessness and the Pauperization of Work in America" (New York: Ablex Publishing, 1995) is instructive. Dembo and Morehouse explain what the real unemployment and poverty rates are in the U.S. [Snip...] > Senior Researcher and Policy Advisor/ > Conseillère principale en politiques et recherche > National Council of Welfare/Conseil national du bien-être social > Government of Canada/Gouvernement du Canada > 1010, rue Somerset Street West/ouest, Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0J9 > phone (613) 957-0679, fax/télécopieur (613) 957-0680 > Shawgi Tell Niagara County Communtiy College tell@net.bluemoon.net From john_cleveland@bc.sympatico.ca Tue May 12 22:16:40 1998 Tue, 12 May 1998 21:16:29 -0700 (PDT) Date: Tue, 12 May 1998 21:17:46 -0700 To: social-movements@wit.ie, psn@csf.colorado.edu, social-movements@staffmail.wit.ie From: "John W. Cleveland" Subject: Right to Protest A new police tactic to control social movements and stifle free speech? Or is it happening elsewhere too? In April the International Women's Day Committee here in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada received a bill for $6,241.14 (Canadian) from the Vancouver police department "for the costs incurred to provide our services" because the IWD committee "did not follow the prescribed process for this event". The women's committee had not applied for a permit for the march. Last January the Canadian Student Federation organized a march for which they had a legal permit. They also received a bill for police services. In this case it was for the cost of removing decals and cleaning up in the bank where some demonstrators had gone for a sitin at the end of the march. On another occasion the local Rape Relief house was sent a bill for a demonstration for which they did not have a permit. The Vancouver IWD committee is calling a meeting in Vancouver for May 26th to discuss what action the local movement should take on this issue. They have not paid the police bill but might if they fail to rally visible support. The IWD's position is that there should be no economic price for protesting and that the State has no right to create a price for exercising this basic human right. MY QUESTION TO YOU: Have you any information on this type of thing being done elsewhere? Do you know of any research that has been published on this issue that I could get before the meeting? Scholars of the world unite, you have nothing to lose..... Thanks, John W. Cleveland From S.P.Sayers@ukc.ac.uk Wed May 13 06:38:43 1998 Date: Wed, 13 May 1998 13:36:40 +0100 (BST) From: Sean Sayers To: rp contents -- Istvan Berkeley , dqfacaa@cfrvm.bitnet, hegel-l@bucknell.edu, lance@freelance.com, palmer@think.net, philos-l , psn@csf.colorado.edu, "list owner rad@coombs.anu.edu.au Australasian" , rp editors -- Chris Arthur , Diana Coole , Peter Dews , Howard Feather , Jean Grimshaw , Jean Grimshaw <106076.2027@compuserve.com>, Kevin Magill , Nadine Cartner , Peter Osborne , Stella Sandford , RPA Friends and Members , spoon-announcements@jefferson.village.virginia.edu Subject: Radical Philosophy 89 - table of contents R a d i c a l P h i l o s o p h y 89 (May/June 1998) a journal of socialist and feminist philosophy CONTENTS COMMENTARY Families against `The Family': The Transatlantic Passage of the Politics of Family Values Judith Stacey 2 ARTICLES Out of Africa: Philosophy, `Race' and Agency Bob Carter 8 Adorno on Late Capitalism: Totalitarianism and the Welfare State Deborah Cook 16 Philosophy in Germany Simon Critchley and Axel Honneth 27 REVIEWS Jane Gallop, Feminist Accused of Sexual Harassment Peter Benson 40 Amitai Etzioni, The New Golden Rule: Community and Morality in a Democratic Society Finn Bowring 43 Theodor W. Adorno, Aesthetic Theory Stewart Martin 46 Christine M. Korsgaard, The Sources of Normativity Meena Dhanda 47 Antonio Gramsci, Prison Notebooks Volume 2 Roger Simon 49 Emmanuel Levinas, Proper Names Marianna Papastephanou 50 Mark Neocleous, Administering Civil Society: Towards a Theory of State Power David Stevens 51 NEWS Anniversary Blues Peter Osborne 52 LETTER Critical Social Science and Psychological Explanation Caroline New 55 CONTRIBUTORS Judith Stacey is Streisand Professor of Contemporary Gender Studies and Professor of Sociology at the University of Southern California. Her publications include In the Name of The Family: Rethinking Family Values in the Postmodern Age (Beacon Press, 1996). Bob Carter is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at University College Worcester. He he has published extensively on the politics of race, immigration and nationality. Deborah Cook teaches Philosophy at the University of Windsor, Canada. Simon Critchley is Reader in Philosophy at the University of Essex. His recent publications include Very Little... Almost Nothing: Death, Philosophy and Literature (Routledge, 1997). Axel Honneth is Director of the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Frankfurt. COVER: Andy Fisher, Cards, 1998 ************************************************************************ SUBSCRIPTION RATES (L = pounds sterling) Individual Subscribers 6 issues - UK: L21 Europe: L25 ROW surface: L27/$44 ROW airmail: L33/$54 12 issues - UK: L37 Europe: L45 ROW surface: L49/$80 ROW airmail: L61/$100 Libraries and Institutions 6 issues - UK: L44 Europe L48 ROW surface: L50/$82 ROW airmail: L56/$91 Single copies Subscribers L3.95/$7 per copy Non-subscribers L4.25/$8 Institutions L9/$15 (10% discount for orders of 10 or more) Bound back sets (1-75) in five handsome burgundy hard cover volumes including indexes: L495 / $745 plus p&p (surface) UK: L10 ROW: L20/$30 Radical Philosophy INDEX (1-60) Subscribers L4.95/$10 Non-Subscribers L7.50/$12 Institutions L12.00/$20 All prices include postage. Cheques should be made payable to Radical Philosophy Ltd. We accept Visa, Access/Mastercard & Eurocard. When ordering please state your card no. and expiry date. Contact: Central Books (RP Subscriptions) 99 Wallis Road, London E9 5LN Tel: 0181 986 4854 E-mail: rp@centbks.demon.co.uk Visit our web site: http://www.ukc.ac.uk/secl/philosophy/rp/ * tables of contents of the journal back to issue 53 (Autumn 1989) * first pages of main articles of more recent issues * details of subscription rates * how to subscribe, contribute, or advertise in the journal * profiles of philosophers from recent issues From MGWENG01@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU Wed May 13 07:15:28 1998 From: MGWENG01@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU Date: 13 May 1998 09:13:24 EDT To: Subject: Juke... I don't want to reopen old wounds, but one of my students sent me this, which apparently originated in Australia... >Straight from our Gatekeeper informant ... > >Microsoft have announced that their latest operating system - Windows 98 is >to be renamed, prior to its launch, to "Diana". > >A spokesman from Microsoft said that it was in tribute to the late Princess >of Wales and is a fitting name for a product that will look flash, be >mostly superficial, consume vast amounts of resource capital and crash >spectacularly. .cc ywenger@stites.com TELEPHONE: (502) 852-6836 INTERNET: MGWENG01@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU From hadjicosta_j@utpb.edu Wed May 13 14:24:38 1998 Date: Wed, 13 May 1998 14:24:16 -0600 (MDT) To: psn@csf.colorado.edu From: Joanna Hadjicostandi Subject: re: urban sociology biblio. Folks, I forgot to tell you that I will be posting a bibliography containing the excellent suggestions sent to me over the last couple of days. Also, for those who are interested, I could forward a copy of my syllabus later (when it is done). Thanks a million again, Joanna From mweigand@usa.net Wed May 13 16:00:57 1998 Date: Wed, 13 May 1998 15:57:41 -0600 (MDT) From: mweigand@usa.net Subject: nationalism/Nuclear tests by India To: psn@csf.colorado.edu In reference to the recent thread on nationalism, I would be interested in any analysis from PSN'rs about yesterday's news reports that India has tested several nuclear weapons, and that Pakistan is likely to follow suit due to "internal pressures" (nationalistic fervor). It seems that like the Cold War, the arms race between India and Pakistan is directly related to nationalism (and legitimated by religious differences). But how would these events be interpreted using an analysis of capitalism? Best wishes, -=MW=- MSCD.edu From r.palat@auckland.ac.nz Wed May 13 20:03:03 1998 Date: Thu, 14 May 1998 14:03:22 -0700 From: Ravi Arvind Palat Reply-To: r.palat@auckland.ac.nz To: psn@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Re: nationalism/Nuclear tests by India This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --------------ABD35D26030F77AB2ECA77C5 --------------401357B5363B667CAC8418A8 In response to M. Weingard's request for a views on the Indian nuclear tests, I forward the following post from another list Ravi Palat > Mailinglist Nuclear Weapons Abolition Days-network > > Dear Friends: > Today we hear everyone in Washington asking for sanctions > against India because of these tests. Yet, it is well known that Israel > has tested a nuclear device and currently has an inventory of at least > 200+ nuclear weapons and an IRBM delivery capability. But no one will > even mention that matter in the American news media. > Remember what happened during the Carter administration. Israel > and the apartheid Afrikaner regime in South Africa tested a nuclear > device near the Indian Ocean. The Carter administration immediately > orchestrated a flimsy cover-up, publicly claiming that it was a > meteorite hitting the satellite, in order to avoid the triggering of > sanctions against Israel. Of course, the news media in the United States > dutifully accepted the cover-up and the matter disappeared down the > Orwellian memory hole. What we see now in Washington are crocodile tears > being shed over the Indian tests. The United States has done absolutely > nothing to stop Israel's rapidly escalating nuclear weapons program > despite more than enough leverage to do so. Some are more equal than > others. > Francis A. Boyle > Professor of International Law > > Francis A. Boyle > Law Building > 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. > Champaign, Ill. 61820 > Phone: 217-333-7954 > Fax: 217-244-1478 > fboyle@law.uiuc.edu > > --------------401357B5363B667CAC8418A8 In response to M. Weingard's request for a views on the Indian nuclear tests, I forward the following post from another list
Ravi Palat 

Mailinglist Nuclear Weapons Abolition Days-network
 
 Dear Friends:
        Today we hear everyone in Washington asking for sanctions
 against India because of these tests. Yet, it is well known that Israel
 has tested a nuclear device and currently has an inventory of at least
 200+ nuclear weapons and an IRBM delivery capability. But no one will
 even mention that matter in the American news media.
        Remember what happened during the Carter administration. Israel
 and the apartheid Afrikaner regime  in South Africa tested a nuclear
 device near the Indian Ocean. The Carter administration immediately
 orchestrated a flimsy cover-up, publicly  claiming that it was a
 meteorite hitting the satellite, in order to avoid the triggering of
 sanctions against Israel. Of course, the news media in the United States
 dutifully  accepted the cover-up and the matter disappeared down the
 Orwellian memory hole. What we see now in Washington are crocodile tears
 being shed over the Indian tests. The United States has done absolutely
 nothing to stop Israel's rapidly escalating nuclear weapons program
 despite more than enough leverage to do so. Some are more equal than
 others.
        Francis A. Boyle
        Professor of International Law
 
 Francis A. Boyle
 Law Building
 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave.
 Champaign, Ill. 61820
 Phone: 217-333-7954
 Fax: 217-244-1478
 fboyle@law.uiuc.edu
 
  --------------401357B5363B667CAC8418A8-- --------------ABD35D26030F77AB2ECA77C5 begin: vcard fn: Ravi Palat n: Palat;Ravi org: Department of Sociology, University of Auckland email;internet: r.palat@auckland.ac.nz note;quoted-printable:Private Bag 92019=0D=0A= Auckland, NEW ZEALAND=0D=0A= Phone:+64-9-373-7599,ext. 5313 (office)=0D=0A= FAX: +64-9-373-7439 x-mozilla-cpt: ;0 x-mozilla-html: FALSE version: 2.1 end: vcard --------------ABD35D26030F77AB2ECA77C5-- From r.palat@auckland.ac.nz Wed May 13 20:49:26 1998 Date: Thu, 14 May 1998 14:49:43 -0700 From: Ravi Arvind Palat Reply-To: r.palat@auckland.ac.nz To: psn@csf.colorado.edu Subject: India's nuclear tests This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --------------E208F2CD635539A4306EA31C --------------87719B8C9E09D622D8E0BF0C A slightly abbreviated version of the following article was published in the _New Zealand Herald_, May 14, 1998. > Realpolitiks of India’s Nuclear Policy > > Ravi Arvind Palat > > What is perhaps most surprising about the three nuclear tests conducted by India last Monday is the astonishment expressed by world leaders and the international media. After all, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the leading party in the two-month old coalition government had clearly stated its intentions to make India a declared nuclear power in its election manifesto. On taking office, the new Prime Minister had reserved the right to "induct nuclear weapons" into the country’s arsenal. There could be no clearer signal. > > While world leaders have rightly condemned the tests, the threat of economic sanctions indicate continued misapprehension of the political concerns of the present Indian government. Rather than being a deterrent to the deployment of nuclear weapons, sanctions are likely to stiffen the government’s resolve especially since the nuclear tests have wide popular support. > > Both the Congress Party and the United Front have supported the government as have all major newspapers in the country. Only the parties on the Left have opposed the tests. Just as the Vajpayee government looked precarious as regional allies made impossible demands, the nuclear explosions have given the government a new lease of life. So widespread is the support for India’s ‘coming of age’ as a declared nuclear power that the BJP would romp home if new elections were to be held today. > > The widespread popular support for a nuclear policy needs to be understood clearly. It stems from a pervasive belief that India is not accorded the respect it is due as the second largest country in the world. It has had a comparatively unblemished record of democratic government over the last 50 years. And this has been achieved under overwhelming odds: no other country has ever implemented adult suffrage under conditions of such severe poverty and with such low levels of literacy. Despite cultural, linguistic, religious, and ethnic differences on a scale unparalleled anywhere else, the territorial and political integrity of the country has been maintained. Even though millions of its people eke out a miserable existence, the country has managed to eliminate the possibility of large-scale famines like those seen in recent years in the Sudan and Ethiopia. > > Despite these achievements, India has largely been ignored, marginalized, or slighted by the West. During the Cold War, the Indian government refused to take sides between the US and the USSR. To punish it for its refusal to slavishly toe the American line, the United States armed Pakistan, India’s neighbour and rival, to the teeth. But for much of its history, Pakistan has been a military dictatorship while India is a democracy. So much for the American concern for democracy! > > Even though India had been one of the leading lights among the newly independent countries after the Second World War, its prominence has gradually been eclipsed by the rise of the former Asian ‘miracles.’ None of them are notable for their adherence to democratic principles and all of them account for much smaller populations. > > While there were protests against French nuclear testing in 1996, there were no calls to impose economic sanctions against France. Why is India being treated differently now? The underlying racist logic seems undeniable: white people can be trusted with nuclear weapons, not the brownies! > > The nuclear tests are seen as demonstrating India’s technological prowess and justifying its claim for a place in the forefront of nations. India had thus far refused to sign the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty on the grounds that these treaties favored the declared nuclear states. Now, India can sign these treaties as a declared nuclear power. > > With the explosion of three devices ranging from a low-yield device of a few kilotons designed for tactical use such as blowing up dams and bridges to a thermonuclear device or hydrogen bomb capable of mass destruction, India also believes it has more sophisticated nuclear capabilities than other nuclear powers except the US and Russia. This is a matter of considerable nationalistic pride since the imposition of US sanctions on the export of technology associated with nuclear energy for 24 years led India to develop the technology autonomously. > > In all these senses, as a demand for recognition of its importance, the nuclear tests were a result of the crisis of male identity in India. Feeling ignored and disrespected, these tests spectacularly enhanced the country’s profile in the world. The resurgence of nationalistic pride following news of the tests is clearly based on the belief that now the rest of the world would have to take India seriously. > > In a country plagued by corruption, where every secret could be purchased for a few thousand dollars or the promise of a ‘green card,’ the government’s ability to keep the tests a secret till the Prime Minister’s formal announcement is an added source of pride. > > For these reasons, the threat of economic sanctions is unlikely to deter the deployment of India’s arsenal. Even though the US had imposed sanctions against India, and voted against the country in several multinational forums, India is still the largest recipient of World Bank loans in the world. > > India is a major provider of software services to the United States and any sanctions is likely to hurt the US more than India. Aid programs are important but their suspension will only hurt the poorest people, those who have the least power to determine national policies. > > The Indian government clearly believes it can weather the storm of protests and the short-term cancellation of aid programs. After all, sanctions against China for the Tienanmen massacre hardly derailed its economic growth rates for long. > > The nuclear genie has escaped and it cannot be forced back into the bottle. What could be done now is for the other nuclear powers to offer iron-clad guarantees to Pakistan that they will defend it against nuclear attack. Without some such guarantee, an arms race in the subcontinent is inevitable. > > Simultaneously, India has to be offered incentives to prevent the deployment of the nuclear weapons it has developed. These incentives could include a permanent seat in the UN Security Council. This may seem like rewarding the country for developing terrible weapons but a country of 980 million people with nuclear weapons cannot be treated summarily. > > Finally, now that India has declared itself to be a nuclear power, it should be pressured to sign the non-proliferation and test ban treaties as a nuclear power. All nuclear countries should be pressured to dismantle their nuclear weapons. > --------------87719B8C9E09D622D8E0BF0C A slightly abbreviated version of the following article was published in the _New Zealand Herald_, May 14, 1998. 
Realpolitiks of India’s Nuclear Policy

Ravi Arvind Palat

What is perhaps most surprising about the three nuclear tests conducted by India last Monday is the astonishment expressed by world leaders and the international media.  After all, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the leading party in the two-month old coalition government had clearly stated its intentions to make India a declared nuclear power in its election manifesto.  On taking office, the new Prime Minister had reserved the right to "induct nuclear weapons" into the country’s arsenal.  There could be no clearer signal.

While world leaders have rightly condemned the tests, the threat of economic sanctions indicate continued misapprehension of the political concerns of the present Indian government.  Rather than being a deterrent to the deployment of nuclear weapons, sanctions are likely to stiffen the government’s resolve especially since the nuclear tests have wide popular support.

Both the Congress Party and the United Front have supported the government as have all major newspapers in the country.  Only the parties on the Left have opposed the tests.  Just as the Vajpayee government looked precarious as regional allies made impossible demands, the nuclear explosions have given the government a new lease of life.  So widespread is the support for India’s ‘coming of age’ as a declared nuclear power that the BJP would romp home if new elections were to be held today.

The widespread popular support for a nuclear policy needs to be understood clearly.  It stems from a pervasive belief that India is not accorded the respect it is due as the second largest country in the world.  It has had a comparatively unblemished record of democratic government over the last 50 years.  And this has been achieved under overwhelming odds: no other country has ever implemented adult suffrage under conditions of such severe poverty and with such low levels of literacy.  Despite cultural, linguistic, religious, and ethnic differences on a scale unparalleled anywhere else, the territorial and political integrity of the country has been maintained.  Even though millions of its people eke out a miserable existence, the country has managed to eliminate the possibility of large-scale famines like those seen in recent years in the Sudan and Ethiopia.

Despite these achievements, India has largely been ignored, marginalized, or slighted by the West.  During the Cold War, the Indian government refused to take sides between the US and the USSR.  To punish it for its refusal to slavishly toe the American line, the United States armed Pakistan, India’s neighbour and rival, to the teeth.  But for much of its history, Pakistan has been a military dictatorship while India is a democracy.  So much for the American concern for democracy!

Even though India had been one of the leading lights among the newly independent countries after the Second World War, its prominence has gradually been eclipsed by the rise of the former Asian ‘miracles.’  None of them are notable for their adherence to democratic principles and all of them account for much smaller populations.

While there were protests against French nuclear testing in 1996, there were no calls to impose economic sanctions against France.  Why is India being treated differently now?  The underlying racist logic seems undeniable: white people can be trusted with nuclear weapons, not the brownies!

The nuclear tests are seen as demonstrating India’s technological prowess and justifying its claim for a place in the forefront of nations.  India had thus far refused to sign the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty on the grounds that these treaties favored the declared nuclear states.  Now, India can sign these treaties as a declared nuclear power.

With the explosion of three devices ranging from a low-yield device of a few kilotons designed for tactical use such as blowing up dams and bridges to a thermonuclear device or hydrogen bomb capable of mass destruction, India also believes it has more sophisticated nuclear capabilities than other nuclear powers except the US and Russia.  This is a matter of considerable nationalistic pride since the imposition of US sanctions on the export of technology associated with nuclear energy for 24 years led India to develop the technology autonomously.

In all these senses, as a demand for recognition of its importance, the nuclear tests were a result of the crisis of male identity in India.  Feeling ignored and disrespected, these tests spectacularly enhanced the country’s profile in the world.  The resurgence of nationalistic pride following news of the tests is clearly based on the belief that now the rest of the world would have to take India seriously.

In a country plagued by corruption, where every secret could be purchased for a few thousand dollars or the promise of a ‘green card,’ the government’s ability to keep the tests a secret till the Prime Minister’s formal announcement is an added source of pride.

For these reasons, the threat of economic sanctions is unlikely to deter the deployment of India’s arsenal.  Even though the US had imposed sanctions against India, and voted against the country in several multinational forums, India is still the largest recipient of World Bank loans in the world.

India is a major provider of software services to the United States and any sanctions is likely to hurt the US more than India.  Aid programs are important but their suspension will only hurt the poorest people, those who have the least power to determine national policies.

The Indian government clearly believes it can weather the storm of protests and the short-term cancellation of aid programs.  After all, sanctions against China for the Tienanmen massacre hardly derailed its economic growth rates for long.

The nuclear genie has escaped and it cannot be forced back into the bottle.  What could be done now is for the other nuclear powers to offer iron-clad guarantees to Pakistan that they will defend it against nuclear attack.  Without some such guarantee, an arms race in the subcontinent is inevitable.

Simultaneously, India has to be offered incentives to prevent the deployment of the nuclear weapons it has developed.  These incentives could include a permanent seat in the UN Security Council.  This may seem like rewarding the country for developing terrible weapons but a country of 980 million people with nuclear weapons cannot be treated summarily.

Finally, now that India has declared itself to be a nuclear power, it should be pressured to sign the non-proliferation and test ban treaties as a nuclear power.  All nuclear countries should be pressured to dismantle their nuclear weapons.
  --------------87719B8C9E09D622D8E0BF0C-- --------------E208F2CD635539A4306EA31C begin: vcard fn: Ravi Palat n: Palat;Ravi org: Department of Sociology, University of Auckland email;internet: r.palat@auckland.ac.nz note;quoted-printable:Private Bag 92019=0D=0A= Auckland, NEW ZEALAND=0D=0A= Phone:+64-9-373-7599,ext. 5313 (office)=0D=0A= FAX: +64-9-373-7439 x-mozilla-cpt: ;0 x-mozilla-html: FALSE version: 2.1 end: vcard --------------E208F2CD635539A4306EA31C-- From ba05105@binghamton.edu Thu May 14 11:22:57 1998 From: ba05105@binghamton.edu Date: Thu, 14 May 1998 13:22:41 -0400 (EDT) Reply-To: ba05105@binghamton.edu To: Ravi Arvind Palat Subject: Re: India's nuclear tests Yeah, I've been startled by declarations that the US not knowing about the Indian tests in advance is 'the intelligence blunder of the decade'--does the CIA read the New York Times? They published the BJP's platform, which openly declared their nuclear plans, the day after the elections! Steve Sherman binghamton On Thu, 14 May 1998, Ravi Arvind Palat wrote: [NON-Text Body part not included] From Timothy.Mason@wanadoo.fr Thu May 14 10:19:56 1998 for Paris Thu, 14 May 1998 18:19:30 +0200 (MET DST) for Paris Thu, 14 May 1998 18:18:59 +0200 (MET DST) Date: Thu, 14 May 1998 13:05:09 +0200 From: Timothy Mason To: mweigand@usa.net Subject: Re:Nuclear tests by India - website Anyone interested in a variety of reactions among the Indian élite to the recent tests could consult the following URL, which will take you to the Indian web news site 'Rediff on the net" http://www.rediff.com/news/1998/may/13bomb7.htm regards Timothy Mason Timothy.Mason@wanadoo.fr From MGWENG01@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU Thu May 14 12:47:00 1998 From: MGWENG01@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU Date: 14 May 1998 14:44:36 EDT To: Subject: Test your theory... Before it all settles out, we might want to put our two cents into a pool on the outcome in Indonesia: After Suharto comes... a) more Suharto or Suhartoids b) an Ayatollah c) "liberal" bourgeois democracy d) a leftish popular government e) other (please specify) I think it is a toss-up between "a" and "b." No entries prrmitted ex post facto... TELEPHONE: (502) 852-6836 INTERNET: MGWENG01@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU From gimenez@csf.Colorado.EDU Thu May 14 14:06:41 1998 Date: Thu, 14 May 1998 14:06:35 -0600 (MDT) From: Martha Gimenez To: PSN@CSF.COLORADO.EDU Subject: The IQ thing again! I was reading the NYTims today and in the section about Science I found an article entitled "Newly Found Gene Might be the Key to High IQ." I will not summarize it (you can find it in the net version of the Ny Times) but will call your attention to the last statement: "Genetic variations like those Plomin is studying may be more common in some ethnic groups and less common in others. To prevent any ethnic effect from counfounding the link between genes and intelligence, Plomin decided to confine his study to a single ethnic group, in this case white Americans." Fascinating, isn't it? The article does not provide information about the sample other than indicating that the scientists identified the gene by studying 50 children whose IQ was 160 or higher and comparing their DNA with the DNA of children with an average IQ. Martha From smrose@exis.net Thu May 14 15:12:04 1998 From: "Steve Rosenthal" To: PSN@CSF.COLORADO.EDU Date: Thu, 14 May 1998 17:09:16 +0000 Subject: Marxist section book award I've already received three books, and I want to thank Marxist section members for their help. I want to reiterate that it is the responsibility of nominators or authors to arrange for publishers to send nominated books to the three members of the committee. A couple of people have suggested that we contact publishers or search out books in local libraries. We will not do that. If a book is worthy of consideration, its nominator or author should be able to get the publisher to send us copies. Here again are addresses of committee members: Manuel Moreno 3602 West Estates Lane, #211 Rolling Hills Estates, California 90274 Levon Chorbajian 79 Gray Street Billerica, MA 18121 Steve Rosenthal 1406 Bolling Ave. Norfolk, VA 23508 I'll post a list of books we have received next week. Steve Rosenthal From smrose@exis.net Thu May 14 15:13:05 1998 From: "Steve Rosenthal" To: PSN@CSF.COLORADO.EDU Date: Thu, 14 May 1998 17:10:13 +0000 Subject: More on nationalism Should workers in India feel proud that their bourgoisie has exploded nuclear devices and held elections (bourgeois democracy) for fifty years in a country where there is probably the greatest poverty in the world? Perhaps bourgeois democracy sustains poverty better than fascism does. The ruling party in India, the BJP, is a proto-fascist party that has built its base on Indian/Hindu anti-Muslim religious and nationalist ideology. Its propaganda claiming that Muslims got special privileges echoes the fascist scapegoating "reverse discrimination" ideology in the US. Of course, US condemnation of India is hypocritical, not only because the US hasn't condemned or sanctioned its ally Israel, but more importantly, because the US has most of the world's nuclear weapons and is the only state to have used them. Those of us in the US must thus first reject US nationalism. But our response to the persistent efforts of the US as a declining military and economic "hegemon" to maintain the subordination of its capitalist/imperialist rivals should not be to support a polycentric world, as Russia, China, and France (and now India) advocate. Neither a capitalist world dominated by one superpower, nor a capitalist world made up of contending imperialist rivals is any good for the workers of the world. Nor do workers or capitalists really have much choice about this. Uneven development and global overproduction are driving European and Asian capitalists to challenge the US ever more directly, and this will eventually lead to war. Nationalism therefore serves mainly as the ideological means of getting workers to take sides among imperialist rivals who will all lead workers to global slaughter. Whether we like our country's nuclear bombs, our nation's folk songs, or our ethnic group's food and religion, we are swallowing poison. Nationalities and ethnic groups, like countries, borders, and races, are products of class societies and states. Fascists of all stripes try to convince us that these identities and distinctions mean everything to us. Throughout much of the 19th and 20th centuries, many who have led or identified with working class movements have adopted vacillating and ambiguous positions on nationalism, with disastrous, genocidal consequences. Nationalism played a major role in transforming communist movements into national capitalist movements from Vietnam to South Africa. Yes, it's hard to combat nationalism, but it's impossible to live with it! Steve Rosenthal From ap828@freenet.toronto.on.ca Thu May 14 14:10:03 1998 by queen.torfree.net (Smail-3.2.0.97 1997-Aug-19 #9; 1998-Jan-28) (1860 bytes) via sendmail with /P:stdio/R:inet_hosts/T:smtp id (sender ) for psn@csf.colorado.edu; Thu, 14 May 1998 16:10:04 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 14 May 1998 16:10:03 -0400 (EDT) From: Lesley Wood Subject: Re: India's nuclear tests To: Ravi Arvind Palat This message is in MIME format. The first part should be readable text, while the remaining parts are likely unreadable without MIME-aware tools. --------------E208F2CD635539A4306EA31C I agree wholeheartedly that the condemnation of India 's nuclear tests has a lot of racist baggage. Indeed, it is far to easy for the west to play the righteous -- and incredibly misleading. But, for clarification - there was a widespread economic boycott of France after their recent nuclear tests. French wines were removed from wine lists or faced pickets here in Toronto - and French foods were removed from the shelves. Love and Rage, Lesley Wood --------------E208F2CD635539A4306EA31C begin: vcard fn: Ravi Palat n: Palat;Ravi org: Department of Sociology, University of Auckland email;internet: r.palat@auckland.ac.nz note;quoted-printable:Private Bag 92019=0D=0A= Auckland, NEW ZEALAND=0D=0A= Phone:+64-9-373-7599,ext. 5313 (office)=0D=0A= FAX: +64-9-373-7439 x-mozilla-cpt: ;0 x-mozilla-html: FALSE version: 2.1 end: vcard --------------E208F2CD635539A4306EA31C-- From Spectors@mail.netnitco.net Thu May 14 18:49:30 1998 Date: Thu, 14 May 1998 19:43:20 -0700 From: Spectors Reply-To: Spectors@mail.netnitco.net To: PROGRESSIVE SOCIOLOGISTS NETWORK Subject: Serving Old Racist Whine in New Bottles Concerning Martha's recent post about the New York Times article legitimizing racist theories of so-called "intelligence" : Black people (not a scientific biological term) on average live shorter lives than "white" people (also not a scientific biological term.) A racist might explain this by saying that there is something innate in the bodies of so-called "black" people that makes them weaker than so-called "white" people. But anyone with the slightest grasp of reality and honesty would understand that this BIOLOGICAL CORRELATION is because of something OUTSIDE the bodies of so-called black and white people -- in other words, it is because of racist treatment. So, yes, it is probably possible to find biological correlates (genes) to higher scores on various standardized tests, including IQ tests. Because there may be genes (though not many---we are all basically identical) more common in one group than another -- and those genes may correspond to the way various groups ARE TREATED, thereby affecting their scores on standardized tests. By the way, I am NOT saying that the effects of racism are so damaging to "black" people that it makes "black" people less intelligent and therefore lowers IQ scores -- that is a racist argument often put forward by some liberals. The lower IQ test scores are not a measure of innate ANYTHING -- to say that one group has lower test scores is to say that that group is less prepared to take that test --- not that one group has internalized the damage done to them. And just how do these pseudo-scientists expect to biologically quantify "ethnicity"? This racist bullshit just won't die -- we should read that article to our classes and totally discredit it point by point. This nonsense about anti-racism being Political Correctness is just that--nonsense! Racism is economically valuable and therefore politically consistent and politically correct with the most powerful economic and political forces in the U.S. Anti-racism is politically incorrect. But as long as racism is profitable (and for some time after--hopefully not very long), racist myths will abound. Destroying capitalism may seem far fetched, but if you want to end racism, there is no other choice. Alan Spector ------------------------------------------------ From rdtorres@quick.net Thu May 14 22:10:24 1998 From: rdtorres@quick.net Date: Thu, 14 May 1998 21:08:44 -0700 To: Spectors@mail.netnitco.net, PROGRESSIVE SOCIOLOGISTS NETWORK Subject: Re: "Race" and "Intelligence" In-Reply-To: <355BABC8.36019269@mail.netnitco.net> More on Martha's recent post about the New York Times article legitimizing racist theories of so-called "intelligence" : The idea of 'race' is used to effect a reification within sociological= analysis insofar as the outcome of an often complex social process is= explained as the consequence of some thing named 'race' rather than of the= social process itself. Consider the recent publication of The Bell Curve= (1994) by Richard J Hernstein and Charles Murray and the authors' common= assertion that 'race' determines academic performance and life chances. = The assertion can be supported with statistical evidence that demonstrates= that, in comparison with 'black people', 'white people' are more likely to= achieve top grades in school and to enter the leading universities in the= USA. The determining processes are extremely complex, including amongst= other things parental class position, and active and passive racialised= stereotyping and exclusion in the classroom and beyond. The effects of= these processes are all mediated via a prior racialised categorisation into= a 'white/black' dichotomy which is employed in everyday social relations. = Hence, it is not 'race' that determines academic performance: rather,= academic performance is determined by an interplay of social processes, one= of which is premised on the articulation of racism to effect and legitimate= exclusion. Indeed, given the nineteenth century meanings of 'race', this= form of reification invites the possibility of explaining academic= performance as the outcome of some quality within the body of those= racialised as 'black'. At 07:43 PM 5/14/98 -0700, Spectors wrote: >Concerning Martha's recent post about the New York Times article >legitimizing racist theories of so-called "intelligence" : > >Black people (not a scientific biological term) on average live shorter >lives than "white" people (also not a scientific biological term.) A >racist might explain this by saying that there is something innate in >the bodies of so-called "black" people that makes them weaker than >so-called "white" people. But anyone with the slightest grasp of >reality and honesty would understand that this BIOLOGICAL CORRELATION is > >because of something OUTSIDE the bodies of so-called black and white >people -- in other words, it is because of racist treatment. > >So, yes, it is probably possible to find biological correlates (genes) >to higher scores on various standardized tests, including IQ tests. >Because there may be genes (though not many---we are all basically >identical) more common in one group than another -- and those genes may > >correspond to the way various groups ARE TREATED, thereby affecting >their scores on standardized tests. > >By the way, I am NOT saying that the effects of racism are so damaging >to "black" people that it makes "black" people less intelligent and >therefore lowers IQ scores -- that is a racist argument often put >forward by some liberals. The lower IQ test scores are not a measure of > >innate ANYTHING -- to say that one group has lower test scores is to >say that that group is less prepared to take that test --- not that one >group has internalized the damage done to them. > >And just how do these pseudo-scientists expect to biologically quantify >"ethnicity"? > >This racist bullshit just won't die -- we should read that article to >our classes and totally discredit it point by point. This nonsense about > >anti-racism being Political Correctness is just that--nonsense! Racism >is economically valuable and therefore politically consistent and >politically correct with the most powerful economic and political forces > >in the U.S. Anti-racism is politically incorrect. But as long as racism > >is profitable (and for some time after--hopefully not very long), racist > >myths will abound. Destroying capitalism may seem far fetched, but if >you want to end racism, there is no other choice. > > >Alan Spector > > > >------------------------------------------------ > > > > > outRodolfo D. Torres Professor of Public Policy and Chicano/Latino Studies California State University, Long Beach Long Beach, CA 90840 USA (on leave 1997-1999) ********************************************* Visiting Professor of Political Economy Doctoral Program in Educational Policy and Leadership University of California, Irvine 2001 Berkeley Place Irvine, California 92697-5500 USA (current address) Tel: 949.824.7245 From jsalt@alpha.utampa.edu Thu May 14 22:26:38 1998 Date: Fri, 15 May 1998 00:28:10 -0400 From: Jim Salt To: MGWENG01@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU Subject: Re: Test your theory... The full text of the Lehrer shows is available on line these days (in fact, they will send it to you by e-mail, just like PSN). I wanted to check the quote I just gave, and I find I erred. The speaker (William Liddle; full quote below) called the opposition he apparently supports "moderate", not "respectable." Pardon my error. I've attached his comments on just who he thinks is likely to promote this "democratization." Could anyone comment on/inform us about this? The full text is available at: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/asia/jan-june98/indonesia_5-14.html Audio versions are also available via Real Audio (maybe we should start digitizing our conference talks and start putting them on line!) WILLIAM LIDDLE: Let me come back for a moment to the military because I think it's very important to understand that the military may hold the cards to Indonesia's future. But it looks to me as though just in the last 48 hours or so that I've been observing this that really it looks increasingly to me like the military has dropped those cards. That is to say, they look quite disunited, quite demoralized, quite without ideas as to what they are going to do. And what that does then is to give all of the initiative to the opposition, and that's your question, what's happening with the opposition. And we will see, but there is a moderate opposition. We saw Megawati Sukarno Putrie in the clip and there was a reference to Indonesia's leading Muslim. And I think that was meant to be Amien Rais, who is the head of an organization called Muhammadiyah. These people form--these two people--Rais and Megawati--formed a coalition, an alliance last year. They're moderates. They represent the Muslim core of the society but also a kind of secular nationalist core of the society, and if they can get it together and get support from some other leading elements in society, they can keep the army on the defensive and really push this society into a democratizing direction. It's really quite an extraordinary thing that nobody was predicting, I think, just a few weeks ago. -- 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 rw@hss.iitb.ernet.in Thu May 14 23:53:58 1998 Date: Fri, 15 May 1998 11:24:55 +0530 (IST) From: prof rowena robinson To: psn@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Indian scientists on the nuclear explosions: a statement THIS MESSAGE IS FORWARDED SO THAT MEMBERS OF THE ACADEMIC COMMUNITY IN THE US OF A MAY KNOW A BIT MORE ABOUT THE VIEWS OF SOME OF THE SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY IN INDIA ON ITS RECENT NUCLEAR EXPLOSIONS, MAY DISCUSS AND DEBATE THE ISSUE AND LEND THEIR SUPPORT TO THE VOICE OF SANITY. THANK YOU. DR ROWENA ROBINSON, DEPT OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES, IIT BOMBAY, INDIA. From: R. Ramanujam To: siva@kailash.cse.iitb.ernet.in Subject: a statement dear sivakumar, can you please pass on this statement to all@iitb or some equivalent addr ? thanks. jam ------------------------------------------------------------ Dear colleagues, Please excuse this intrusive email. We are greatly distressed by the recent events, and feel that a public statement is warranted. Ramanujam, IMSc, Chennai -------------------------------------------------------------------- In the last few days, India has conducted five nuclear tests, including the explosion of a thermonuclear device. The tests, which are claimed to have become necessary due to strategic compulsions affecting our national security, have also been claimed to be a major scientific and technological achievement. We, scientists in various disciplines, while expressing our deep dismay and unhappiness at this action of the Indian Government, wish to point out the following: The magnitude of the S&T achievement in conducting these nuclear tests should not be blown out of proportion. The technology involved is for the most part decades old, and the aura of achievement stems mainly from the secrecy that surrounds its acquisition and mastery. It must also be seen in relation to far greater technological challenges like the designing, erecting and successful running of safe nuclear power plants. This is something we have been doing for a long time now, and we *are* justifiably proud of it. These tests are bound to vitiate the atmosphere in the South Asian region, triggerring a nuclear weapons race in the region, exacerbating the tensions that already exist and making even more difficult the achievement of peaceful co-existence and co-operation amongst the peoples and the nations of this region. The Government of India has adopted the same cynical language as the nuclear weapon powers by claiming that these tests will contribute to disarmament. These nuclear tests have undone the consistent position that has been taken over the years on nuclear disarmament. While making it clear that we had the relevant technological capability, India had nevertheless not taken the step towards weaponisation in order not to initiate a nuclear arms race in the sub-continent. At the same time, we had taken a firm stand against signing both the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) as well as the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) because of their discriminatory nature. Strangely enough it is now argued by sections in the government as well as the media , that we should accept and sign the CTBT!!. The country has been committed to an expensive weapons programme without a national debate. We do not see what immediate threats to national security `forced' this move, particularly when people's needs in terms of education, health, infrastructure and industrial development are urgent. The present Government had promised on assuming office that a debate on national security issues would take place, but has in fact initiated a sharp policy turn with wide-ranging implications without the slightest debate. We wish to recall here, emphatically, the horror that is nuclear war. We stand firmly with the long tradition of eminent scientists who have consistently argued against the induction of nuclear weapons. The horrors of nuclear war cannot be forgotten, whatever pride we feel in S&T achievements, or whatever tactical calculations we make. After all, we still hear of the strategic `compulsions' that led to the bombing of Hiroshima, and many of us were disgusted by the way the American media turned the 1991 Gulf war into a show of technological supremacy. Moreover, can we feel happy and secure in a world in which every country feels proud of its nuclear weapons capability and is convinced of the deterrence tactic ? T R Govindarajan Kamal Lodaya Krishna Maddaly Kapil Paranjape Venkatesh Raman R Ramanujam Sudeshna Sinha R Shankar T Jayaraman (IMSc) D Indumathi Pramathanath Shastry (MRI) Jaikumar Radhakrishnan (TIFR) K V Subrahmanyam (SMI) Enakshi Bhattacharya (IIT Chennai) From r.palat@auckland.ac.nz Fri May 15 04:34:49 1998 Date: Fri, 15 May 1998 22:31:17 +1200 From: Ravi Arvind Palat Reply-To: r.palat@auckland.ac.nz To: psn@csf.colorado.edu Subject: India's Nuclear tests: Stand of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --------------0131138DA456AC2B1D1FB313 May 14, 1998 Press Statement issued on May 13, 1998 The Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has issued the following statement: The BJP-led government is adopting a course on India's vital nuclear policy which marks a departure from the earlier widely accepted approach which has been in place for more than two decades. Five nuclear tests have been conducted in quick succession at Pokhran in the last few days. The Vajpayee government has neither consulted nor cared to inform the national political parties and the people what has occasioned such a precipitate action. These tests make it obvious that the Vajpayee government is going towards the BJP's manifesto pledge to "exercise the option to induct nuclear weapons". Such a unilateral change of policy is being effected by a governmetn which has a precarious majority and whose stability itself is not established. The implications of the new policy for peace in South Asia and the potential of a nuclear arms race in the region is something which should concern all peace loving and patriotic citizens. The USA and western nations which possess nuclear weapons and those who have upheld the unequal nuclear order have no right to impose sanctions on India. The Vajpayee government has also indicated that it is prepared to consider signing up with the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). Here again, the nationally accepted position is not to sign discriminatory treaties which impinge on India's sovereignty. It is imperative that the Vajpayee government take all the parties and the people into confidence before making any major departure on policy matters which are vital to the country's interests. Editorial Appearing in People's Democracy of May 17, 1998 The BJP-led government has finally gone ahead and implemented its agenda in exercising the nuclear option and going towards inducting nuclear weapons. Such a major shift in the country's nuclear policy has been taken by a government that has a precariously narrow majority. Since the first nuclear test in 1974, India had all along taken the position that it will build its independent capability but keep the options open. This stand was taken with the full confidence and preparation by the Indian scientists that the option can be exercised the moment India perceives a nuclear threat. By keeping the option open India had conveyed to the world its unflinching commitment to the process of universal nuclear disarmament. At the same time, India had correctly refused to be party to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) since these treaties were loaded in favour of the already existing nuclear powers and hence discriminatory. India firmly resisted imperialist pressures and safeguarded our sovereign right to decide on these issues guided solely by the country's interest. This accepted policy was also a reflection of India's commitment that it shall not be the one which will initiate a nuclear arms race in the subcontinent which has grave and far-reaching consequences both for the subcontinent and South Asia. Further, unless pressed into a situation in the paramount interests of our national security, which is non-negotiable, India would keep the nuclear option open and thus allow a large portion of its national resources to be available for developing much needed social infrastructure of its people, in eliminating hunger, poverty, illiteracy etc. Having assumed power at the Centre, the BJP-led government had informed the country that a comprehensive and strategic review of India's security concerns will be undertaken and on the basis of such a review the decision on exercising our nuclear option would be made. But by unilaterally conducting these tests, simultaneous with the successful launching of the Trishul missile, India has indicated to the world that it has both the bombs and the delivery system. One indication of the government's thinking was reflected in the Defence Minister's strident anti-China campaign. The bellicose statements were actually a build up to making the bomb. Thus, the BJP-led government has betrayed its own assurance to the country by taking a decision of such import without the promised review. Such a decision may jeopardise the recent advances made at India's initiative, in improving good neighbourly relations in the sub-continent. It also puts under question India's long standing role as a champion of universal peace and disarmament as well as a leader of the third world countries efforts for disarmament and development. It is clear that the BJP government was motivated by concerns other than India's security. That India always had the capacity to make the bomb and that the Indian scientists have made the country proud by their indigenous capabilities was a matter that was never under any doubt. It is these efforts over the last 24 years that have made it possible for such tests to take place recently. But in exercising the nuclear option, the BJP-led government was obviously guided by its strident jingoism which dovetails with its ideological outlook. In doing so, the BJP seeks to on the one hand, divert the people's attention away from the fast deteriorating conditions of livelihood and on the other, whip up an arms race in the subcontinent with strong communal overtones. Such tensions in the subcontinent and diversion of national resources away from basic socio-economic development can be appreciated if there is indeed a grave threat to India's security. What has transpired within the two months since the BJP assumed power which warrants such a drastic shift in our security perceptions? This is a question that the BJP has to answer to the Indian people. That the interests of national security were not the main concern of the BJP in going ahead with these tests is buttressed by the latest issue of the RSS mouthpiece Organiser which is dedicated to India making the bomb and whipping up chauvinism as an answer to all problems that the Indian people face. It is not a mere coincidence that this issue of the Organiser appears simultaneously when the tests were being conducted. Further, the BJP has now decided to observe May 16 as a day of celebration of 25 years of the 1974 nuclear tests. By whipping up such jingoism the BJP seeks to consolidate its rule at the expense of the Indian people and negate India's long standing and acknowledged contribution to international politics for a long lasting durable peace on this planet. Behind the veneer of a whipped up national jingoism all patriots will need to seriously consider the BJP's gameplan in consolidating itself in power and implementing its communal agenda that poses a serious threat to India's existence as a modern peace loving, secular democratic nation. India's patriotic secular democratic opinion must ensure that the country continues to adhere to its unequivocal commitment to universal nuclear disarmament; no first use of nuclear weapons; not to accelerate a nuclear arms race in the region and for durable peace and security in South Asia and the world. This is particularly necessary when imperialism would now seek to mount new pressure on India to sign unequal and discriminatory treaties as well as accept its economic prescriptions which will further jeopardise our country's economic sovereignty. However, the western nuclear powers and all those who support an unequal nuclear order, as reflected in the NPT and CTBT, have no right moral or otherwise, to impose sanctions on India, which will be resisted at all costs. --------------0131138DA456AC2B1D1FB313 begin: vcard fn: Ravi Palat n: Palat;Ravi org: Dept. of Sociology, Univ. of Auckland email;internet: r.palat@auckland.ac.nz note;quoted-printable:Private Bag 92019=0D=0A= Auckland, NEW ZEALAND=0D=0A= Phone:+64-9-373-7599,ext.5313=0D=0A= FAX:+64-9-373-7439 x-mozilla-cpt: ;0 x-mozilla-html: FALSE version: 2.1 end: vcard --------------0131138DA456AC2B1D1FB313-- From h961138@stud.hoe.se Fri May 15 09:20:28 1998 Date: Fri, 15 May 1998 17:19:39 +0200 To: PROGRESSIVE SOCIOLOGISTS NETWORK From: bd Subject: Re: India's Nuclear tests: Stand of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) In-Reply-To: <355C1973.D9FA3F2E@auckland.ac.nz> The left's not dead, it's just getting a face lift JEREMY CRONIN responds to Jonathan Stenberg on the crisis in left-wing politics, arguing that the left has not disappeared, it is being transformed ONATHAN STEINBERG'S "The 'mysterious' decline of the left" (May 8 to 14) is a useful antidote to some of the recent excesses of John Pilger. What Steinberg dwells upon, what Pilger neglected, is that the South African transition is occurring in a world very different from the first two-and-half decades after World War II. A sustainable left project in South Africa, or anywhere else, needs to understand that. An excessively pessimistic Steinberg, however, does not help us to grasp the dynamics of the new global terrain. He can only psychologise: "It is no longer fashionable to be nice." And: "Could it be that the left has died because half-a-century of peace and stability in the West has dampened empathy?" But what is it to be "left"? For me, essentially, it is a struggle to move from societies based on private wealth and profit to societies based on social need. Left is, of course, a spatial metaphor. One is left, or not, relative to some benchmark. For Steinberg there is a single benchmark of leftness: Western social democracy. It is exemplified by Franklin D Roosevelt's New Deal, in the midst of the Great Depression, and William Beveridge's post-war welfarism. This is what defines "left", and the conditions for its existence seem to be some kind of national state of ruin. The "sad truth", writes Steinberg, is that things have been too good in the West for the past 20 years. "It will take another catastrophe" to provoke a consensus on being nice in the West. And it is only when they get around to being nice in the West that the rest of us will have any prospect of moving leftwards. This is all gravely Eurocentric. I do not underrate the difficulties of reviving left projects. It is, however, important to get a slightly more accurate fix on the past 50 years. The defeat of fascism in 1945 established a balance of forces that was relatively more favourable to working-class and poor people worldwide. This more favourable balance created space for rapid advances to be made by three (not one) left projects: the social-democratic welfare state; the Soviet-style socialist systems; and progressive post-independence societies in the South. The advances made by these projects also created space for one other (although not left) Third World developmental project — the Asian Tiger; state-led industrialisation. In the midst of a Cold War, societies like South Korea and Taiwan were cut some slack. The nearly three decades between 1945 and 1973 were golden years for the advanced capitalist countries. But major social and developmental gains were also made in the East and South. In the West these gains were due less to some epochal sentiment of empathy, and more related to the relative vulnerability of post-war West European capitalist classes. They needed working class (and state) co-operation for a return to profitability. In these circumstances, electorally powerful labour movements were able to impose social accords (explicit or implicit) and make significant advances in terms of public housing, transport, education, health-care and levels of employment. For nearly 30 years the virtuous cycle of redistributive welfarism — expanding taxation, leading to more public social investment, leading to greater productivity, leading to a larger taxable gross domestic product —- seemed to be working like a perpetual-motion machine. But capitalism in the early 1970s hit a major long-cycle downturn, and there was suddenly less growth to tax. This was to be the cue for a renewed right-wing offensive. Thatcherism sought to reverse the cycle — less tax would stimulate private sector growth, which would create individual wealth, and more private wealth would, supposedly, create millions of relatively affluent middle-class clients for privatised housing, health-care, and the rest. The Thatcherist reversed cycle did stimulate growth for a while. But its failure to resource human development has resulted in large-scale de-industrialisation in those societies applying it most rigorously. The shredding of the welfare net has also left millions in dire poverty. A core reason for the crisis of welfarism in the early 1970s was the decreased dependency of European capitalists on their domestic markets. They began to walk out of their national equivalents of South Africa's National Economic, Development and Labour Council. Who needed to worry about public transport in London, when a now more globally footloose capital could find cheap labour in Indonesia? While welfare gains have to be (and are being) defended, there is no simple return to the old social democracy. Instead of wistfully awaiting an empathy-producing catastrophe in the West — remember that the Great Depression produced Adolf Hitler along with the New Deal — we should actively define a left project for the coming millennium. That project is emerging. It involves, in the first place, new forms of internationalism. If in 1965 you told West German workers they had nothing to lose but their chains, most would have laughed. If you told South African black workers that a patient, largely electoral struggle of reforms was the way forward, they would have been nonplussed. Nowadays, in the conditions of transnational production, Volkswagen workers in Wolfsburg, Sao Paulo and Uitenhage are developing networks of solidarity. Here, the renewing left project is surpassing the social-democratic/communist divide that tended for a century to demarcate the workers of the First from the workers of the Third World. If a simple return to social democracy is unlikely in the West (it was hardly on the agenda in the East and South), then clearly a return to socialist isolationism is equally unlikely, and undesirable. Fortress socialism often ended up as a prison for the very peoples it hoped to liberate. As Cubans understand well, the defence of their substantial socialist gains has to be made on the terrain of a capitalist world. There is no other. This relates to another dimension of a renewing left project. There is a struggle by many countries, international bodies and social movements to redefine the international trade and investment regime. It is not an easy struggle, but nor is it a hopeless or lonely one. You will see the South African government engaging in this struggle this weekend at the World Trade Organisation, just as we engaged in it during United States President Bill Clinton's ("trade-not-aid") Africa trip. On the domestic front, a renewing left agenda has to move away from a narrow focus on redistributive welfarism, towards emphasising the need for a state that is economically active in productive activity, notably in catalysing industrial growth around infrastructural development. The left agenda needs also to place a premium on active popular participation in transformation — something that the clients of welfarism, still less the press-ganged workers of the Soviet Union, seldom enjoyed. The left did not disappear, it is being transformed. -- Electronic Mail&Guardian, May 15, 1998. __________________ bwanika From MGWENG01@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU Fri May 15 15:20:57 1998 From: MGWENG01@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU Date: 15 May 1998 17:18:52 EDT To: , Subject: Q,E.D. As we at the center go about our mundane lives, perhaps we should tape the following to the back of our hands (taken from today's NYT on the Web): "Indonesia is struggling to cope with its worst economic and political crisis in decades, and sharp government-ordered increases in the price of basic goods and services last week pushed the poor to their breaking point. Anger spilled over into the streets Tuesday after police shot and killed six anti-government protesters at a student rally. The austerity measures were a condition of the International Monetary Fund's $43 billion aid package to bail out the southeast Asian nation." Once again, the not-so-invisible hand claws at the guts of the workers. What is is to be done? If not by us, by whom? If not now, when??? TELEPHONE: (502) 852-6836 INTERNET: MGWENG01@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU From kenpat@ns.sympatico.ca Sat May 16 02:46:25 1998 (Post.Office MTA v3.1.2 release (PO203-101c) Date: Fri, 15 May 1998 22:08:51 -0300 From: Ken Summers Reply-To: kenpat@ns.sympatico.ca To: psn@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Canada/US poverty rates JoAnne Roulston refers to Canadian "cuts to social programs of all kinds in recent years (by all levels of government)". I thought I would expand a bit for Americans: one important program is unemployment insurance which is national and Canada, and which was until recently much easier to qualify for in Canada. The numbers who drop over the edge from not qualifying continues to increase long after regulation changes took effect. Also the variety of transfer programs have always meant that the poorest in Canada derive a higher proportion of their total incomes from transfer payments of one kind or another. So when those are decreased, the effect in Canada is more dramatic. There is also a time factor involved: in Canada we are still relatively early in the turning of the vice. There is also the time difference in the economies: poverty rates [and unemployment levels] began to drop in the US a few years after the economy began improving. In Canada we are only a little over a year into that kind of improvement. But there are a lot of reasons to doubt whether several years of "recovery" will result here in a decline in poverty [not to mention that economic improvement here comes several years after improvement in the US, while a downturn is transmitted immediately]. There MAY be political reasons that to think that the increase in poverty rates will last fewer years here than in the US: the public seems to favour some kind of a pull back from the nasty cutting [though health care comes first here and is far more expensive than income maintenance programs]. But with the current fragmentation of Canadian politics it is hard to tell where this is going. One interesting comparison is that in Canada poverty has always been first of all a rural and regional phenomena [our inner cities have only had decay, not decades of utter collapse]... but we are seeing an increase in inner city poverty, I think for the first time. Joanne Roulston would know more and might comment on this, but I get the sense that there is good reason to fear that this is just the beginning of the kind of extreme and obvious polarization in the US that we have so far missed out on. But just in case someone is inclined to think that the comparison of rates might indicate something must be positive with US welfare policies.... If you severely beat a dog, but stop short of killing it, it is bound to eventually show signs of improvement. Ken Summers Minasville, Nova Scotia From MGWENG01@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU Sat May 16 02:49:15 1998 From: MGWENG01@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU Date: 16 May 1998 04:47:09 EDT To: Subject: Liberal Bill Rides Again! I am so happy that we have a Liberal (who is advised by prominent sociologists, no less) residing in the seat of power during this year of living and loving dangerously. The following is from today's NYT/AP on the Web: //Quotes// The administration continued its calls Friday for political reform in Indonesia, which has been under the iron rule of President Suharto since the mid-1960s, and defended the International Monetary Fund from criticism thatthe rigorous package of economic reforms demanded by the fund in recent months had helped spark this week's violence, in which more than 200 people have been killed. "We do not believe that the IMF program is the source of Indonesia's troubles," said James Rubin, the State Department spokesman. "We continue to believe a key component in restoring economic growth in Indonesia will be a vigorous program of economic reform as proposed by the IMF." //Quotes// Furthermore, look at the rich opportunities hor PoMo deconstruction of bourgeois-ideological rhetoric! "Rigorous!" "Vigorous!" Sounds like a healthy afternoon on the Stair-Master! A final note: I heard on the radio that many of the dead "looters" were clutching items such as childrens' shoes in their dead hands. Look at your RAM or CPU: say hello/good-bye to all that is left of many of them. And did I tell you about the great price I got on a 333 mHz a few weeks ago... TELEPHONE: (502) 852-6836 INTERNET: MGWENG01@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU From goertzel@crab.rutgers.edu Sat May 16 05:51:21 1998 Date: Sat, 16 May 1998 07:51:57 -0400 From: Ted Goertzel To: "psn@csf.colorado.edu" Subject: Leftist Thought in the Twentieth Century The May 17 New York Times Book Review has a review of a book by Richard Rorty called Achieving Our Country: Leftist Thought in Twentieth-Century America. You can find the review at http://www.nytimes.com. It raises some issues which might be worth discussing on PSN: We need a nationalist, pro-American left which will fight for changes which will "achieve our country" We should pay less attention to Marx, Lenin, Spencer, etc. and more on Ely, Croly, Dreiser and Debs [I must admit I don't know who Ely and Croly were] Literary and cultural studies are largely a distraction from the important issues. We need a pragmatic left rooted in John Dewey, James Baldwin , fighting against intrangisent leftists and superstitious conservatives The book review also has some other interesting stuff: biographies of Benjamin Spock and John Rockefeller, Newt Gingrich's confessions, etc. From tell@net.bluemoon.net Sat May 16 11:16:55 1998 Date: Sat, 16 May 1998 13:16:47 -0400 (EDT) From: Shawgi Tell Reply-To: Shawgi Tell To: Ken Summers Subject: Re: Canada/US poverty rates In-Reply-To: <355CE722.1B4@ns.sympatico.ca> Greetings, On Fri, 15 May 1998, Ken Summers wrote: > JoAnne Roulston refers to Canadian "cuts to social programs of all kinds > in recent years (by all levels of government)". I thought I would expand > a bit for Americans: one important program is unemployment insurance > which is national and Canada, and which was until recently much easier > to qualify for in Canada. The numbers who drop over the edge from not > qualifying continues to increase long after regulation changes took > effect. > Also the variety of transfer programs have always meant that the poorest > in Canada derive a higher proportion of their total incomes from > transfer payments of one kind or another. So when those are decreased, > the effect in Canada is more dramatic. > > There is also a time factor involved: in Canada we are still relatively > early in the turning of the vice. There is also the time difference in > the economies: poverty rates [and unemployment levels] began to drop in > the US a few years after the economy began improving. In Canada we are > only a little over a year into that kind of improvement. But there are a > lot of reasons to doubt whether several years of "recovery" will result > here in a decline in poverty [not to mention that economic improvement > here comes several years after improvement in the US, while a downturn > is transmitted immediately]. > > There MAY be political reasons that to think that the increase in > poverty rates will last fewer years here than in the US: the public > seems to favour some kind of a pull back from the nasty cutting [though > health care comes first here and is far more expensive than income > maintenance programs]. But with the current fragmentation of Canadian > politics it is hard to tell where this is going. > > One interesting comparison is that in Canada poverty has always been > first of all a rural and regional phenomena [our inner cities have only > had decay, not decades of utter collapse]... but we are seeing an > increase in inner city poverty, I think for the first time. Joanne > Roulston would know more and might comment on this, but I get the sense > that there is good reason to fear that this is just the beginning of the > kind of extreme and obvious polarization in the US that we have so far > missed out on. > > > But just in case someone is inclined to think that the comparison of > rates might indicate something must be positive with US welfare > policies.... If you severely beat a dog, but stop short of killing it, > it is bound to eventually show signs of improvement. > > > Ken Summers > Minasville, Nova Scotia The same anti-social offensive which is wreaking havoc in Canada is also wreaking havoc in the U.S., Russia, Mexico, Britain, Brazil and elsewhere. The unplanned economies of these countries are in extremely deep crisis in this last stage of capitalism. Privatization, liberalization and Rule by Decree intensify the basic tendency under capitalism for the rich to get richer and the poor poorer. The monopoly capitalists are increasingly using the State to get richer and richer. In fact, the international financial oligarchy, via NAFTA, APEC, FTA, IMF, MAI and other economic trade blocks and imperialist organizations, is further consolidating a situation where only their self-serving and narrow claims are recognized while the inviolable human rights of all as well as the sovereignty of nations, are being trampled on and violated at an unprecedented level. What this situation demands is working class unity and struggle. Capitalism will continue to disintegrate and destroy the fabric of society, but it will never be overthown in the absence of independent, conscious, organized working class struggle. In other words, the key to opening the path of progress to the society is the human factor/social consciousness. The objective conditions for revolution are overripe. Missing are the subjective conditions for revolution, the human factor. Shawgi Tell Niagara County Community College tell@net.bluemoon.net From goertzel@crab.rutgers.edu Sat May 16 20:16:02 1998 Date: Sat, 16 May 1998 22:16:34 -0400 From: Ted Goertzel To: "psn@csf.colorado.edu" Subject: Re: Leftist Thought in the Twentieth Century Robert A. Smith says that readers outside the USA cannot access the NYTimes site. I'm sorry to hear the Times has this policy. I wonder why? Perhaps they have to pay for a subscription, which is still free in the US? One does have to register and I assume eventually they will start charging. I don't know if there is some legal problem in circulating their copy on the PSN. If anybody outside the USA wants a copy of the Rorty review, they can contact me directly. In checking the NYTimes site, I find that there was also a review by Christopher Lehman-Haupt on April 23, which includes the following comment: While crediting the New Left for being instrumental in ending U.S. involvement in Vietnam, Rorty blames it for retreating from pragmatism into theory. This has led members of the left "to give cultural politics preference over real politics, and to mock the very idea that democratic institutions might once again be made to serve social justice," he writes. "It leads them to prefer knowledge to hope." Meanwhile, he argues, "leftists in the academy have permitted cultural politics to supplant real politics, and have collaborated with the right in making cultural issues central to public debate." Lehman-Haupt also criticizes Rorty for not offering much in the way of positive suggestions. Robert A. Smith wrote: > > -----Original Message----- > > From: owner-psn@csf.colorado.edu [mailto:owner-psn@csf.colorado.edu]On > > Behalf Of Ted Goertzel > > Sent: Saturday, May 16, 1998 4:52 AM > > To: PROGRESSIVE SOCIOLOGISTS NETWORK > > Subject: Leftist Thought in the Twentieth Century > > > > > > The May 17 New York Times Book Review has a review of a book by Richard > > Rorty called Achieving Our Country: Leftist Thought in Twentieth-Century > > America. You can find the review at http://www.nytimes.com. It raises > > Unfortunately as a citizen of Canada I am locked out of the nytimes site. > Would it be possible to make this review available to all on the web. I, and > I am sure many other non-USA participants of this site, would be more than > interested in its content. > > Warmest Regards > Robert A. Smith From JoannaBB@aol.com Sat May 16 17:03:41 1998 Sat, 16 May 1998 19:01:40 -0400 (EDT) From: Joanna BB Date: Sat, 16 May 1998 19:01:40 EDT To: Ubuh@aol.com, Lexoid@aol.com, cbb@vt.edu, Leftspace@aol.com, moon@slac.com, lmelgare@vt.edu, lufolk@bright.net, mmohr@aiusa.org, psn@csf.colorado.edu, aroy@indy.net, simpsonb@nwu.edu, cooper.house@bev.net, invisible@vt.edu, suzuki@expert.com, Wahibausa@aol.com Subject: Fwd: Fwd: IMPORTANT...READ THIS MESSAGE boundary="part0_895359700_boundary" This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --part0_895359700_boundary I don't know if I already sent this to everyone. Sorry if I did! << > >PLEASE READ THIS!!! IT'S EXTREMELY IMPORTANT.... > >This is a message that I am trying to get across the net and across the >country. REGARDLESS WHETHER YOU REPLY TO THIS MESSAGE OR NOT, PLEASE >SEND IT TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW! My father found a website which enables >people to send email directly to Shell. If you don't know what is going >on with Shell, here are some facts: > >The Abacha government is corrupt and engages in torture of the Ogoni >people. > >Shell has extracted over $30 billion of oil from Nigeria since the >middle 1950s. Shell oil money accounts for something like 80% of >Nigeria's vast yearly income. In fact, many people argue that Nigeria >is probably the richest country in Africa. And should have the most >prosperous people yet they don't, because of the ruthlessness of the >military government. The military staged a coup several years ago after >a freely held democratic election did not go their way. They then >simply nullified the results and took control of the government. > >They have been severely sanctioned by many of the world's governments >(yet the Clinton Administration refuses to call for an oil embargo >because it would hurt the huge American oil companies who provide him so >much campaign money). > >Shell has admitted to providing guns to the military dictatorship. > >The Ogonis live in a desperate state of poverty despite the fact that >they live on extremely rich oil deposits. > >Shell had the opportunity two years ago to "encourage" the military >dictatorship to give Ken Saro-Wiwa (the Ogoni's leading environmental >spokesperson) a fair trail yet they refused to "get involved." > >There are now at least 19 more activists imprisoned, probably awaiting >execution. > >When they tried to hang Ken it took them 4 tries before he was dead. >Prior to the hanging he was not allowed visits from his family or a >medical doctor. His family was never allowed to take possession of his >body. > >There are too many more details that could be explained but this should >give you a "flavor" for how bad it is for the Ogoni in Nigeria. > >Please consider going to this website below and writing a statement or >letter of protest to Shell. > >The address is > >http://www.shell.com/d/d2.html > >Consider sending one. Who knows, they might just do something if they >hear from enough of us. > >Thanks so much, >Megan Fitzgibbons > > >If you don't know what to write about, the following letter is an >example of a letter written by my father that was sent to Shell at the >webaddress above. > >Dear Sirs: > >I don't usually advocate private corporations interfering with how a >government treats its people, especially foreign ones. However, Shell >has an opportunity and an obligation to do whatever possible to stop the >bloodshed and mistreatment of the Ogoni people of Nigeria. Your company >has done very well, financially, in Nigeria. However, your concern for >the people of your host country and your disregard for the environmental >degradation caused by you and and other oil companies has been dismal. > >Yes, I see your new PR campaign touting your environmental concerns. >But I also read email postings, online articles, the daily newspapers >and news programs, the personal views of Nigerians who are now living in >the U.S. and I am not persuaded by the new "Green Shell." You failed to >act expeditiously in the matter of Ken Saro-Wiwa and the other 8 >environmental activists, despite the public outcry before they were >hung. There are now other Ogoni still in prison who will probably >experience the same fate. You have enough "clout" with the Abacha >terrorist dictatorship that you could "encourage" them to hold really >free elections and to stop their systematic torture and intimidation of >the Ogoni. You also have the absolute imperative to clean up any >environmental devastation caused by your operations, including flaring. > >As a Professor of Management I expose my students every semester to the >"down side" of corporate globalization. Given your size and financial >success, you have an obligation to "do the right thing" when it comes to >human rights and environmental responsibility. The Abacha regime is one >of the worst oppressors in Africa, perhaps second only do Idi Amin's >terrorism of several years ago. > >I challenge the Shell company to be a world leader (imagine the >favorable publicity you would get!) in confronting these tyrants. >Capitalism can be used for good or evil. Which side is Shell on? > >I still refuse to knowingly use any of your products and encourage my >students to do likewise. Rather than be at the bottom of that list, >wouldn't it be a feather in your cap if people like me could be >extolling the virtues of a corporation the size and success >(financially, at least) of Royal/Dutch Shell? > >I wrote to Mr. Carroll in Houston on December 4, 1995 shortly after the >"kangaroo" trial and merciless execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa. In it I >denounced your ineffective efforts to intervene as well as your lame >public statements that essentially said, "its none of our business." >But it IS your business. Its ALL of our business when human rights are >violated. > >"No One is Free When Others are Oppressed." > >Sincerely, > >Dr. Dale E. Fitzgibbons >(that's my dad :) ) > >>> --part0_895359700_boundary Return-Path: by rly-za05.mx.aol.com (8.8.5/8.8.5/AOL-4.0.0) Mon, 11 May 1998 01:54:17 -0400 (EDT) To: JoannaBB@aol.com, abbeyrd@focol.org, nightowl@web-town.com, Rinifer@aol.com, Chasing42@aol.com Date: Mon, 11 May 1998 00:31:48 -0500 Subject: Fwd: IMPORTANT...READ THIS MESSAGE X-Juno-Line-Breaks: 0-92,94-129 From: moby1342@juno.com (forest j f-----) >Dear UUs: > >PLEASE READ THIS!!! IT'S EXTREMELY IMPORTANT.... > >This is a message that I am trying to get across the net and across the >country. REGARDLESS WHETHER YOU REPLY TO THIS MESSAGE OR NOT, PLEASE >SEND IT TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW! My father found a website which enables >people to send email directly to Shell. If you don't know what is going >on with Shell, here are some facts: > >The Abacha government is corrupt and engages in torture of the Ogoni >people. > >Shell has extracted over $30 billion of oil from Nigeria since the >middle 1950s. Shell oil money accounts for something like 80% of >Nigeria's vast yearly income. In fact, many people argue that Nigeria >is probably the richest country in Africa. And should have the most >prosperous people yet they don't, because of the ruthlessness of the >military government. The military staged a coup several years ago after >a freely held democratic election did not go their way. They then >simply nullified the results and took control of the government. > >They have been severely sanctioned by many of the world's governments >(yet the Clinton Administration refuses to call for an oil embargo >because it would hurt the huge American oil companies who provide him so >much campaign money). > >Shell has admitted to providing guns to the military dictatorship. > >The Ogonis live in a desperate state of poverty despite the fact that >they live on extremely rich oil deposits. > >Shell had the opportunity two years ago to "encourage" the military >dictatorship to give Ken Saro-Wiwa (the Ogoni's leading environmental >spokesperson) a fair trail yet they refused to "get involved." > >There are now at least 19 more activists imprisoned, probably awaiting >execution. > >When they tried to hang Ken it took them 4 tries before he was dead. >Prior to the hanging he was not allowed visits from his family or a >medical doctor. His family was never allowed to take possession of his >body. > >There are too many more details that could be explained but this should >give you a "flavor" for how bad it is for the Ogoni in Nigeria. > >Please consider going to this website below and writing a statement or >letter of protest to Shell. > >The address is > >http://www.shell.com/d/d2.html > >Consider sending one. Who knows, they might just do something if they >hear from enough of us. > >Thanks so much, >Megan Fitzgibbons > > >If you don't know what to write about, the following letter is an >example of a letter written by my father that was sent to Shell at the >webaddress above. > >Dear Sirs: > >I don't usually advocate private corporations interfering with how a >government treats its people, especially foreign ones. However, Shell >has an opportunity and an obligation to do whatever possible to stop the >bloodshed and mistreatment of the Ogoni people of Nigeria. Your company >has done very well, financially, in Nigeria. However, your concern for >the people of your host country and your disregard for the environmental >degradation caused by you and and other oil companies has been dismal. > >Yes, I see your new PR campaign touting your environmental concerns. >But I also read email postings, online articles, the daily newspapers >and news programs, the personal views of Nigerians who are now living in >the U.S. and I am not persuaded by the new "Green Shell." You failed to >act expeditiously in the matter of Ken Saro-Wiwa and the other 8 >environmental activists, despite the public outcry before they were >hung. There are now other Ogoni still in prison who will probably >experience the same fate. You have enough "clout" with the Abacha >terrorist dictatorship that you could "encourage" them to hold really >free elections and to stop their systematic torture and intimidation of >the Ogoni. You also have the absolute imperative to clean up any >environmental devastation caused by your operations, including flaring. > >As a Professor of Management I expose my students every semester to the >"down side" of corporate globalization. Given your size and financial >success, you have an obligation to "do the right thing" when it comes to >human rights and environmental responsibility. The Abacha regime is one >of the worst oppressors in Africa, perhaps second only do Idi Amin's >terrorism of several years ago. > >I challenge the Shell company to be a world leader (imagine the >favorable publicity you would get!) in confronting these tyrants. >Capitalism can be used for good or evil. Which side is Shell on? > >I still refuse to knowingly use any of your products and encourage my >students to do likewise. Rather than be at the bottom of that list, >wouldn't it be a feather in your cap if people like me could be >extolling the virtues of a corporation the size and success >(financially, at least) of Royal/Dutch Shell? > >I wrote to Mr. Carroll in Houston on December 4, 1995 shortly after the >"kangaroo" trial and merciless execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa. In it I >denounced your ineffective efforts to intervene as well as your lame >public statements that essentially said, "its none of our business." >But it IS your business. Its ALL of our business when human rights are >violated. > >"No One is Free When Others are Oppressed." > >Sincerely, > >Dr. Dale E. Fitzgibbons >(that's my dad :) ) > > _____________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com Or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866] --part0_895359700_boundary-- From eric@stewards.net Sun May 17 02:32:42 1998 Sun, 17 May 1998 04:33:04 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from eric@stewards.net) Date: Sun, 17 May 1998 04:33:04 -0400 (EDT) To: PROGRESSIVE SOCIOLOGISTS NETWORK From: eric@stewards.net (Eric Sommer) Subject: UN World Health Award to President Castro/Castro slams drug companies. izbars@yahoo.com, "Coleen" , moonlight@igc.apc.org, Hi there, The following message contains the full text of the speech delivered by Cuban President Fidel Castro at the Palace of Nations in Geneva on the occasion of the presentation to him of the Health for All Medal by the World Health Organization, Thursday, May 14, 1998. The speech includes: 1) a truly incisive, comprehensive, quantitative, and disturbing analysis of the health issues - and the current `political economy' of health - faced by underclass people, and especially women and children, worldwide; 2) A discussion of the great achievements in health and longevity secured by Cuba - achievements of which the U.S./Canada media never speaks - and which have been secured in the teeth of the U.S. attempt to destroy Cuba's socialist society; and 3) A strong critique of the role of for-profit drug companies in depriving Third world people of needed treatments. Eric ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------- >Your excellencies, officials of the WHO, distinguished delegates. > >All praise to the World Health Organization, which together with >UNICEF, has helped to save the lives of hundreds of millions of >children and millions of mothers, which has relieved the suffering >and saved the lives of many more millions of human beings. > >These two institutions -- together with the Food and Agriculture >Organization, the United Nations Development Program, the United >Nations Conference on Trade and Development, the World Food Program, >the United Nations Population Fund, UNESCO, and other organizations >so bitterly opposed by those who would like to erase from the face of >the earth the noble ideas which inspired the creation of the United >Nations - - have made a decisive contribution to the establishment of >a universal awareness of the serious problems of the world today and >the great challenges which we have before us. > >According to the calculations of renowned economists, the world >economy grew six-fold and the production of wealth and services grew >from less than five trillion to more than twenty-nine trillion >dollars between 1950 and 1997. Why then is it still the case that >each year, 12 million children under five years of age die -- that is >to say 33,000 per day -- of whom the overwhelming majority could be >saved? > >Nowhere in the world, in no act of genocide, in no war, are so many >people killed per minute, per hour and per day as those who are >killed by hunger and poverty on our planet -- 53 years after the >creation of the United Nations. > >The children who die and could be saved are almost 100% poor and of >those who survive, we must ask why 500,000 are left blind every year >for lack of a simple vitamin which costs less than a pack of >cigarettes per year? Why are 200 million children under five years >of age undernourished? Why are there 250 million children and >adolescents working? Why do 110 million not attend primary school >and 275 million fail to attend secondary school? Why do two million >girls become prostitutes each year? Why in this world -- which >already produces almost 30 trillion dollars worth of goods and >services per year -- do one billion 300 million human beings live in >absolute poverty, receiving less than a dollar a day -- when there >are those who receive more than a million dollars a day? Why do 800 >million lack the most basic health services? Why is it that of the >50 million people who die each year in the world, whether adults or >children, 17 million -- that is approximately 50,000 per day -- die >of infectious diseases which could almost all be cured -- or, even >better, be prevented -- at a cost which is sometimes no more than one >dollar per person? > >How much is a human life worth? What is the cost to humanity of the >unjust and intolerable order which prevails in the world? 585,000 >women died during pregnancy or in childbirth in 1996, 99% of them in >the Third World, 70,000 due to abortions carried out in poor >conditions, 69,000 of them in Latin America, Africa and Asia? Apart >from the huge differences in the quality of life between rich and >poor countries, people in rich countries live an average of 12 years >longer than people in poor countries. And even within some nations, >the difference in life expectancy between the richest and poorest is >between 20 and 35 years. It is really sad to think that just in the >area of maternal and post-natal services, in spite of the efforts of >the WHO and UNICEF over the last 50 years, the number of deaths from >lack of medical services has been 600 million children and 25 million >mothers who could have survived. That would have required a more >rational and more just world. > >In that same post-war period, in the area of military expenditure, >30 trillion dollars were spent. According to UN estimates, the cost >of providing universal access to basic health care services would be >25 billion dollars per year -- just three percent of the 800 billion >dollars which are currently devoted to military expenditure -- and >this after the end of the Cold War. > >There is no let up in arms sales, which have the sole purpose of >killing, while the medicines which should be provided to save lives >become increasingly expensive. The market in medicines in 1995 >reached 280 billion dollars. The developed countries, with 14.6% of >the world's population -- 824 million inhabitants -- consume 82% of >the medicines. The rest of the world -- 4 billion 815 million people >-- consume only 18%. > >Prices of medicines are prohibitive for the Third World, where only >the privileged sectors can afford them. The control of patents and >markets by the large transnational companies enables them to raise >those prices as much as ten times above their production costs. Some >of the latest antibiotics are priced at 50 times their production >cost. > >And the world's population continues to grow. We are now almost six >billion and growing at a rate of 80 million per year. It took two >million years to reach the first billion people, a hundred years to >reach the second billion, and 11 years to reach the last billion. In >50 years, there will be four billion new inhabitants on the planet. > >Old illnesses have returned and new ones are appearing: AIDS, the >Ebola virus, Anthrax, BSE or mad cow disease -- more than thirty >according to the specialists. Either we defeat AIDS or AIDS will >destroy many Third World countries. No poor person can pay the >10,000 dollars per person each year that current treatments cost -- >which merely prolong life without actually curing the disease. > >The climate is changing. The seas and the atmosphere are heating >up. The air and water are becoming contaminated. Soil is eroding, >deserts are growing, forests are disappearing and water is becoming >scarce. Who can save our species? The blind, uncontrollable law of >the market? Neo-liberal globalization, alone and for its own sake, >like a cancer which devours human beings and destroys nature? That >cannot be the way forward or at least it can only last for a brief >period in history. The WHO is fighting heroically against these >realities and it also has the duty of being optimistic. > >As a Cuban and a revolutionary, I share their optimism. With a >current infant mortality rate of 7.2 per thousand live births during >the first year; a doctor for every 176 inhabitants -- which is the >highest level in the world -- and a life expectancy of more than 75 >years of age, Cuba has fulfilled the WHO Health for All program for >the year 2000 since 1983 -- in spite of the cruel blockade it has >suffered for almost 40 years, in spite of being a poor, Third World >country. The attempt to commit genocide against our country has only >made us redouble our efforts and increased our will to survive. The >world can also fight and win. > >Thank you very much. > > > Castro Slams Drug Companies > >By Geir Moulson >Associated Press Writer >Thursday, May 14, 1998; 10:42 a.m. EDT > >GENEVA (AP) -- Cuban President Fidel Castro painted a gloomy >picture today of a developing world condemned to high death rates, >partly because major drug companies charge inflated prices for >medicines. > >In an impassioned speech at a session celebrating the 50th >anniversary of the U.N health agency, Castro also condemned >growing global trade liberalization and ``an economy that grows by >itself and for itself, like a cancer.'' > >He decried the U.S. economic embargo against his island nation, >but said the sanctions have only ``led to the multiplication of >our strengths and our will to survive.'' > >Castro also deplored high death and disease rates in developing >countries, and pointed to inflated drug prices by pharmaceutical >companies as the culprit. > >``The control of patents and markets by the big transnational >companies allows them to raise prices over 10 times above >production costs,'' Castro said. > >``Either we defeat AIDS, or AIDS will devastate several Third >World countries,'' Castro said. > >The 70-year-old Cuban leader was given a standing ovation as he >entered the hall of the 191-nation World Health Assembly -- the >annual meeting of the World Health Organization. > >During a weeklong visit, Castro will also address the World Trade >Organization when leaders gather to mark half a century of the >global trading system, born at a meeting in Havana, Cuba, in 1948. > >The Cuban leader and first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton were >staying in the same hotel today, but the hotel manager said any >clash of ideologies would be ``no problem.'' > >``Everyone is in their own place and it works very well,'' Herbert >Schott, director of Geneva's luxury Hotel Intercontinental, told >The Associated Press. > >The hotel, which has hosted Mrs. Clinton and the U.S. president on >a previous visit to Geneva, is favored by security services for >their ability to protect it. > > > >c Copyright 1998 The Associated Press > > > > > > > > > > > >|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| >|||| ***Cuba Information Access *** >|||| The current events in La Republica de Cuba... >|||| Where else are you going to get it ? >|||| >|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| > >___________________________________________________ >NUEVO AMANECER PRESS- N.A.P. >_________________________________ >Registered as a Non Profit Corporation in USA,N.A.P. translates and distributes >information in support of human rights in Mexico. >Advisory team: Mexico. General Director:Roger Maldonado-Mexico >Darrin Wood: Director NAP-Spain office. Susana Saravia: Coordinator NAP: Mexico/USA/Spain >Our web page in spanish:http://www.nap.cuhm.mx/nap0.htm > > > From fbp@igc.apc.org Sun May 17 07:51:29 1998 Sun, 17 May 1998 06:46:11 -0700 (PDT) Sun, 17 May 1998 06:45:48 -0700 (PDT) Date: Sun, 17 May 1998 08:09:41 -0400 To: (Recipient list suppressed) From: "John M. Miller" Subject: Action Alert on Indonesia and East Timor ActionAlert ActionAlert ActionAlert ActionAlert EAST TIMOR ACTION NETWORK Suharto Regime Faces Crisis, Students Killed by Indonesian Military VOTE SCHEDULED FOR NEXT WEEK! Now Is the Time To Ban All Military Training and Freeze All Weapons To Indonesia CONTACT YOUR REPRESENTATIVE AND SENATORS TODAY! * Urge your Representative and Senators to ban ALL U.S. military training of and exercises with Indonesia’s armed forces. Urge them to support amendments to the Defense Authorization (HR 3616) and Foreign Operations Appropriations bills restricting U.S. military training to Indonesia. The Defense Authorization bill may be voted on as early as Thursday, May 21. The Pentagon indefinitely suspended the Joint Combined Exchange Training (JCET) program to Indonesia. This is a victory, but bans on both JCET and the International Military Education and Training (IMET) program must be made into law! Urge members of the House of Representatives to co-sponsor Rep. Nita Lowey's (D-NY) International Military Training Accountability Act (H.R. 3802), introduced with 22 initial co-sponsors on May 13. * Urge your Representative and Senators to freeze the transfer of ALL U.S. weapons, spare parts and ammunition for Indonesia’s armed forces. Urge them to write to President Clinton and Secretary of State Albright supporting a total freeze until a popularly elected government emerges in Indonesia, and substantial human rights improvements in both Indonesia and East Timor can be demonstrated. * Urge your Representative to co-sponsor House Concurrent Resolution (H.Con.Res.) 258, which affirms congressional support for East Timor's right to self-determination. Congressmembers Nita Lowey (D-NY), John Porter (R-IL), Tom Lantos (D-CA) and Chris Smith (R-NJ) introduced the resolution on April 1. It also calls for direct East Timorese participation in the UN-sponsored tripartite talks. Urge your Senators to support a companion resolution. To reach your Senators and Representative in Washington, call the congressional switchboard at 202-224-3121. Their local offices should be in your phone book. Write to Senator _________, US Senate, Washington, DC 20510 or Rep. _________, US House of Representatives, Washington, DC 20515. Send a copies of your letter/fax to: Write President Clinton, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., Washington, DC 20500; 202-456-1414; president@whitehouse.gov and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, US State Dept, 2201 C St., NW, Washington, DC 20520, fax: 1-202-647-6434. For a current list of Congressional e-mail addresses, try http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/ or This website also include office phone and fax numbers. BACKGROUND The Suharto regime is foundering and pro-democracy activism is spreading throughout Indonesia. Jakarta has gone up in flames as rioters lash out against the government. Many have been killed. As the economic and political crisis in Indonesia and East Timor escalates, so will hardship and suffering. Now is the time to urge Congress and President Clinton to formally end all military training and all transfers of weapons, spare parts and ammunition to Indonesia. Recently, ETAN helped to expose US training of Indonesian military units, contrary to congressional intent. These revelations and the shooting of peaceful protesters in the streets of Jakarta have triggered outrage in Washington. Opposition is building to continued U.S. support of the Indonesian military. With your help, these protests could lead to a complete ban on all military training to the Suharto regime. In fact late last week, the Pentagon announced the indefinite suspension of this training, but a long-term ban is needed. Now it's time to renew our call for self-determination in East Timor. Thank you for your support Please forward the results of you contacts to ETAN’s Washington office. Check ETAN’s website at http://etan.org or the addresses below for updates on co-sponsors and other aspects of the legislation. Contact us if you have questions. Lynn Fredriksson, Washington Representative East Timor Action Network 110 Maryland Avenue NE #30, Washington, DC 20002 202-544-6911; 546-5103 (fax), etandc@igc.apc.org or END etanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetan John M. Miller Internet: etan-outreach@igc.apc.org Media & Outreach Coordinator, East Timor Action Network PO Box 150753, Brooklyn, NY 11215-0014 USA; Phone: (718)596-7668 Check out ETAN's new web site: http://etan.org Send a blank e-mail message to timor-info@igc.apc.org to find out how to learn more about East Timor on the Internet etanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetan From eric@stewards.net Sun May 17 21:41:53 1998 (envelope-from eric@stewards.net) Date: Sun, 17 May 1998 23:46:31 -0400 (EDT) To: PROGRESSIVE SOCIOLOGISTS NETWORK From: eric@stewards.net (Eric Sommer) Subject: SHUT DOWN the School of the Americas!!! >I would urge all people to write to their elected representatives to >close down the School of the Americas. We're only 4 votes away. IT'S >GOING TO HAPPEN. >Also: it's better to write letters when you are a registered voter. You >don't have to vote but sometimes they check to see if you're registered. >If you don't want to or you're too young, that's okay, write a letter >anyway... but register if you can. You can also call the Capitol >Switchboard at (800) 972-3524 >--------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------ >Sample letter >Dear _________ > >(For your representative) I write to urge you to co-sponser Joe Kennedy's >H.R. 611 to close the School of the Americas. The bill has 130 >co-sponsors but needs more before it will come to the floor for a vote. > >(For your senators) I urge you to co-sponsor Senator Durbin's bill S. 980 >calling for the closing of the U.S. Army School of the Americas at Fort >Benning, Georgia. > >(For ALL) The School of the Americas is the only large United States >training facility in which foreign military personnel are not integrated >into regular United States military training. We also know that the >school's graduates include some of the worst human rights abusers in our >hemisphere. We are aware that the School of the Americas members are >trained in counterinsurgency, torture and other activities in which it is >illegal for our own U.S. soldiers to engage. > >I cannot support this training. Congress must vote this school to a >close. I am repentant of my own complicity, through tax funding and >economic benefit, in the deaths, abuses to human rights and mind set >military control that the School of the Americas has clearly produced in >Latin American countires. I invite you into that spirit of repentance >and ask you to cosponsor (Representative Kennedy's HR 611 or Senator >Durbin's S 980) > >Your name and address > >_____________________________________________________________________ >You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. >Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com >Or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866] > > From C.Barker@mmu.ac.uk Mon May 18 06:28:30 1998 by dryctnath.mmu.ac.uk with esmtp (Exim 1.92 #2) From: "BARKER C MR" To: apeace@arts.adelaide.edu.au, crit-geog-forum@mailbase.ac.uk, cultstud-l@nosferatu.cas.usf.edu, psn@csf.colorado.edu, social-movements@wit.ie, social-policy@mailbase.ac.uk, social-theory-request@mailbase.ac.uk, teaching-politics@mailbase.ac.uk Date: Mon, 18 May 1998 13:27:53 +0100 Subject: Conference Papers Available apologies for cross-posting CONFERENCE PAPERS AVAILABLE "ALTERNATIVE FUTURES and POPULAR PROTEST" : 4th INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE, 1998 Manchester Metropolitan University, April 1998 A limited supply of the papers given at this very successful conference is still available for purchase. The papers are bound into two volumes, and available as a set, at a cost of 25 pounds sterling [including second class postage]. Details of the contents of the two volumes, and of how to obtain them, can be found later in this message. Preliminary planning for the fifth such conference at Manchester Metropolitan Conference is now underway. It will be held from Monday lunchtime 29 March 1999 to Wednesday lunchtime 31 March 1999. Further details, with booking forms etc, will be available in the autumn of 1998. Offers of papers are very welcome, and should be addressed, along with requests for further information, to Colin Barker Dept of Sociology, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manton Building, Rosamond Street West, Manchester M15 6LL, UK email C.Barker@mmu.ac.uk fax +44 161 247 6321 tel +44 161 247 3429 [ansaphone] +++++++ ALTERNATIVE FUTURES and POPULAR PROTEST IV, 1998 CONTENTS - VOL 1 Anthony J ARMSTRONG, The New Left Review and Convulsive Change 1987-1991: a study in the 'fog of war' John ARMITAGE, Ontological Anarchism, the Temporary Autonomous Zone, and Techno-Politics: An Analysis and Critique of Hakim Bey Colin BARKER with Michael LAVALETTE, Strategy and the Sense of Context: Reflections on the First Two Weeks of the Liverpool Docks Dispute, September-October 1995 Logie BARROW, What Made Anti-Vaccination 'Martyrs', c. 1867-1910? Matthew BEAUMONT, Late-Victorian Dystopianism: The Paris Commune and the Anti-Socialist Imagination Rose CAPDEVILA, Narrating Protest: A Q Study on environmental activism Wayne CLARKE, The 'Exodus' collective: D-I-Y activism in action? Linda CONNOLLY, From Revolution to Devolution: The Contemporary Irish Women's Movement Laurence COX, Gramsci, movements and method: the politics of activist research Ralph DARLINGTON and Dave LYDDON, 1972 - The Challenge From Below Rachel DIX, A short story of individual and collective transformation; 24 hours in a Leeds strike Jeremy GILBERT, The Politicality of Cultural Forms: From Williams to Laclau and Mouffe (and back again) John GOLD, 'Hard Hitting Songs for Hard Hit People': Woody Guthrie and the Dust Bowl Migrations Paul GRANT, 'People must do things for themselves': A comparison between the revolutionary theory and practice of Amilcar Cabral and Walter Rodney David GRIERSON, The Oatlands Tapes: Comments on an Urban Community in Decline Rumy HASAN, Riots and urban unrest in Britain in the 1980s and 1990s: a Critical Examination of the Explanations Zoe JAMES, Policing Protest under the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 CONTENTS VOL 2 Michael LAVALETTE and Nigel FLANAGAN, Tribunes of the people? political activists and interventions 'from without' during an episode of collective action Michael LAVALETTE and Gerry MOONEY, Political perspective and strategy in the first year of the campaign against the Poll Tax in Scotland Geraldine LIEVESLEY, The rise and fall of social movements in Latin and Central America Harriet MITCHELL, Green Future? Alistair MITCHELL, The Poll Tax Riot 1990 - Building A Real Time Video Chronology Dave MORLAND, Power tools: anarchism and the internet Richard MURGATROYD, The Subject as Object: Researching the popular politics of the poll tax Kiran ODHAV, Student protest history, future challenges and black institution extinction Jan O'LEARY and Rachel SHARP, Spiritual Feminism and New Age Politics: Can 'self spirituality' be transcended? Michel PEILLON, Forms of protest in contemporary Ireland Stanley RAFFEL, Culture and the revolutionary ideal Andy ROBINSON, From NIMBY to NOPE: Residues of reform on Glasgow's Southside Alison STATHAM, Ideology versus Pragmatism: Contradictions in Theory and Practice of the New German Right Clifford STOTT, The inter-group dynamics of crowd events Deborah TALBOT, After the Smoke Clears: the Independent on Sunday's Cannabis Campaign and How the Drugs War was Lost Helen WAITE, Lesbian Activism: Is the future all queer? (plus ABSTRACTS ONLY: Jane HARRIS, Liberating human and non-human animals: ethical body regimes among women animal rights activists; Drew HEMMENT, Renegade rhythms - the body poetics and body politics of contemporary dance culture; Alan JOHNSON, Equality with a difference: 'Union Women's Alliance to Gain Equality' and the campaign for a 'Labor Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) in California, 1970-1972; Sveta KLIMOVA, Disagreeing to Agree and Disagreeing to Disagree: How can Protest be Rational?; Adam LENT, The Personal-Local in New Movements; Barbara LINDSAY, Cartooning for Equality; Rachel MONAGHAN and Kathy KENDALL, 'Hidden From History' - Suffragette Violence; Bron SZERSZYNSKI, Life Politics, Emancipatory Politics and Moral Responsibility in the Animal Rights Movement) ISBN (2 vols together) 1 899927 06 9 Price (incl postage) 25 pounds sterling; cheques to Manchester Metropolitan University Available from: Colin Barker, Department of Sociology Manchester Metropolitan University Geoffrey Manton Building Rosamond Street West Manchester M15 6LL, UK tel 0161 247 1751 fax 0161 247 6308 email c.barker@mmu.ac.uk From smrose@exis.net Mon May 18 15:15:06 1998 From: "Steve Rosenthal" To: PSN@CSF.COLORADO.EDU, eric@stewards.net (Eric Sommer) Date: Mon, 18 May 1998 17:12:03 +0000 Subject: Re: More on nationalism Eric, Thanks very much for your comments and questions. I will try to explain why I think India's exploding of nuclear "devices" is a significant step toward a third inter-imperialist world war. The main driving force in the capitalist world today is what the capitalists themselves call "excess capacity," and what Marxists have historically called a "crisis of overproduction." There is, for example, roughly 33% excess capacity in the auto industry, a key capitalist industry. The Daimler-Benz--Chrysler merger is the latest attempt by one of the big six world auto producers to resolve that problem. Economic expansion in Asia has played a major role in bringing about this crisis. As the fastest growing region in the global capitalist economy, it absorbed more investment than any other region. Perhaps that is why the crisis has hit there first. The US not only has invested in and exported to Asia. It also has 100,000 troops there to prevent any nation in the region from developing an independent military force. The US has fought two major wars in Asia since WWII to maintain US. military hegemony in the region. But a resurgent capitalist China has been both an irresistible attraction for US investment and exported goods, as well as an aspiring global military and political rival. Within the US capitalist class there is an on-going struggle between those who seek short term multi-billion dollar deals and those who fear long term military confrontation with China. The NY Times has been running detailed articles exposing how Clinton took money from US and Chinese bosses and approved the deals with their high tech transfers. The US also provided India with most of the wherewithal to be able to test nuclear devices and make bombs and the missiles to deliver them. The US has given China the supercomputers to simulate nuclear tests and get the data they want without testing. All in all, US policy toward China and India is similar to US policy toward Iran and Iraq during the 1980s--playing a region's two main powers against each other in hopes of maintaining US dominance. But China and India are obviously much more formidable powers. And the US did not foresee that a nationalist, fascistic party (the BJP) would take power in India and chart a more nationalist course for the Indian ruling class. So the US attempt to play China and India off against each other has now blown up in the US face, as did their "dual containment" policy toward Iran and Iraq. Meanwhile, Western Europe and Russia are challenging the US in more and more ways from the embargo against Cuba to the sanctions against Iraq. Sharpening rivalry is the global pattern because the crisis of overproduction forces all capitalists to compete more ruthlessly to survive. You asked why multinational corporations would go to war when so much of their investments and activities are located in countries against whom they will possibly go to war. Good question! I found it very eye-opening to read the book "Trading With the Enemy" by Charles Higham. He documents and analyzes in great detail how the main sections of U.S. capital, including Rockefeller, Morgan, DuPont, and Ford carried on extensive banking, trade, and production relations with Nazi Germany throughout World War II. They concocted elaborate schemes to protect their property, to evade trade restrictions and confiscations of enemy property. They were not only seking short term profit. They were also maintaining the foundations for the post-war order they intended to establish. These relationships between US and German bosses were not in marginal areas. They involved the manufacture of military transport vehicles, fighter aircraft and aviation fuel, and many other things central to the entire war. The collusion was amazing--but so was the war! Capitalists may have multi-national corporations, but they rule politically through nation-states. Their combinations, mergers, and cartels do not end competition; they intensify it--as between Boeing and Airbus, for example. I cannot predict where or when war will occur? There are too many uncertainties and unpredictable particulars. I do think that the main trend is in the direction of war (and of fascist mobilization for it). In Marxist terms, inter-imperialist rivalry is the main contradiction at this point. The main contradiction is not at this point between the capitalist class and the working class. The US is the declining power, challenged more and more by European and Asian capitalists. The hot spots are in the Middle East, the Persian Gulf, and Asia. As things develop, we will be able to see how the battle lines will be drawn. At what point could we have correctly predicted who would fight against whom in World War II or I? I don't know, but I don't think we could have made a very accurate prediction very far ahead of time. Sorry this is so long, Eric. I thought your questions deserved a detailed reply. Steve Rosenthal > Hi Steve, > > I found your contribution below to the `Indian Nuke' thread to be of real > interest. > I was also intrigued, and somewhat disturbed, given the history of war in > this century, by your prediction that "uneven development and global > overproduction are driving European and Asian capitalists to challenge the > US ever more directly, and this will eventually lead to war." > > Can you say what challenges, specificially, the European and Asian > capitalists are currently offering to the U.S. or to one another? > > Also, how, specifically, do you envision a war between global capitalist > powers arising? > > Part of what I'm after here is an explanation as to why you feel that the > competition between Asian and European capitalists will lead to war between > their respective nations? My understanding is that multi-nationals are > called `multi-nationals' because while they may be initially based in one > super-power or region, they eventually invest heavily *inside* other regions > and other super-powers. Japanese companies such as Sony or Toyota, or U.S. > companies such as IBM, to cite just a couple of examples, routinely build > huge research, production, and distribution systems outside their original > national `base', in southease Asia, in Europe, and in the U.S. Eventually, > such companies end up with a very large, and sometimes the bulk, of their > assets on their `inter-imperialist' rivals territory. So inducing their > national governments to make war on these `rivals' would seem to be > counter-productive, inasmuch as it would mean inducing them to make war on > countries where the companies hold significant business assets. > > Very Cordially, > Eric From fbp@igc.apc.org Mon May 18 15:45:56 1998 Mon, 18 May 1998 13:54:37 -0700 (PDT) Mon, 18 May 1998 13:53:54 -0700 (PDT) Date: Mon, 18 May 1998 16:54:12 -0400 To: (Recipient list suppressed) From: "John M. Miller" Subject: U.S. Demonstrations for Indonesia The following four demonstrations in support of democracy in Indonesia and freedom for East Timor are scheduled for this week. ** TUESDAY, May 19, 1998 ** CHICAGO: 5 pm. Emergency demonstration to support the democracy movement in Indonesia! Indonesian consulate next week. We are scheduling. Indonesian Consulate, 72 E. Randolph St. Contact: East Timor Action Network/Chicago 773-506-2465, simpsonb@nwu.edu ** WEDNESDAY, May 20, 1998 ** WASHINGTON, DC: 5 p.m. at Indonesian Embassy (2020 Mass Ave., NW) in support of democracy for Indonesia and opposing arms and other military assistance to the Indonesian military. Contact: ETAN DC, (202)544-6911; etandc@igc.org ** THURSDAY ** NEW YORK CITY: March and Rally to Support Freedom for Indonesia & East Timor Gather at 4:30 p.m. in Columbus Circle (59th St. & Broadway by the Central Park entrance) March at 5 p.m. to Indonesian Consulate 68th St. for Rally at 6 pm. Contact: ETAN/NY, (718)596-7668; etan-outreach@igc.apc.org SAN FRANCISCO: Noon demonstration at the Indonesian consulate, 1111 Columbus St. (near the Tower Records store at Columbus and Bay, take the 15 Muni bus from Kearney and Market (1 block west of Montgomery St. BART stop)going toward North Beach). co-sponsored by Indonesia Alert!, ETAN/SF and Global Exchange, East Timor Action Network/SF 415-626-3723; bterrall@igc.org Kurt Biddle/ Indonesia Alert! 510-986-1339; kbiddle@igc.org END etanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetan John M. Miller Internet: etan-outreach@igc.apc.org Media & Outreach Coordinator, East Timor Action Network PO Box 150753, Brooklyn, NY 11215-0014 USA; Phone: (718)596-7668 Check out ETAN's new web site: http://etan.org Send a blank e-mail message to timor-info@igc.apc.org to find out how to learn more about East Timor on the Internet etanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetan From KRAMERL@alpha.montclair.edu Mon May 18 15:37:10 1998 Date: Mon, 18 May 1998 17:37:08 -0400 (EDT) From: LAURA KRAMER Subject: sociology of organizations To: psn@csf.colorado.edu looking for readings to assign in the fall. recommendations welcome, esp. for materials that are not primarily theoretical thanks, laura Laura Kramer Professor of Sociology Montclair State University Upper Montclair, NJ 07043 (973) 655-7168 KRAMERL@ALPHA.MONTCLAIR.EDU From cdfupdate@childrensdefense.org Mon May 18 18:29:15 1998 Date: Mon, 18 May 1998 18:22:58 -0400 From: CDFupdate To: cdfupdate@automailer.com Subject: CDF Update - May 15 , 1998. Sender: owner-cdfupdate@automailer.com Children's Defense Fund Update May 15, 1998 In This Issue: -- Important Senate Vote on Child Care Next Week -- -- Success on Food Stamps / Campaign Shifts to the House -- -- Senate Debate on S.10 -- -- People vs. Highways -- *** Late Breaking Child Care Developments *** Senators Kerry and Bond To Offer Child Care Amendment to Tobacco Bill-- Urgent Calls Needed! We've just learned that Senators John Kerry (D-MA) and Kit Bond (R-MO) will introduce a child care amendment to Senator McCain's (AZ) tobacco bill which will be debated early next week by the U.S. Senate. The Kerry-Bond amendment will contain language that dedicates specific funds for child care from tobacco revenues. We expect this child care amendment to have strong bipartisan support when the vote happens as early as Tuesday, May 19th. However, your continued work is critical to our efforts to get a major investment in child care this year. Already, your calls have made a huge impact as child care continues to build momentum in the Senate. Call your Senators immediately with the following message: "Please support the Kerry-Bond child care amendment which dedicates funds for child care from tobacco revenues." Call your U.S. senators toll-free. Dial 1-888-387-8263 (1-888-38 STAND UP) from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Eastern Time. (This free service is available between May 11 and June 12). You will hear a short general message about child care and then be transferred to the U.S. congressional switchboard. This free service is brought to you courtesy of Working Assets Long Distance. PLEASE URGE CO-WORKERS, FRIENDS AND FAMILY TO CALL TODAY! ** SENATE PASSES FOOD STAMP RESTORATIONS FOR LEGAL IMMIGRANTS! ** The Senate has passed, by a vote of 92-8, the Agricultural Research Conference Report, including $818 million in food stamp restorations for legal immigrants. Senators opposing the bill were: Gramm (R-TX); Kyl (R-AZ); Sessions (R-AL); Gregg (R-NH); Smith (R-NH); Inhofe (R-OK); Nickles (R-OK); and Helms (R-NC). The Senate had earlier rejected, by a 23-77 vote, an attempt by Sen. Gramm (R-TX) to send the conference report back to the conference committee with instructions to limit the refugee exemption to those refugees in the United States prior to August 22, 1996. This motion would have effectively killed the bill. Senators voting in support of Sen. Gramm's motion were: Republicans: Faircloth (NC); Shelby (AL); Thompson (TN); McCain (AZ); Gregg (NH); Kyl (AZ); Hutchinson (AR); Allard (CO); Sessions (AL); Nickles (OK); Thurmond (SC); Smith (NH); Helms (NC); Hutchison (TX); Ashcroft (MO); Lott (MS); Abraham (MI); Inhofe (OK); Thomas (WY); Enzi (WY); Snowe (ME); and Democrat Hollings (SC). In a May 12th statement, President Clinton praised the Senate's passage of the Ag. Research bill: "I am very pleased that the Senate today passed with an overwhelming majority the bipartisan conference report on the agriculture research bill. This vital legislation makes needed reforms and provides funding in several areas that are priorities for my Administration. The legislation provides important benefits to America's farmers and to those who have come to this country seeking a brighter future....The last hurdle that remains for this bill is for the House of Representatives to pass the conference report. I urge the House to act quickly on this legislation." Congratulations to all who worked tirelessly in this effort! On to the House! CAMPAIGN SHIFTS TO THE HOUSE! Following the resounding Senate approval of the Ag. Research bill, advocates are now shifting attention to the House of Representatives. House leadership has not yet announced timing of the House vote. Message: Ask moderate Republican House Members to urge the House leadership to move the conference report to the House floor immediately for final passage. Urge all Democratic House Members to support the conference report. At stake is $818 million over five years for legal immigrant food stamp restorations, including: 1) extending the refugee exemption from 5 to 7 years; and 2) restoring benefits to Hmong persons, cross-border Native Americans, persons who are or who become disabled who entered the U.S. before 8/22/96, persons who were 65 and in the country on 8/22/96, and children under 18 who were in the country on 8/22/96. To help share information on Campaign efforts around the country, please send information to Food Research and Action Center. Telephone: 202-986-2200 (x3016 for Ellen Vollinger, x3020 for Carrie Lewis); Fax: 202-986-2525. E-mail: evollinger@frac.org or clewis@frac.org. Prepared by Food Research and Action Center, 1875 Conn. Ave. NW, Washington, D.C.. 20009; 202-986-2200; 202-986-2525 (FAX); E-MAIL: foodresearch@frac.org ** Senate Debate on S. 10 ** In less than three weeks, on June 4, 1998, the United States Senate will begin debating S. 10, the Violent and Repeat Juvenile Offender Act. In order to debate the bill, there must be 60 senators who vote to proceed to the bill. Because of your hard work, supporters of S.10 so far have not been able to bring the bill to the floor -- you have made it too controversial to allow children to be incarcerated with adults; to protect guns rather than our children; to build prisons to house our children rather than fund after-school and summer activities that will keep them safe and out of trouble; and to require that juvenile records be kept in the FBI's computer system and trail a person for life, shutting doors of opportunity along the way. We must continue our fight against this attack on our children and make sure that the S.10 supporters fall short of the 60 votes. Call your Senators at 202/224-3121 and tell them to vote NO on bringing S. 10 to the floor. ** TRANSPORTATION BILL CONFEREES TO DECIDE WHETHER TO PROTECT ESSENTIAL SERVICES AND HELP FAMILIES FIND A ROUTE OFF WELFARE ** Conferees working out the details of the $200 + billion transportation bill (known as ISTEA, or Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act) are about to agree upon substantial increases for highways and some increases for mass transit. As of now, there is a genuine risk that those increases will come at the expense of services crucially necessary for children, including the Social Services Block Grant (Title XX), Medicaid, or Food Stamps. The Clinton Administration has opposed cuts in such programs in order to fund more transportation projects, and is proposing alternatives that would still allow growth in transportation spending while protecting needed services. The conferees are also deciding whether to include $250 million a year for five years for new Access to Jobs and Reverse Commute programs, both of which will provide grants to localities to enable welfare participants and other low income people to get the transportation help they need to work. Only 6 percent of families on welfare have cars, and many live in areas, rural or urban, where there is no public transit to the high job-growth locations in the suburbs. TELL THE CONFEREES TO REJECT ANY TRANSPORTATION BILL THAT FORCES CUTS IN NEEDED SERVICES FOR CHILDREN, FAMILIES, AND SENIOR CITIZENS, AND TO SUPPORT THE MODEST INCLUSION OF ACCESS TO JOBS PROGRAMS ENABLING WELFARE RECIPIENTS TO FIND AND KEEP JOBS. ISTEA CONFEREES HR.2400 House Conferees: 1. Shuster (R-PA) 2. Young (R-AK) 3. Petri (R-WI) 4. Boehlert (R-NY) 5. Kim (R-CA) 6. Horn (R-CA) 7. Fowler (R-FL) 8. Baker (R-LA) 9. Ney (R-OH) 10. Metcalf (R-WA) 11. Oberstar (D-MN) 12. Rahall (D-WV) 13. Borski (D-PA) 14. Lipinski (D-IL) 15. Wise (D-WV) 16. Clyburn (D-SC) 17. Filner (D-CA) 18. McGovern (D-MA) 19. Bliley (R-VA) 20. Bilirakis (R-FL) 21. Dingell (D-MI) 22. Tauzin (R-LA) 23. Sensenbrenner (R-WI) 24. Morella (R-MD) 25. Brown (D-CA) 26. Nussle (R-IA) 27. Hulshof (R-MO) 28. Rangel (D-NY) 29. Parker (R-MS) 30. Radanovich (R-CA) 31. Spratt (D-SC) S.1173 Senate Conferees: 1. Chafee (R-RI) 2. Warner (R-VA) 3. Smith (R-NH) 4. Kempthorne (R-ID) 5. Inhofe (R-OK) 6. Thomas (R-WY) 7. Bond (R-MO) 8. Hutchinson (R-AR) 9. Allard (R-CO) 10. Sessions (R-AL) 11. Baucus (D-MT) 12. Moynihan (D-NY) 13. Lautenberg (D-NJ) 14. Reid (D-NV) 15. Graham (D-FL) 16. Lieberman (D-CT) 17. Boxer (D-CA) 18. Wyden (D-OR) 19. Roth (R-DE) 20. Grassley (R-IA) 21. Hatch (R-UT) 22. Breaux (D-LA) 23. Conrad (D-ND) 24. D'Amato (R-NY) 25. Gramm (R-TX) 26. Shelby (R-AL) 27. Sarbanes (D-MD) 28. Dodd (D-CT) 29. McCain (R-AZ) 30. Stevens (R-AK) 31. Hollings (D-SC) 32. Domenici (R-NM) 33. Nickles (R-OK) 34. Murray (D-WA) ************************************************************************ -- 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 tell@net.bluemoon.net Tue May 19 08:08:28 1998 Date: Tue, 19 May 1998 10:08:06 -0400 (EDT) From: Shawgi Tell To: psn@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Starting-Point For Progress Is Rejection Of The System Of The Rich Greetings, The 1997 work, "Funding for Justice: Money, Equity, and the Future of Public Education," published by Rethinking Schools, carries a very short article by Bob Peterson entitled "Taking Action for Funding Justice." The article is about school funding and how it can be made equitable. Peterson basically implies that "pressure politics" is the way forward (e.g., "pressuring" state legislatures, affecting state legislation, legislative success and this sort of thing). Peterson even wonders whether "activists will have to find a sympathetic legislator to initiate new legislation" (p. 55). He also rightly concludes by saying: One should also keep in mind that fighting for funding equity for public schools is part of a broader struggle to ensure that all families have health care, housing and jobs that pay a living wage. Ultimately, it is around not only schools but around these broader concerns that our society will demonstrate whether it is truly committed to 'liberty and justice for all' (p. 55). While correctly calling for "a long-term perspective" for organizing struggle to end funding inequities, "pressure politics" cannot be considered a real solution. This method of struggle will not lead to "liberty and justice for all." It will not "ensure that all families...a living wage." The starting-point for progress is conscious rejection of the political set-up of the rich. This set-up is not legitimate to begin with. It favors the wealthy few and marginalizes the vast majority, particularly national minorities and women. By participating in the political arrangements of the rich (e.g., via "pressure politics"), people will only further marginalize and ghettoize themselves. They will only be lending credence to a system which disempowers them from the get-go. "Pressure politics" is a reflection of the fact that the inviolable right of all humans to participate directly and fully in the governance of their society is not recognized, let alone guaranteed. Were this inalienable human right actually recognized and affirmed in our society, people would not have to resort to "pressuring" the government of the rich. They would actually be able to set and implement the agenda themselves. The fact that people are reduced to "pressuring" the rich and their servants confirms that the people themselves lack real decision-making power. The key to solving the problems of education in general and education funding in particular, is vesting sovereignty in the people themselves. In fact, this is the key to solving the 1001 extremely serious problems plaguing bourgeois society. So long as the people themselves are not in a position of power, then nothing will change for the better. Society will continue to be dragged back to medievalism so long as the monopoly capitalist class controls political power. The relevance of this post to multiculturalist education inheres in the fact that urban, rural, working class, so-called "at-risk" and poor white and national minority student and youth usually attend schools which are underfunded. The message to teachers, educators and activists is that they must become political, not political in the Old way, in the sense of taking up the politics of the rich, but political in a New and progressive way, Shawgi Tell niagara County Community Colege tell@net.bluemoon.net From hadjicosta_j@utpb.edu Tue May 19 11:52:32 1998 Date: Tue, 19 May 1998 11:52:10 -0600 (MDT) To: "M. Bahati Kuumba, Asst. Professor, Sociology Dept." From: Joanna Hadjicostandi Subject: Re: Urban Sociology Dear folks interested in urban sociology: Here are the suggestions I received from many kind and generous contributors. I left some of the comments in the text for your information. I would like to thank all the contributors again. P.S. we should do this more often. It is great for catching up with new and interesting material. Cheers Joanna > _Cities, Change, and Conflict: A Political Economy of Urban Life_ > by Nancey Kleniewski > Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Co., 1997 > One book I used that students loved was Philippe Bourgois, In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio. It is an ethnography of crack dealers in Spanish Harlem written by an anthropologist. > Building American Cities (1990), with Bob Parker (a critical Marxist look at how cities are built) and the new one (1998), The New Urban Paradigm (Rowman and Little field,) have some up to date materials and many cites you might look into. _Crabgrass Frontier_ by ? _City of Quartz_ by Mike Davis _Miami Now!_ by Grenier??? or Portes and Steppick??? I can't remember _? New York, London, Tokyo..._ by Saskia Sassen Stuff by Friedman and Wolf are essential "World Cities" literature. look at Gottdiener's stuff, especially Theming of America, a critical analysis of the semiology of the built environment. Harvey D. The condition of post-modernity, blackwell, oxford Wilson E. The Sphinx and the City Merrifield A., Swyngedouw E (Eds.) The Urbanisation of Injustice, New York University Press. Katznelson I. Marxism and the City, Clarendon, Oxford. Five that I use are : D. Clark 'Urban World: Global City' Routledge 1996 M. Savage and D. Ward 'Urban Sociology, Capitalism and Modernity' Macmillan 1993 S. Sassen 'Cities in a World Economy' Pine Forge / Sage 1994 R. T. Legates and F. Stout (ed) The City Reader Routledge 1996 J. R. Short 'The Urban Order' Blackwell 1996 The reader is a good collection. The others are decent texts which deal wiht marxist arguments among others. I use Nancy Kleniewski's textbook, which is quite good. She describes her approach as a "political economy perspective." And what I especially appreciate is that she includes a chapter on the city and gender issues. I also use Morris Zeitlin's AMERICAN CITIES: A WORKING CLASS VIEW (International Publishers) and Frances Couvares REMAKING OF PITTSBURGH (SUNY) I thought of another - _Black Noise_ I don't know the author, but it's very popular with students. It's about the "Hip Hop Movement" in the cities. I use Nancy Kleniewski's book Cities, Change, and Conflict, which gives a very clear view of the urban political economy view, as well as such ethnographic works as Jonathan Kozol's Amazing Grace, Gwen Dordick's Something Left to Lose (on the homeless in NYC) and Phillippe Bourgois's In Search of Respect on crack dealing in E. Harlem. On community organizing try Peter Medoff and Holly Sklar's Streets of Hope on the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative in Roxbury. Good Luck My suggestion is Sassen's "Cities in a World Economy" What about Castells, "The City and The Grassroots" (1983) - to me it has been a real eye-opener. I forgot to mention another wonderful book by Mark Abrahamson called URBAN ENCLAVES: IDENTITY AND PLACE IN AMERICA (St. Martin's). I did not require this book but I assigned selections from it. I like Stepick and Portes, City on the Edge. Students actually read it. Thanks. A book I've found useful is American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass by Douglas Massey (1993). Harvard University Press. VIDEOS I have also used the following videos: The World That Moses Built, Ground Truth (urban archaeology in Philadelphia), and parts of: I Remember Harlem and The Great Depression. From tgallagh@kent.edu Wed May 20 10:28:09 1998 Date: Wed, 20 May 1998 12:28:57 -0400 To: PSN@csf.colorado.edu From: Tim Gallagher Subject: Editorial Board Opportunity I am serving as the editor for a reader in introductory sociology to be publisher by Coursewise, a new publishing venture. If you teach the intro course, perhaps you would be willing to lend a hand in constructing the table of contents and in helping target the reader toward meeting the needs of students and instructors of introductory sociology. Your level of involvement would be up to you. Minimal involvement would entail about an hour of your time sometime in the next month. Extensive involvement could mean having a voice in the organization of the TOC, suggesting alternative articles, and helping develop web-based materials. Coursewise wants to publish materials that students will find relevant. Each coursewise reader and text is supported by a website, adding value to the web by organizing resources and helping students focus their time and attention. With the cost of materials being such a large issue for students, you should also know that coursewise strategy is to maintain the lowest possible cost at the bookstore. Coursewise can be found at www.coursewise.com Please contact me (Tim Gallagher) at tgallagh@kent.edu to learn more. I (and coursewise) am more likely to produce a reader you'll want to use if you help me shape it from the beginning. Thanks. Tim Timothy J. Gallagher, Ph.D. Department of Sociology Kent State University Kent, OH 44242 U.S.A. Email: tgallagh@kent.edu Ph: 330 672-2709 FAX: 330 672-4724 http://www.kent.edu/sociology/tgallagher/ From jbehar@igc.apc.org Wed May 20 09:00:52 1998 Wed, 20 May 1998 07:46:45 -0700 (PDT) Wed, 20 May 1998 07:45:11 -0700 (PDT) Date: Wed, 20 May 1998 07:45:11 -0700 (PDT) From: Joseph Behar To: psn@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Studies of Disney Hi, we are presenting a seminar course on Disney: Culture and Power, Any suggestions for critical readings and related texts would be welcomed. Let me know if you are interested in seeing the syllabus. Regards, Joe Behar Marty Schoenhals Dowling College Sociology/Anthropology From brook@california.com Wed May 20 20:05:04 1998 Date: Wed, 20 May 1998 19:02:32 -0700 (PDT) To: flatta@ceb.ucop.edu, theperegri@aol.com, mjkinnuc@umich.edu, rice@dpls.dacc.wisc.edu, DLEVINE@BPL.ORG From: CyberBrook Subject: tobacco *LET BIG TOBACCO PAY FOR THE CALL* - You can call your senators for free, courtesy of this toll-free number set up by the tobacco industry. Just dial 1-800-343-3222, punch in any valid zip code, and you will be connected to your senator; call twice to reach both of them. Why not tell the Senate what you think of the tobacco deal? Big Tobacco's buying! From brook@california.com Wed May 20 21:08:33 1998 Date: Wed, 20 May 1998 20:06:42 -0700 (PDT) To: PSN@csf.colorado.edu From: CyberBrook Subject: some CIA sources >Here's some sources on the secret CIA... > >_Web sites_ > >http://speech.csun.edu/ben/news/cia/main.html >This is a comprehensive site of information and links on articles, >interviews, reports, and web sites dedicated to the CIA (and its links to >drugs). Project Censored mentioned the Gary Webb/San Jose Mercury News issue >relating the contras and the CIA to drug dealing in CA and this is >extensively covered here, as well as many other issues. Check it out...but >be careful, it can keep you busy! > >The CIA's own web site is located at htpp://www.odci.gov/cia > >In its 1980s war against the Nicaraguan Sandinistas, the CIA published a >terrorism manual entitled *Pyschological Operations in Guerrilla Warfare*. >It was distributed to the contras and later published by Vintage in 1985 >with essays by Joanne Omang and Aryeh Neier. A graphic comic book style >pamphlet was also distributed. It was published in Le Monde and until recent >outings in the Baltimore Sun and Mother Jones, it was totally absent in the >US mass media. You can check it out at >http://bsd.mojones.com/hellraiser_central/sideshow/sideshow9a.html > >Also see htpp://www.sunspot.net/crabhouse/channel/cia/honduras1.htm >for info on CIA involvement in torture and murder in Honduras. > >_Books_ > >Mark Zepezauer, *The CIA's Greatest Hits* >This little book outlines 42 scenarios (just a few paragraphs each) of >actual or possible CIA interventions. > >William Blum has written various books on the CIA (e.g. *The CIA: A >Forgotten History*, *Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since >WWII*), each of which is quite informative. >*The Invisible Government* by David Wise and Thomas Ross (1964) has >interesting info. > >Bob Woodward's *Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA* is a good read. > >The US House of Representatives published the 627 page *The CIA and the >Media* in 1978. > >Various former CIA officials have written books, including John Stockwell >(*In Search of Enemies*), Philip Agee (*Inside the Ciompany: CIA Secrets*), >Ralph McGehee (*Deadly Deceits: My 25 Years In the CIA*), Victor Marchetti & >John Marks (*The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence*). Each of their books >gives a fascinating view into the inner workings of "the company". > >_Magazines_ > >*Covert Action Quarterly* >This is the best magazine for information on the CIA and other issues >related to secret government. > >*Campus Watch*, part of the Bill of Rights Foundation in Chicago, reviews >anti-CIA activity on college campuses and reports on general news re: CIA >activities. > >_Other_ > >Although there hasn't been too much material in the mass media, there has >been some over the years, some of which has been quite interesting (e.g., on >involvement in specific countries such as Guatemala and Indonesia, LSD >experiments, the S&L crisis, BCCI, secret government, domestic spying, >coverups, assassinations, torture). Search the web, the wire services, and >the major media. The alternative press has generally been better. Seaches >can be done individually or through the alternative periodicals index. > >There used to be an Information Network Against War and Fascism in San >Francisco, but I don't know if it still exists. They had a good collection >of books and pamphlets, tapes and videos, etc. for sale. > >******What else? Please add to the list!****** From YLPSLL0@cpua.it.luc.edu Wed May 20 22:50:19 1998 Date: Wed, 20 May 98 23:49 CDT From: YLPSLL0@cpua.it.luc.edu To: psn@CSF.COLORADO.EDU Subject: Suharto II Well it was just announced, Suharto the first, the great leader of his people was sucessfully undermined by a conspiracy of IMF and World Bank, institutions run by Jewish communists. As ABC just announced, in the tradition of men devoted to the people such as Sukarno, the new president is vice president Habibi, long time friend and crony. So Mort, the answer to your quiz is Suhartoid or Suharto II. Well I thought there was a chance for anarcho-syndalism, but the coordination of forces just didn't make it. Well at least Nike will pay their Indonesian workers better wages, hell might be as much as 20 cents an hour. Now some folks think that cultural approaches like mine ignore political economy. Nonsense! Without an economic crisis, there would be no crisis of legitimacy and no Suhartoid. So now we will see capital again flow to Indonesia, a new few will prosper and thank God we chose to invest there 40 some years ago-or the commies would have taken over and would now rule world. From jnaiman@acs.ryerson.ca Thu May 21 07:17:18 1998 Date: Thu, 21 May 1998 09:19:45 -0400 (EDT) From: Joanne Naiman To: psn@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Recent book A new work worth looking at is Murray Dobbin's _The Myth of the Good Corporate Citizen: Democracy Under the Rule of Big Business_, Stoddart Publishing, 1998. >From the cover: "In this important new book, Murray Dobbin challenges the prevailing dogma of our era: the idea that the market and big business are omnipotent forces whose decrees, if followed unconditionally, will bring good and prosperity to all. He examines how the balance of power has shifted so dramatically and what we can do about it." This book is written in journalistic, rather than academic style, making it very accessible. Although Canadian in focus, its themes (obviously) are universal. From fbp@igc.apc.org Thu May 21 10:23:49 1998 Thu, 21 May 1998 08:48:04 -0700 (PDT) Thu, 21 May 1998 08:47:47 -0700 (PDT) Date: Thu, 21 May 1998 11:32:22 -0400 To: (Recipient list suppressed) From: "John M. Miller" Subject: Statements on Suharto Resignation Note: The East Timor Action Network can arrange interviews with pro-democracy Indonesians living in the New York area and experts on the relationship between the U.S. and Indonesian military. STATEMENT BY EAST TIMOR ACTION NETWORK May 20, 1998 The resignation of President Suharto is an important step toward bringing democracy to Indonesia. It is also an important step for East Timor. Real freedom for East Timor is more possible now that the architect of its illegal invasion and occupation has been driven office by the Indonesian people. However, a change of the figurehead at the top, does not necessarily mean a government that respects human rights in Indonesia or East Timor. Nor does it guarantee a reduction or the elimination of the dominant role of the Indonesian military. In fact, the weak presidency of Habibie could be a fig leaf over a military-run government, and democracy is not yet achieved. We hope that a democratic government in Indonesia will respect the aspirations of the people of East Timor to choose their own government and political status. The East Timor Action Network believes that no weapons, ammunition, spare parts or military training should be provided to Indonesia so long as there is repression of political freedoms and human rights and until arrangements have been made for a UN-supervised referendum on self-determination in East Timor. ############# Here's another statement, from Constancio Pinto, who represents the East Timorese resistance in the U.S. Subject: Resignation of President Suharto I welcome Mr. Suharto's resignation. However, it does not mean that the Indonesian people have achieved democracy in Indonesia. It is still important for the people of Indonesia to continue to demand a free and fair election of their leaders. A democratic government will be the one that observes the rule of law and Democracy and will be open to discuss the future of East-Timor with East Timorese political leaders under the auspices of the United Nations. Constancio Pinto Providence, RI END etanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetan John M. Miller Internet: etan-outreach@igc.apc.org Media & Outreach Coordinator, East Timor Action Network PO Box 150753, Brooklyn, NY 11215-0014 USA; Phone: (718)596-7668 Check out ETAN's new web site: http://etan.org Send a blank e-mail message to timor-info@igc.apc.org to find out how to learn more about East Timor on the Internet etanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetan From rmboss@worldnet.att.net Thu May 21 14:04:40 1998 Reply-To: "Robert Bossarte" From: "Robert Bossarte" To: Subject: suggestions Date: Thu, 21 May 1998 16:08:33 -0400 boundary="----=_NextPart_000_0022_01BD84D2.B465A200" This is a multi-part message in MIME format. ------=_NextPart_000_0022_01BD84D2.B465A200 charset="iso-8859-1" I am teaching a course on the Sociology of Men this fall. I would = appreciate any suggestions about possible readings. Thank You. Robert M. Bossarte =20 Department of Sociology/Anthropology Florida International University ------=_NextPart_000_0022_01BD84D2.B465A200 charset="iso-8859-1"
I am teaching a course on the Sociology of Men this = fall. I=20 would appreciate any suggestions about possible readings. Thank=20 You.
 
Robert M. Bossarte   
Department of = Sociology/Anthropology 
Florida International University 
 
------=_NextPart_000_0022_01BD84D2.B465A200-- From spector@calumet.purdue.edu Thu May 21 13:56:13 1998 Date: Thu, 21 May 1998 14:55:33 -0500 From: Alan Spector Reply-To: spector@calumet.purdue.edu To: psn@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Nationalism + "Socialism" = ???????? --------------0010889839BB8FB87A74D69B Ted Goertzel recently wrote: <<<<<"The May 17 New York Times Book Review has a review of a book by Richard Rorty called Achieving Our Country: Leftist Thought in Twentieth-Century America. You can find the review at http://www.nytimes.com. It raises some issues which might be worth discussing on PSN: We need a nationalist, pro-American left which will fight for changes which will "achieve our country" We should pay less attention to Marx, Lenin, Spencer, etc. and more on Ely, Croly, Dreiser and Debs [I must admit I don't know who Ely and Croly were] Literary and cultural studies are largely a distraction from the important issues. We need a pragmatic left rooted in John Dewey, James Baldwin , fighting against intrangisent (sic) leftists and superstitious conservatives">>>>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I assume these are Rorty's ideas, and that Ted Goertzel just posted them for inspection and to generate discussion: I don't therefore assume that Ted Goertzel necessarily agrees with everything in the above post. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Some comments: Well, let's see.....when was the last time the words "nationalist" and "leftist" were linked?. What well known political figure in the 20th century tried to link, at least in words, the rhetoric of "Nationalism" and "Socialism?" Could it have anything to do with GERMANY, in the 1930's and 1940's???? "Not fair", one might say. The Nazis were not Leftist, and the so-called "socialism" they espoused was not really socialism on behalf of the working class majority. Yes, but ANY kind of so-called "socialism" or collectivism that is nationalist is implicitly, EXPLICITLY excluding some 95% of the world's people from that system, especially one which is "pro-American." What is "pro-American?" Supporting the U.S. government's slaughters in Vietnam, El Salvador, Iraq, and a hundred other places? Supporting the deportation of immigrants? Jack London tried to be a socialist and a nationalist. In fact, his work is profoundly pro-fascist. In the socialist-nationalist mix, the egalitarian part is undermined by the racism/nationalism that calls for unity between workers and capitalists of one country against the workers and capitalists of other countries. And, as happened in Germany and Italy, when some sections of the working class do choose to follow this "nationalist/socialist" mix, the capitalists running the movement not only attack workers from other countries, but quickly begin to also attack sections of the working class that live WITHIN the so-called "nationalist/socialist" regime. If you tolerate any kind of inequality, including international inequality, you undermine the struggle for equality/justice (true communism?) everywhere. And certainly, if you support the murderous (that is NOT too strong a word) policies of imperialist capitalism because you believe that some of the fruits of that imperialism might trickle down to some people near you, then you stand in conscious alliance with those forces of oppression. Some people will choose that path. But why should we call them "Leftists?" The proper word is "fascist." Alan Spector (an intransigent leftist) -- -- --------------0010889839BB8FB87A74D69B Ted Goertzel recently wrote:

<<<<<"The May 17 New York Times Book Review has a review of a book by
Richard Rorty called Achieving Our Country: Leftist Thought in Twentieth-Century America.
You can find the review at http://www.nytimes.com.  It raises some issues which might be worth
discussing on PSN:

    We need a nationalist, pro-American left which will fight for changes which will "achieve our country" We should pay less attention to Marx, Lenin, Spencer, etc. and more on Ely, Croly,
Dreiser and Debs [I must admit I don't know who Ely and Croly were] Literary and cultural studies are largely a distraction from the important issues.  We need a pragmatic left rooted in John Dewey, James Baldwin , fighting against intrangisent (sic) leftists and superstitious conservatives">>>>>
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I assume these are Rorty's ideas, and that Ted Goertzel just posted them for
inspection and to generate discussion: I don't therefore assume that Ted Goertzel
necessarily agrees with everything in the above post.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Some comments:

Well, let's see.....when was the last time the words "nationalist" and "leftist" were linked?. What well known political figure in the 20th century tried to link, at least in words, the rhetoric of "Nationalism" and "Socialism?"  Could it have anything to do with GERMANY, in the 1930's and 1940's????

"Not fair", one might say.  The Nazis were not Leftist, and the so-called "socialism" they espoused was not really socialism on behalf of the working class majority.

Yes, but ANY kind of so-called "socialism" or collectivism that is nationalist is implicitly, EXPLICITLY excluding some 95% of the world's people from that system, especially one which is "pro-American."  What is "pro-American?"  Supporting the U.S. government's slaughters in Vietnam, El Salvador, Iraq, and a hundred other places?  Supporting the deportation of immigrants? Jack London tried to be a socialist and a nationalist. In fact, his work is profoundly pro-fascist.  In the socialist-nationalist mix, the egalitarian part is undermined by the racism/nationalism that calls
for unity between  workers and capitalists of one country against the workers and capitalists of other countries.  And, as
happened in Germany and Italy, when some sections of the working class do choose to follow this "nationalist/socialist" mix, the capitalists running the movement not only attack workers from other countries, but quickly begin to also attack sections of the working class that live WITHIN the so-called "nationalist/socialist" regime.

If you tolerate any kind of inequality, including international inequality, you undermine the struggle for equality/justice (true
communism?) everywhere.  And certainly, if you support the murderous (that is NOT too strong a word) policies of imperialist capitalism because you believe that some of the fruits of that imperialism might trickle down to some people near you, then you stand in conscious alliance with those forces of oppression.

Some people will choose that path. But why should we call them "Leftists?" The proper word is "fascist."

Alan Spector

(an intransigent leftist)
--
 
 
 
 

--
 
  --------------0010889839BB8FB87A74D69B-- From brook@california.com Thu May 21 15:03:56 1998 Date: Thu, 21 May 1998 14:02:05 -0700 (PDT) To: PSN@csf.colorado.edu From: CyberBrook Subject: Zapatista communities spreading I think we can learn lessons from this... Irish Times Wednesday, May 20, 1998 Congress calls uprising to protect districts Zapatista-style communities are spreading as the government vows to crush them, Michael McCaughan reports from San Cristobal de las Casas Mexico's indigenous people rallied to the cause of the Chiapas rebels last week, announcing the creation of Zapatista-style autonomous districts in five states which stretch halfway across the country. "I will finish off the autonomous municipalities," warned Chiapas governor Roberto Albores Guillen, after dismantling the second of 38 Zapatista rebel districts. Mexico's National Indigenous Congress (CNI), with representatives of Mexico's 56 indigenous peoples, responded by calling for a "national uprising" and the creation of autonomous districts beyond Chiapas. Members of Mexico's Mixtec, Chontal, Huasteca, Chinanteco and Nahuatl indigenous peoples immediately announced plans to set up autonomous districts in Tabasco, Hidalgo, Michoacan, Guerrero and even Mexico City, citing the nation's constitution as the legal basis for the initiative. "We're fed up being obliged to vote for the PRI (Mexico's ruling party) in return for road works and healthcare," said Ms Laura Garcia Vazquez, a Mixtec leader from Guerrero state. She was accompanied by 2,000 Mixtec Indians and 70 bilingual teachers, who declared nearby Rancho Nuevo Democracia an autonomous district, uniting 30 Mixtec villages. In Atlapexco, Hidalgo state, a coalition of independent indigenous organisations also took steps to establish their own autonomous district, arguing that local authority offices were located too far from their villages and that "imposed authorities" failed to respond to local needs. "It's the only hope we have of living in peace," said Mr Jaime Cortes, a Huasteca Indian leader. Over 100 Huasteca villagers have been killed in the past two decades, with 500 imprisoned in 1980 alone, in an ongoing struggle for recognition of communal lands. Mexico's constitution permits the establishment of new municipalities once five legal requirements are fulfilled. The law demands political, economic and social viability for the proposed district, but final approval rests with each state congress, where the ruling party has until now enjoyed a clear majority. The centre-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), led by Mexico City Mayor Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, criticised the dissolution of Zapatista rebel districts and promised to back the proposed autonomous zones around the country. In Nezahualcoyotl, a working-class suburb of Mexico City with 800,000 inhabitants, Zapatista supporters petitioned the government this week for a referendum to consider converting the suburb into an autonomous district, a request repeated in San Nicolas Ecatepec, also in Mexico State. In Tabasco, north of Chiapas, Auldarico Hernandez, PRD deputy and Chontal Indian, announced the creation of three autonomous municipalities in his electoral district, describing the move as a "direct response to army aggression against Zapatista communities in Chiapas state." At least 60,000 Mexican troops have pinned down Zapatista rebels inside their jungle bases while 300 fires sent billowing clouds of smoke toward Zapatista communities, destroying coffee plants and obliging hundreds of villagers to seek medical attention for respiratory ailments. The nationwide autonomy fever came just as Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo criticised foreign observers for focusing on Chiapas's indigenous population and neglecting the 'advances' of other indigenous peoples. "Mexico is not one state, nor is it one problem, and it is not all Chiapas," Mr Zedillo told Mexicans last Thursday, as events once more outpaced his words. Interior Minister Francisco Labastida also announced plans to modify rules for human rights observers visiting Chiapas. This followed a chaotic visit by 135 Italians, 40 of whom were expelled for going to Taniperlas, a rebel administration dismantled a month ago. From now on observer groups cannot exceed 10 members, may stay a maximum of 10 days in the country, and must inform the government of the places and people they intend to interview. The US-based Human Rights Watch denounced the new rules. If observers are deemed to have broken the rules they will be subject to deportation or community service work, such as "three days of road-sweeping," Mexico's Interior Ministry warned this week. "With a little luck we may end up fighting forest fires in Zapatista territory," joked one departing Italian last Monday. Five Canadian parliamentarians arrived the same day, continuing the close monitoring of the Chiapas conflict, which remains the defining issue in Mexican politics. From Herejobs@aol.com Thu May 21 16:05:31 1998 Thu, 21 May 1998 18:02:09 -0400 (EDT) From: Herejobs Date: Thu, 21 May 1998 18:02:09 EDT To: ACTNOW-L@BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU, can-labor@pencil.math.missouri.edu, cgeu-temp@umich.edu, comm-org@uac.rdp.utoledo.edu, CWA@igc.org, DEMSOC-L@listserv.aol.com, DIVERSITY-FORUM@igc.apc.org, FEM-NET@yorku.ca, H-LABOR@h-net.msu.edu, H-UCLEA@h-net.msu.edu, HNBA-LARAZA@listserv.arizona.edu, irra@relay.doit.wisc.edu, LABNEWS@cmsa.berkeley.edu, LABOR-L@yorku.ca, Labor-Rap@csf.colorado.edu, lat-list@nmsu.edu, LATINO-L@cornell.edu, latino-law-profs@ucdavis.edu, LEFT-L@cmsa.berkeley.edu, mujer-l@lmrinet.ucsb.edu, OIFAC@cmsa.berkeley.edu, PIENSA-L@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu, psn@csf.colorado.edu, raza-list@husc.harvard.edu, sldrty-l@listserv.syr.edu, ussagrow@essential.org Subject: Job Openings @ HERE Please Post, Announce and Circulate these job opportunites with the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union (H.E.R.E.) ORGANIZERS The Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union has immediate openings for organizers on H.E.R.E. local union staff in the following cities: OAKLAND, California, LOS ANGELES, California, NEW YORK CITY, WASHINGTON , D.C. HARTFORD, Connecticut and Eastern Connecticut. Openings are full time and permanent. Organizers will join active organizing teams on campaigns to organize low wage and immmigrant workers in hotels, cafeterias, and casinos. HERE believes in building strong worker leadership committees and engaging in direct action to win decent wages, dignity, and respect on the job. Organizers will conduct house visits, house meetings, committee meetings and plan and mobilize actions. Organizers candidates should have experience in labor, student or community activism, excellent communication skills, committment to organizing through unions, and the ability to work the hours required of campaign style work. Bilingual skills in Spanish and English are required for Oakland, Los Angeles, NYC, and Hartford . Salary: Ranges from $20,000-26,000 depending on experience and location. Includes excellent benefit package and some car expenses. To apply: For West Coast Positions send resume and cover letter to : Here Recruitment, 548 20th St. Oakland, CA, 94612 , or FAX to (510 ) 893-5362 For East Coast Positions send resume and cover letter to: HERE Recruitment, P.O. Box 322, Granby, CT. 06035, or FAX to (860)251-6049 From gimenez@csf.Colorado.EDU Fri May 22 09:15:25 1998 Date: Fri, 22 May 1998 09:15:01 -0600 (MDT) From: Martha Gimenez To: PSN@CSF.COLORADO.EDU, Social Class in Contemporary Societies , "EDITORIAL OFFICE, TEACHING SOCIOLOGY" , ppn@csf.Colorado.EDU, matfem@csf.Colorado.EDU, socgrads Subject: ANNOUNCING MARXISM-FEMINISM NEW ADDRESS Dear All, This is to announce that this list, Marxism-Feminism, is moving to a new location at CSF (Communications for a Sustainable Future) in Colorado. Martha Gimenez and Carrol Cox will continue to be its moderators, with Malgosia Askanas providing technical assistance. The new list, M-FEM (the full address is m-fem@csf.colorado.edu), has been created and should be functioning. To subscribe to the new list send the message subscribe m-fem FIRSTNAME LASTNAME (where FIRSTNAME and LASTNAME are your first and last name, of course) to the following address: listproc@csf.colorado.edu To learn more about the listproc commands, send to the above listproc address the message help At CFS, Marxism-Feminism will join other "sister" lists such as PSN (Progressive Sociologists Network) and MatFem (Materialist Feminism). CSF, true to its emphasis on communications, has a specific policy about the quality of discourse expected in all its lists and also, as a site that operates with support from the university, has a policy about the submission of copyrighted materials. Both are available below. We anticipate that marxism-feminism will continue to be free to all subscribers, but we will doubtless need to appeal to subscribers for some small donations to maintain the new list. Thank you, The Moderators: Martha Gimenez Carrol Cox ************************************************ Marxism-Feminism Rule of Discourse: replicate in our virtual space the rules of civility ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ we abide by when we meet face-to-face ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ================ CSF Communications Guidelines ================ Marxism Feminism is hosted at CSF (Communications for a Sustainable Future) which was founded on the idea that quality communications between people of differing viewpoints can be an avenue for securing a more promising future. So, when you join a csf-list, you are undertaking a modest obligation to write in a way that is respectful of the views of others. Electronic discussion is, of course, notorious for flame wars. But ad hominem arguments and personal slights are not encoded on silicon chips. The vast majority of subscribers enter with good intentions but somehow, through this new medium, good intentions can be undermined with slight spins to which others can take offense. So please be careful about process -- about how you say what you wish to say. Help us keep the intended meaning of the word "communications" in CSF. _______________________________________________________________________ ******** CSF/CU POLICY ON COPYRIGHT MATERIAL ******** CSF is housed at the University of Colorado at Boulder. The University provides not only the infrastructure but other support for CSF. Since CSF runs on a "CU machine," we follow current policies of CU. One important policy is that copyright materials can not be distributed on discussion lists nor archived in web sites at the university. We appreciate your cooperation in support of this policy. From mjcurry@students.wisc.edu Fri May 22 07:53:01 1998 Date: Fri, 22 May 1998 07:41:08 -0500 To: ACTNOW-L@BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU, can-labor@pencil.math.missouri.edu, comm-org@uac.rdp.utoledo.edu, CWA@igc.org, DEMSOC-L@listserv.aol.com, DIVERSITY-FORUM@igc.apc.org, FEM-NET@yorku.ca, H-LABOR@h-net.msu.edu, H-UCLEA@h-net.msu.edu, HNBA-LARAZA@listserv.arizona.edu, irra@relay.doit.wisc.edu, LABNEWS@cmsa.berkeley.edu, LABOR-L@yorku.ca, Labor-Rap@csf.colorado.edu, lat-list@nmsu.edu, LATINO-L@cornell.edu, latino-law-profs@ucdavis.edu, LEFT-L@cmsa.berkeley.edu, mujer-l@lmrinet.ucsb.edu, OIFAC@cmsa.berkeley.edu, PIENSA-L@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu, psn@csf.colorado.edu, raza-list@husc.harvard.edu, sldrty-l@listserv.syr.edu, ussagrow@essential.org From: MJ Curry Subject: CGEU Conference to be held in Madison WI 7/31-82 The Teaching Assistants' Association of the University of Wisconsin-Madison will host the 7th annual Conference of the Coalition of Graduate Employee Unions (CGEU) from July 31-Aug 21 in Madison, WI. We invite you to attend! The Conference is a 2-day event offering workshops, sessions and plenaries on organizing graduate employees at universities in the U.S. and Canada. The $40 conference cost covers sessions, meals, and lodging. To register, send $40 to Jennifer Ziebarth, TAA, 306 N. Brooks St., Madison, WI 53715 by July 15. If you would like to lead a session, send proposals to Brian Kroeger at the same address or by email to kroeger@polisci.wisc.edu. Please email me or Brian if you have questions. Please circulate this notice anywhere and everywhere. In solidarity, MJ Curry TAA Co-president-elect Mary Jane Curry mjcurry@students.wisc.edu Curriculum & Instruction 239 Dunning St, Madison 53704 ESL Department (608)242-7036 From mfankhau@acs.ucalgary.ca Fri May 22 10:05:23 1998 Date: Fri, 22 May 1998 10:05:23 -0600 (MDT) From: Markus Fankhauser To: PROGRESSIVE SOCIOLOGISTS NETWORK Subject: *vfr-list* news aus belgrad (fwd) i thought this might be of interest for some people on the list... markus .....die groesste form von freiheit, die ein mensch gerade noch ertragen kann, ist ein multiple-choice test... ORIG. FORWARDED TO: To: Radio Verteiler Innsbruck Subject: *vfr-list* news aus belgrad >X-Authentication-Warning: web.aec.at: mdomo set sender to owner-syndicate using -f >X-Sender: andreas@194.151.30.130 >Date: Sun, 17 May 1998 17:39:29 +0100 >To: syndicate@aec.at >From: Veran Matic (by way of Andreas Broeckmann) >Subject: Syndicate: B92: ANEM Information About Non-Allocated Frequencies >Sender: owner-syndicate@aec.at > >(news from belgrade) > >ANEM Information About Non-Allocated Frequencies > >Radio B92 from Belgrade is the only member of the Associaton of >Independent Electronic Media (ANEM) which was allocated a frequency for >temporary use, as decided by Yugoslav Ministry of Telecommunication. As >founder of ANEM, Radio B92 will act together with other members of the >association, said Bojana Lekic, news editor of Radio B92. She said that >agreement on future actions will be made on ANEM extraordinary assembly, >on Sunday May 17. ANEM consists of 33 radio stations from Serbia and >Montenegro. Yugoslav Ministry of Telecommunication today decided to give >licence for temporary use of radio frequencies and TV channels to 247 >radio and TV stations in Serbia and Montenegro. Licence for temporary >frequencies was given to 73 TVs and 174 radio stations. Only two members >of ANEM TV Network were given a right to use a channel, RTV Pancevo and F >Kanal from Zajecar. Other 14 TV stations from ANEM are not on the list. > >Deputy Chief Editor of TV Pancevo, Nevena Simendic, told Beta news agency >that her station would return its frequency as a gift for Ministry of >Telecommunication, if the information about monthly fee for frequency of >160,000 dinars was confirmed as true. "I don't know if we should be glad >that we got frequency, because according to the unofficial information, we >are supposed to pay for it 160,000 dinars on monthly basis. Then, we can >give this frequency to federal Ministry as a gift, if this turns out to be >true," said she. Television Pancevo exists ever since 1992. Editor in >Chief of Radio B92, Veran Matic, stated: "Results of this open bid are >results of the regime's two main fears: fear of independent professional >information and fear of Radio B92. First fear has been well known for >quite a while, and the regime several times attempted to silence all >independent TV and radio stations in this region. Fear of Radio B92 is >new, and this fear produced decision of giving a licence only to Radio >B92, so smokescreen democratic approach is created, as well as artificial >argument of democratic decision-making in this matter, for purposes of >international policy. However, given the fact that decision about >extraordinarily high fees for use of frequencies had been made, it is >obvious that even Radio B92 itself will not be able to use its legally >given frequency. Besides, Radio B92 was not given a TV channel it applied >for, nor the licence for satellite broadcasts of radio and TV programmes. > >With this decision today, Yugoslav Ministry of Telecommunication actually >banned 20 independent radio stations and 10 independent TV stations, and >it is one of the largest waves of bans in Europe ever. It is clear that >Milosevic wants to "charge a price" for his positive role in start of the >negotiations by shutting down independent electronic media. Besides the >attempt to ban these 30 radio and TV stations, Milosevic will try to >punish students and professors by new Law on Universities, and to achieve >his most important aim at the moment - to stop democratic process in >Montenegro by toppling federal government and actually eliminating >federation itself. Radio B92 and ANEM today will inform Mr. Richard >Holbrook and other politicians involved in solution of crisis in >Yugoslavia about results of the open bid, which we somehow had anticipated >as such, and send them a message that it must not be allowed that >independent media and democratic process become victims of diplomatic >success in opening of negotiations between Milosevic and Rugova. On its >meeting of members on Sunday, ANEM will create a concept for further >actions and inform the public about it on news conference on Monday. We >will advise all stations to continue their broadcasts regardless to the >decision of the Ministry. > >Tiny encouragement comes from the decision of the First Municipal Court of >Law to order Ministry of Telecommunication to return equipment to TV Pirot, >which was confiscated when this station was banned. >Chances for this Ministry to obey this order are slim - it is obvious that >the state does not obey even its own laws. > >We expect numerous actions of solidarity from international institutions, >and we are finalising establishment of the International Committee for >protection of independent media in Yugoslavia. > >-- >Veran Matic, Editor in Chief tel: +381-11-322-9922 >Radio B92, Belgrade, Yugoslavia fax: +381-11-324-8075 > > Radio B92 Official Web Site --- http://www.opennet.org/ > > >--- ># distributed via nettime-l : no commercial use without permission ># is a closed moderated mailinglist for net criticism, ># collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets ># more info: majordomo@desk.nl and "info nettime-l" in the msg body ># URL: http://www.desk.nl/~nettime/ contact: nettime-owner@desk.nl ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- markus fankhauser markus fankhauser department of psychology 1316 17A street N.W. university of calgary calgary, AB T2N 1N4 T2N 2E9 tel.:(001-403)220-4974 tel.:(001-403) 284-0742 markus fankhauser e-mail (OMA): markus.fankhauser@uibk.ac.at amraserstr.69/2 A-6020 innsbruck AUSTRIA tel.: 0-(1143)-512-394251 .....die groesste form von freiheit, die ein mensch gerade noch ertragen kann, ist ein multiple-choice test... From gimenez@csf.Colorado.EDU Fri May 22 13:27:14 1998 Date: Fri, 22 May 1998 13:27:09 -0600 (MDT) From: Martha Gimenez To: PSN@CSF.COLORADO.EDU Subject: Book Announcement (fwd) ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 22 May 1998 09:39:40 -0400 (EDT) From: Gunder Frank To: agf Subject: ReORIENT book announcement (fwd) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 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: Fri, 22 May 1998 07:50:51 -0400 (EDT) From: Gunder Frank To: agf Subject: ReORIENT book announcement This is to announce the May/June 1998 publication of my book ReORIENT: GLOBAL ECONOMY IN THE ASIAN AGE by Andre Gunder Frank University of California Press, 400 pp ISBN 0-520-21474-9 paper US$ 19.95 ISBN 0-520-21129-4 cloth US$ 55.00 ORDER: California-Princeton Fulfillment Services 1445 Lower Fery Road, Ewing, NJ 08618 FAX TOLL FREE : 1-800-999-1958 telef info: 609 883-1759 Author's Abstract, Referee's Comments, and Table of Contents follow below A Debate about the thesis of this book and its challenge of that of David Landes THE WEALTH AND POVERTY OF NATIONS [Norton 1998] is on-going during May 1998 simultaneously on 4 e-mail discussion nets and may be found on: H-World [history], H-Asia [history], Econ-hist [economic history], and WSN [World Systems Network] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 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 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ R e O R I E N T : G L O B A L E C O N O M Y I N T H E A S I A N A G E [University of California Press, May/June 1998] by Andre Gunder Frank AUTHOR'S ABSTRACT This book outlines and analyzes the global economy and its sectoral and regional division of labor and cyclical dynamic from 1400 to 1800. The evidence and argument are that within this global economy Asians and particularly Chinese were preponderant, no more "traditional" than Europeans, and in fact largely far less so. The historical documentation poses an 'emperor has no clothes' challenge to all received Eurocentric historiography and social theory from Montesquieu, Marx and Weber, or Toynbee and Polanyi, to Rostow, Braudel and Wallerstein. The books's global economic analysis offers a more holistic theoretical alternative. 'The Rise of the West' was not due to any 'European Miracle exceptionalism' that allegedly permitted it to pull itself up by its own bootstraps as Weberians have contended. Nor did Europe build a 'European world-economy around itself" a la Braudel and thereby as per Marx and Wallerstein [as well as my own WORLD ACCUMULATION 1492-1789] initiating a European centered 'Modern Capitalist World-System' primarily by exploiting the wealth of its American and African colonies. Instead, Europe used its American silver to buy itself marginal entry into the long since existing world market in Asia, which was much larger, more productive and competitive, continued to expand much faster until 1800, and was able to support a rate of population growth in Asia that was than double that of Europe until 1750. Then changing world economic/ demographic/ ecological relations and relative factor prices in the competitive global economy resulted in the temporary 'Decline of the East' and the opportunity for the also temporary 'The Rise of the West'. Europe took advantage of this world economic opportunity through import substitution, export promotion and technological change to become Newly Industrializing Economies after 1800, as is again happening today in East Asia. That region is now REgaining its 'traditional' dominance in the global economy, with the Chinese 'Middle Kingdom' again at its 'center.' PUBLISHER REFEREES SUMMARIES & EVALUATIONS Frank gained his world wide fame by making an argument that caused a revolution in thinking about Third World Development. Well, the same thing is about to happen again, except this time the stakes are much higher. Now it is the theories of the endogenous nature of change in the West that is being challenged. The Wallersteinian world economy did not give rise to the world-system, Frank argues, but the Afroeurasian world system gave rise to the European world economy. To correct the historical fact is to challenge the theoretical scaffolding of everyone from Marx to Weber to Braudel to Wallerstein. Frank's point is that they simply got it wrong. [He] turns on their heads many of the received assumptions about the origin of the modern world system/economy. The book is that conceptually important. - ALBERT BERGESEN, University of Arizona The book moves to argue that almost all received social theory is wrong, since it a) directs our attention to supposedly unique features of European society that were actually neither very unusual nor of much importance in explaining the divergent development paths, and b) directs our attention away from [these and to] attempting analysis at the global level, which the author claims is by far the most illuminating place to look for explanations of what may at first seem like regional differences. This will be an extremely important book of sufficient originality and importance ... at the intersection of several important literatures [to] have a major impact. It could not be more ambitious. - KENNETH POMERANZ University of California at Irvine This is a bold new interpretation that creates a distinctive argument to explain Europe's post-1800 successes. The author places his argument in an even longer-run perspective to suggest that Europe's 'rise' may be just a temporary one bracketed on either side by eras of Asian dominance. It departs from virtually all other 'global' or 'world' system perspectives by arguing that Europe was not the central location of economic dynamism in the early modern world (1400-1800) and therefore that 'capitalism' was not a unique cultural phenomenon that can explain the differential economic success of Europe over Asia. The author redefines our baseline for assessing the 'rise' of Europe. I believe this book could become a benchmark study. - BIN WONG University of California at Irvine The book is a plea for global studies as a general historical proposition, notably the argument of the centrality of Asia for the period 1400-1800, and the rejection of the entire Eurocentric analysis of incorporation, 1500 and all that. This can be a landmark book that shapes substantially the scholarship and understanding of the next generation of researchers. It should have an immediate impact. - MARK SELDEN State University of New York T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S Preface Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION TO REAL WORLD HISTORY VS. EUROCENTRIC SOCIAL THEORY HOLISTIC METHODOLOGY AND OBJECTIVES GLOBALISM, NOT EUROCENTRISM CHAPTER OUTLINE OF A GLOBAL ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVE ANTICIPATING AND CONFRONTING RESISTANCE AND OBSTACLES Chapter 2: THE GLOBAL TRADE CAROUSEL 1400-1800 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD ECONOMY Thirteenth and Fourteenth Century Antecedents The Columbian Exchange and its Consequences Some Neglected Features in the World Economy WORLD DIVISION OF LABOR AND BALANCES OF TRADE 1400-1800 Mapping the Global Economy The Americas Africa Europe West Asia - The Ottoman Empire - Safavid Persia India and the Indian Ocean - North India - Gujarat and Malabar - Coromandel - Bengal Southeast Asia - Archipellago and Insular - Continental Japan China - Population, Production, Trade - China in the World Economy Central Asia Russia and the Baltics A Sino-Centric World Economy Summary Chapter 3: MONEY WENT AROUND THE WORLD AND MADE THE WORLD GO ROUND WORLD MONEY: ITS PRODUCTION AND EXCHANGE Micro- and Marco- Attractions in the World Casino Dealing and Playing in the Casino The Numbers Game - Silver - Gold - Credit HOW DID THE WINNERS USE THEIR MONEY? Spenders vs Hoarders Inflation or Production in the Quantity Theory of Money Money Expanded the Frontiers of Settlement and Production Chapter 4: THE GLOBAL ECONOMY: COMPARISONS AND RELATIONS QUANTITIES:POPULATION,PRODUCTION,PRODUCTIVITY, INCOME, TRADE Population, Production and Income Productivity and Competitiveness World Trade 1400-1800 QUALITIES: SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY Eurocentrism Regarding Science and Technology in Asia Guns Ships Printing Textiles Metallurgy, Coal and Power Transport World Technological Development MECHANISMS: ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS European - Asian Comparisons Global Institutional Relations --In India --In China Chapter 5 HORIZONTALLY INTEGRATIVE MACROHISTORY SIMULTANEITY IS NO COINCIDENCE DOING HORIZONTALLY INTEGRATIVE MACROHISTORY Demographic/Structural Analysis A "Seventeenth Century Crisis"? Monetary Analysis and the Crises of 1640 Kondratieff Analysis The 1762-1790 Kondratieff "B" Phase Crisis and Recessions More Horizontally Integrative Macrohistory? Chapter 6 WHY DID THE WEST WIN [TEMPORARILY] ? UP AND DOWN THE LONG CYCLE ROLLICOASTER? THE DECLINE OF THE EAST PRECEDED THE RISE OF THE WEST The Decline in India The Decline Elsewhere in Asia HOW DID THE WEST RISE? Climbing Up on Asian Shoulders Supply and Demand for Technological Change in the World Economy Supplies and Sources of Capital A GLOBAL ECONOMIC/DEMOGRAPHIC ACCOUNTING FOR THE DECLINE OF THE EAST AND THE RISE OF THE WEST A Demographic Economic Model A High-Level Equilibrium Trap? The Evidence 1500-1750 The 1750 Inflection Past Conclusions and Future Implications Chapter 7 HISTORIOGRAPHIC CONCLUSIONS AND THEORETICAL IMPLICATIONS HISTORIOGRAPHIC CONCLUSIONS: THE EUROCENTRIC EMPEROR HAS NO CLOTHES 1. The Asiatic Mode of Production [AMP] 2. European Exceptionalism 3. A European World-System or a Global Economy? 4. 1500: Continuity or Break? 5. Capitalism? 6. Hegemony? 7. The Rise of the West and the Industrial Revolution 8. Empty Categories and Procustean Beds THEORETICAL IMPLICATIONS:THROUGH THE GLOBAL LOOKING GLASS 1. Holism vs. Partialism 2. Commonality/Similarity vs. Specificity/Difference 3. Continuity vs. Dis-continuities 4.. Horizontal Integration vs. Vertical Separation 5. Cycles vs. Linearity 6. Agency vs. Structure 7. Europe in a World Economic Nutshell 8. Jihad vs. McWorld in the Anarchy of the Clash of Civilizations? REFERENCES INDEX From schoonma@jasper.uor.edu Fri May 22 22:35:35 1998 Date: Fri, 22 May 1998 21:36:28 -0700 (PDT) From: Sara Schoonmaker To: psn psn Subject: methods book suggestions I'm developing a new course called "Bridging Theory and Methods" for sophomores, where we'll take some key theoretical concepts (class, anomie, rationalization, race, gender) and look at how sociologists have used different kinds of methods to understand them. I'd appreciate any suggestions for readings on methods that might not be a full blown methods text, and would give students an introduction to quantitative and qualitiative approaches. thanks in advance for your ideas. Best, Sara Schoonmaker \H~ From h961138@stud.hoe.se Fri May 22 10:45:25 1998 Date: Fri, 22 May 1998 18:44:18 +0200 To: PROGRESSIVE SOCIOLOGISTS NETWORK , psn@csf.colorado.edu From: bd Subject: move beyond injustice the left told Rhodes scholar KUSENI DLAMINI joins the debate on the demise of the left, arguing that the left needs to do more than rail against injustice -- it needs to offer a realistic alternative S the left in South Africa and the rest of the world facing a "mysterious decline" (Crossfire, May 8 to 14), or is it having a "facelift" (Crossfire, May 15 to 21)? The left has never been held in lower esteem than it is today. At best, it is seen as impotent in the face of global economic complexity and social change. At worst, it is seen as part of a conspiracy to defraud the general public. It has also been argued that the historical tasks of the left, especially in Europe, have been completed and the basic aims of the early socialists can be achieved without a transformation of society. In other words, we have reached the end of ideology, or, as Francis Fukuyama puts it, the end of history. The crisis of the left reflects the lack of an innovative central organising vision, political strategy and direction that is flexible and pragmatic in its response to the challenges of globalisation and domestic socio-economic change in South Africa. The left needs a radical and new identit if it is to do more than rail against the injustices of the present, and provide a realistic hope of change in the future. It needs a relevant guiding faith, even a dogma, and a theory to engage the dialectical forces of globalisation and fragmentation currently at play across the world. Other than its vociferous criticisms of the growth, employment and redistribution strategy, the left has failed to come up with a workable alternative around which to mobilise and win public sympathy and build a hegemonic bloc. Without this, the left will continue to lack the essential attribute of a revolutionary force, something ironically prescribed by founders of the socialist movement. The "mysterious" decline of the left is a result of the inadequacy of the left's post-war model of social analysis. This (now outdated) model was, and still is, based on the conception of the nation-state as a political community, the working class as a political movement, and the state as a political agency. However, today the primary site of political power, the nation-state, has seen its autonomy reduced by the globalisation of economic decision-making, and the parallel decentralisation of industrial organisation. As Daniel Bell put it, the national level is too small for the big problems (control of currency speculation, environmental protection, defence and security) and too big for the small problems (public service delivery and regional and local development). This has occurred at a time when the traditional base of the left, the industrial working class, is shrinking, resulting in the inevitable alteration, if not complication, of the class map of contemporary (industrial) society. That is why the left in South Africa, and elsewhere in the world, is unable to cope with social and economic change and lacks the required ideological confidence and, by implication, political clout. To resolve this dilemma the left needs to pursue not just its traditional "class settlement", but a new relationship between men and women. Over the past 20 years, feminism and the women's movement have posed fundamental questions to socialist conceptions of class, social structure and progressive political strategy. This has effected an enormous shift in the politics of gender. The left must also pursue an ecological contract between generations. Green politics has posed a central challenge to the mainstream ideologies of the century. It demands of all major parties a re-orientation. The left also needs to respond creatively to the challenges posed by the other bases for social fragmentation (ethnicity, religion and sexuality) which cause the politics of identity to be in a constant state of flux. The deepening and unstoppable globalisation of socio-economic activities, the fragmentation of working class communities as well as the limitations of the nation-state demand new strategic thinking about economic renewal and social reform by the left. This requires a serious rethink of the left's historic assumptions about social reality. Firstly, the left must rethink the ways in which it extends (or wants to extend) social control of the economy and look beyond the productive economy to emancipate individual potential. It must not only concern itself with redistribution of wealth, but involve itself in the processes of wealth creation. Secondly, the left must accept that public ownership is not the only way to achieve the main aims of the socialist project. Thirdly, it must realise that the existence of markets is not antithetical to the public interest; the challenge of the time is to ensure that markets work in the public interest. Fourthly, the individual must have rights against all vested interests, public and private. The development of such a vision, strategy or direction does not require a global catastrophe. What it does require is for the left to re-invent itself and come to terms with the realities of a globalising and liberalising world. It must engage with the forces of globalisation and neo-liberalism. Jonathan Steinberg's pessimism is worrying and based on a one-sided or unilineal view of the impact of globalisation. His failure to realise that globalisation poses threats and opportunities which must be grasped by the left, if it is to successfully re-invent itself, is inexcusable. Jeremy Cronin needs to tell us more than that "the left did not disappear, it is being transformed". If it did not disappear, where is it? If it is transforming, what is the content and scope of the transformation and how long will it take? More fundamentally, what is it transforming into? In view of the new global conjuncture of socio-political and economic forces, the left needs more than a “facelift”. It needs to re-invent itself. But how? The intellectual left is in a similar, if not more serious, crisis. The role of left-wing intellectuals in post-apartheid South Africa is at best obscure and at worst non-existent. Cronin should have shed some light on the role of the South African Communist Party in the transformation he is talking about. During the anti-apartheid struggle, left-wing scholarship flourished. Nowadays, few academics want to be called or call themselves Marxists, even at liberal institutions like Wits, Natal and the University of Cape Town. This may be partly because some academics want to position themselves for public and private contracts as consultants to supplement their income. Also, some (white) left-wing academics are afraid to be too critical for fear of being labelled unpatriotic or harbouring sympathies with the past. The left's relevance does not lie on its utopian vision of the future, but in the quality of its critique of the present; in other words, its analysis of contemporary society and its ambition to achieve progressive change. All this must happen in a historical context that must be properly analysed to be appreciated. The left in South Africa and the world needs to re-invent itself simply because its project was a product of a particular historical moment that has come to an end. -- Electronic Mail&Guardian, May 22, 1998. __________________ bwanika From eric@stewards.net Fri May 22 17:24:59 1998 Fri, 22 May 1998 19:29:52 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from eric@stewards.net) Date: Fri, 22 May 1998 19:29:52 -0400 (EDT) To: PROGRESSIVE SOCIOLOGISTS NETWORK , Uri , hhrivas@wwisp.com (Helen), izbars@yahoo.com, , From: eric@stewards.net (Eric Sommer) Subject: PRESS RELEASE: UN APPEAL TO STOP THE CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY IN CHAIAPAS. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Please forward the following to all relevant listserves, media outlets, and organizations. Issued by: The Chiapas Alert Network, an organization working to end the paramilitary and military violence and intimidation aimed at the Indigenous people of Chiapas, Mexico. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Chiapas Alert Network http://www.stewards.net/chiapas/10.htm Phone 604-221-6426 Vancouver, B.C., Canada PRESS RELEASE - MAY 21, 1998 Forty-two NGO's have joined the Chiapas Alert Network in a call for immediate United Nations action to end crimes against humanity in Chiapas. Mexico. Endorsing organizations include: The South African Municipal Workers Union; The Taino Tribal council of Jaitibonuco and United Confederation of Taino People; and the International Peace Bureau, of Geneva, Switzerland, which is a mult-national organization and the oldest and largest peace bureau in the world. The open letter to Kofi Annan, Secretary General of the UN, points out the widespread paramilitary and military violence and repression which has been directed against the 3-4 million civilian Indigenous people of the Southern Mexican state of Chiapas in recent months. Invoking the Nuremberg war crimes trials, the appeal also calls on all members of the Mexican army, police forces, and government to refuse to obey any order which is illegal either under Mexican law or from the viewpoint of international standards regarding human rights and crimes against humanity. Amnesty International and other respected international human rights organizations have documented violations that have claimed hundreds of lives and converted thousands of Indigenous people into homeless refugees. Crops have been destroyed by vandalism, theft, and burning and many thousands of people have been turned into refugees without food or shelter. The appeal to the UN points out the failure of the international community to act in "timely and decisive fashion" to stop the killings in Rawanda and Bosnia. "Now massive violence and intimidation is being directed at the Indigenous people in Chiapas, Mexico. We call on the UN to act...to end the repression and prevent further crimes..." The appeal also urges that "representatives from the peace and reconciliation body chaired by Bishop Samuel Ruiz of Chiapas, and from the Indigenous cooperative economic and political associations of Chiapas, be called to UN headquarters as witnesses" Observers in Chiapas have expressed concern that all out war - and mass deaths - will ensue if preventive action is not taken. The appeal includes an appendix setting out the `indicators' that such a war may be immenent. (The full text of the appeal to the U.N., including a list of signatories, follows.) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------- The following letter is being submitted today, May 21st., to both the UN Secretary General's office in New York, and to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva, Switzerland. The latter submission is made as a symbolic gesture in the hope that the UNHCR will not be forced to respond to the immense number of refugees which will most certainly be the result of further inaction by the UN and world community. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------- STOP THE CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY IN CHIAPAS: AN OPEN LETTER TO KOFI ANNAN, SECRETARY GENERAL OF THE UNITED NATIONS: Appeal to the World For Chiapas --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Synopsis: The International community failed to act in a timely and decisive fashion to prevent massive genocide in Rwanda and Bosnia. Now, massive violence and intimidation is being directed at Indigenous people in Chiapas, Mexico. We call on the UN to act IMMEDIATELY, with armed intervention if necessary, to end the repression and prevent further crimes against humanity in Chiapas. We also call on all Mexican soldiers and police to refuse to obey any illegal order which contravenes Mexican law or which violates International standards regarding human rights and genocide. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- To Kofi Annan, Secretary general of the United Nations: This is an urgent appeal to the United Nations, and the world community, to stop the growing violence, intimidation, and repression now directed against the millions of Indigenous people of Chiapas, Mexico. Canadian General Romeo Dallaire, who led the United Nations forces in Rwanda, warned U.N. headquarters of the Rwandan preparations for mass killings almost three months before they occurred. General Dallaire later testified that his forces could have prevented the massacre. The international community, however, failed to step in to avert the genocide. The world failed in Rwanda. In Bosnia, the genocide against Moslems was also allowed to proceed relatively unhindered for years, and as a result massive numbers of people were killed. The world failed in Bosnia. Now, in Chiapas, massive numbers of civilians are again subject to crimes against humanity, and there is a risk of further escalation to massive violence - this time by civilian paramilitary groups, and by elements of the Mexican military itself, who are targeting the 3-4 million Indigenous peoples of the southernmost state of Mexico. The most horrific single incident to date took place last December 22 at the little town of Acteal, where forty-five unarmed Indigenous civilians - most of them women and children - were systematically hunted down like animals and murdered by paramilitary forces. It must be made clear that Acteal is not an isolated incident. It is emblematic of a much broader pattern of escalating violence and intimidation aimed at the Indigenous people of Chiapas. In the past 18 months, there has been a growing pattern of paramilitary violence, and more recently growing military violence, which has: claimed hundreds of lives; converted thousands of Indigenous people into homeless refugees; destroyed Indigenous crops by vandalism, theft, and burning; and produced in recent months a major repressive buildup of Mexican military forces in the region. Most recently, raids by massed bodies of hundreds and even thousands of government troops and police have unlawfully descended on peaceful Indigenous communities. These raids have brutalized and arrested dozens of members of peaceful Indigenous cooperative economic and political associations. These raids have also illegally arrested dozens of International peace observers, whose presence had been requested by the Indigenous people and their organizations to insure the safety of the Indigenous. These peace observers have been summarily deported from the country without due process of law, thereby depriving the Indigenous people of outside witnesses should further acts of violence and intimidation occur. On the basis of these developments, the UN, Amnesty International, and many other respected international human rights organizations have found very serious violations of both Mexican legality and Human rights. In addition, an all-out assault on various civilian Indigenous communities, and on the Zapatista Indigenous Army, which has engaged in no warfare activities for 3 1/2 years, appears to be under preparation. (See appendix on `Indicators of war'.) The cost of such an assault in lives is incalculable. In light of all these developments, we want to issue a challenge to all the governments of the Americas, to the United Nations, and to all world leaders: Let us not fail again. Another slaughter has already begun, and a still more massive slaughter looms. There is no time to waste. Timely and decisive action must be taken immediately to avert further repression and genocide directed at Indigenous people, people who have historically been subjected to the greatest genocide and have been the most oppressed in the Americas. In particular, we wish to put forward the following urgent appeal: 1) We appeal to the United Nations for immediate intervention, armed if necessary, in order to prevent further crimes against humanity in Chiapas. Any armed intervention should be contingent on being properly mandated by the UN, and should not include troops from the United States due to their present involvement in training and arming the Mexican military, and due to the political and economic interests of the U.S. in Mexico. We call on the United Nations to IMMEDIATELY begin discussion of active measures to halt the crimes against humanity in Chiapas. As part of this investigation, we urge that representatives from the peace and reconciliation body chaired by Bishop Samuel Ruiz of Chiapas, and from the peaceful Indigenous cooperative economic and political associations of Chiapas, be called to UN headquarters as witnesses to the violence and intimidation currently directed by both paramilitary and military forces against the Indigenous people and their organizations in Chiapas. 2) We also appeal to all members of the Mexican army, police forces, and government to IMMEDIATELY BEGIN TO REFUSE TO OBEY ANY ORDER WHICH IS ILLEGAL EITHER UNDER MEXICAN LAW OR FROM THE VIEWPOINT OF INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS REGARDING HUMAN RIGHTS AND CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY. The time has come for all of us to remember - and for the world to remember - the Nuremberg war crimes tribunals - which found that obedience to orders, or to national law, cannot morally or legally justify human rights violations such as those perpetrated in Chiapas today. At Nuremberg, as today, perpetrators and intellectual authors of such crimes are guilty of crimes against humanity, and subject to both moral and legal condemnation and punishment by International bodies. FROM: CHIAPAS ALERT NETWORK www.stewards.net/chiapas/10.htm staff@stewards.net THE SOUTH AFRICAN MUNICIPAL WORKERS UNION TAINO TRIBAL COUNCIL OF JATIBONUCO AND UNITED CONFEDERATION OF TAINO PEOPLE "Taino Tribal Council of Jatibonuco" NEW DEMOCRATIC PARTY OF CANADA CONSTITUENCY ASSOCIATION OF LONDON-FANSHAWE (FEDERAL) "Harold P. Koehler" INTERNATIONAL PEACE BUREAU, OLDEST AND LARGEST PEACE BUREAU IN THE WORLD, Geneva, Switzerland. "NUEVO AMANECER PRESS" WOMEN'S INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE FOR PEACE AND FREEDOM- B.C. BRANCH PORTLAND BRANCH WOMEN'S INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE FOR PEACE & FREEDOM jms@ptld.uswest.net The Oblate Social Justice Committee, Missionary Oblates of St. Mary's Province Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, CANADA "Kateri Hellman Pino" Ainsworth United Church of Christ Commission on Justice (Patrica J. Rumer, Chair) and Commission on Service, Portland, Or. New Fellowship, United Church of Christ , c/o Deborah Lee (mangoluv@igc.org) The Pacific and Asian American Center for Theology and Strategies (pacts@igc.org) Ad Hoc Committee on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights VETERANS FOR PEACE, Gainesville Florida chapter. Perry Keidel, president "Perry Keidel" The Ottawa Committee for Solidarity with Chiapas Pacific Peace Center (Hawaii) joshua@uhunix2 The Pilipino Workers Center of Southern California Austin Peace and Justice Coalition Education Fund Toronto Action for Social Change burch@web.net (Brian Burch) The Red Feather Institute for Advanced Studies in Sociology PACIFIC POLICY INSTITUTE Lisa Barrett Witness for Peace, Southwest "Michele Weber" Working Circle Indians today Germnany KOMINIK@t-online.de (Bernd Damisch) Vancouver Association of Survivors of Torture (V.A.S.T.) Atlanta Food Not Bombs The Green Party of Ontario fdejong The Arizona Green Party "Terry" The Greens of Greater Syracuse. "Andrew Wells" Revs. Claudia Genung-Yamamoto and Toshi Yamamoto misionaries, National Chrsitian Council of Japan Ahupua`a Action Alliance - Hawaii Pacific Families Network - Hawaii Life of the Land - Hawaii Anarcho-Syndicalist Group of Temuco (Chile) "Eduardo Meza" Greenspiration "Angela & Tooker" Friends Of The Granby Environmental Society granbyes@sunshinecable.com Clarity Press Human Rights Publishers Comunidade Arnaldo Janssen of Brazil. "Paul Nadolny" PRODUCTIONS B'ALBA "Mary Ellen Davis" MADRE madre@igc.apc.org Leonard Peltier Support Groups Network Europe KOLA International Campaign Office Leonard Peltier Defense Committee Canada Northwest Leonard Peltier Support Network arthurmiller50@juno.com (Arthur J Miller) University Zapatista Liberation Network at the University of Washington ryjudge@u.washington.edu (Judge) Red Ciudana De Apoyo A La Causa Zapatista Pan Piper Press zephyr@west.net (Dwayne) Guatemala Human Rights Commission (Canadian Sub-commission) Center For Latin American Vancouverites Ethnic Society (C.L.A.V.E.S.) Stewards Corporation Movement eric@stewards.net ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Appendix - Indicators of War The Chiapas Alert Network has 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 we are referring: 1. The first indicator is a build-up of Mexican military equipment and personnel in Chiapas over the past several months. 2. The second `indicator of war' is a stepped-up effort to deport and otherwise silence international human rights observers in Chiapas. Many of these deportations are clearly illegal, and frequently involve severe intimidation and denial of due process under Mexican law. 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 activity in various 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. 5. The fifth `indicator of war' is the use of massive numbers of soldiers and police in raids on peaceful Indigenous communities in recent days. One purpose of these raids would appear to be that of terrorizing the civilian population through an overwhelming use of force. Viewed together, these indicators suggest that the Mexican government may well be gearing up for war and/or intensified repression in Chiapas. > From CDFUPDATE@childrensdefense.org Fri May 22 17:21:20 1998 Date: Fri, 22 May 1998 16:53:10 -0400 From: "CDFupdate CDFupdate" To: CDFupdate@automailer.com Subject: CDF Update 5-22-98 Sender: owner-cdfupdate@automailer.com Children's Defense Fund Update May 22,1998 In This Issue: -- Kerry/ Bond Child Care Amendment Builds Momentum -- Support Gun Violence Prevention -- CDF Releases Midterm Report on the State Children's Health Insurance Program -- GOOD NEWS ON FOOD STAMPS FOR LEGAL IMMIGRANTS *** Child Care *** --- KERRY/ BOND CHILD CARE AMENDMENT BUILDS MOMENTUM--- Congratulations! Thanks to the efforts of committed advocates across the country, thousands of calls to the Senate have been generated using the 1-888-38 STAND UP line. Your calls have made a huge impact as child care continues to build momentum in the Senate. Thank you for all of your hard work! Kerry-Bond Amendment Today the Senate will recess for Memorial Day until June 1. They have not completed the tobacco bill, but it is expected to be back on the Senate floor for continued consideration either immediately after the Senate reconvenes on June 1, or sometime during June. While tobacco politics are complicated, we must continue to focus on the bipartisan Kerry-Bond amendment to the tobacco bill. Bipartisan support for the amendment continues to grow -- Senators Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R-CO), John Chafee (R-RI), and Arlen Specter (R-PA) have agreed to join Senators John Kerry (D-MA) and Kit Bond (R-MO) as cosponsors. Keep Up the Calls During the recess, it is important to continue calls to your Senators -- both Republicans and Democrats. Call and urge Senators to cosponsor Kerry-Bond and to vote for the amendment. If your Senator is already a cosponsor of the Kerry-Bond amendment, call to thank them for their leadership on child care, and urge them to continue to push for its passage. Call your Senators toll-free at 1-888-38 STAND UP (1-888-387-8263) with the following message: "Please support the Kerry-Bond child care amendment which dedicates funds for child care from tobacco revenues." You will hear a short general message about child care and then be transferred to the U.S. congressional switchboard. This free service is brought to you courtesy of Working Assets Long Distance and is active until June 12. Stand for Quality Child Care Upcoming Stand for Quality Child Care events on or around June 1st provide the perfect opportunity to heighten awareness about the Kerry-Bond amendment in your community and to demonstrate broad-based support for additional child care investments to your Senators and Representatives. We encourage you to distribute the toll-free number to Congress as widely as possible at your Stand events, and urge those in your community to use the toll-free line to get the message to Senators. If you are not already involved in the Stand For Children event being planned in your community, please visit Stand For Children's web site at: or call 202/234-0095. ** THANK YOU FOR YOUR CONTINUED EFFORTS, AND GOOD LUCK WITH YOUR STAND FOR CHILDREN EVENTS! *** Juvenile Justice *** --- SUPPORT GUN VIOLENCE PREVENTION --- The tragedies in Springfield, Oregon; Jonesboro, Arkansas; and across the country remind us that children's access to guns is a national crisis. IN THIS COUNTRY 14 CHILDREN DIE EVERY DAY AS A RESULT OF GUNFIRE. A 1997 study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control, found that American children under age 15 are 12 times more likely to die from gunfire than children in 25 other industrialized nations -- including Israel and Northern Ireland. Of all the children killed by firearms in the 26 countries studied in 1997, 86 percent were American children. It is imperative that Congress take action on a very real threat facing our children -- easy access to guns. In early June, the "Children's Gun Violence Prevention Act of 1998" will be introduced by Representative Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY) and Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA). This will be a comprehensive piece of legislation that will address all areas of concern about children's access to firearms. This bill will: 1- Strengthen laws prohibiting children from having access to handguns; 2- Impose criminal penalties on adults who fail to keep loaded firearms out of the reach of children (as 15 states have already done with "CAP" laws); 3- Encourage manufacturers to make safer, more child resistant guns; 4- Provide federal support for development of educational materials and gun violence prevention curriculum for children; and 5- Help identify and prosecute those who are providing guns to children. We also need to continue to urge Senators to oppose S. 10 and any other bill that destroys the core protections for children's safety (such as keeping them separate from adult inmates), fails to invest in prevention, and does not reduce children's access to guns. ** Contact your Senator now, as they go home for recess from May 22nd through May 31st. Tell your Senator: Support gun violence prevention to keep children safe and alive. Oppose any "youth violence" bill that doesn't reduce children's access to guns and increase investments in after-school activities and other prevention -- and that does put children into adult jails and prisons where they are at risk of harm. *** Children's Health *** --- CDF RELEASES MIDTERM REPORT ON STATE CHILDREN'S HEALTH INSURANCE PROGRAM --- "CHIP Check-Up: A Healthy Start for Children," the first detailed, comprehensive analysis of the implementation of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), is now available on CDF's website. The report reveals that CHIP is off to a good start in spite of some states' unwillingness to cover their uninsured children in working families. CHIP is the largest funding expansion for children's health coverage since the creation of Medicaid 30 years ago. The program gives states roughly $4 billion in annual federal grants to cover uninsured children in low-wage, working families. Federal funds became available to states to create or expand child health insurance programs on October 1, 1997. "CHIP Check-Up" compared programs for eligibility, affordability, benefits, and ease of enrollment. Connecticut, Georgia, and Maryland earned high ratings. Several states --Alabama, Mississippi, Texas, and Wyoming -- scored lowest because the number of children they propose to cover is extremely limited. In Wyoming's case, the state legislative session ended without legislative action on CHIP for 1998. "CHIP Check-Up" was released nationally on May 12 and is now available on CDF's website. Visit the Children's Defense Fund at <> to read this exciting new report. In addition to the report, the website also features an easy to download, detailed chart on crucial aspects of 41 states' proposed CHIP plans. *** Family Income *** --- GOOD NEWS ON FOOD STAMPS FOR LEGAL IMMIGRANTS! --- This morning the House demonstrated strong bipartisan support for restoring food stamps for legal immigrants. The House rejected by a vote of 120-289 the Rules Committee's decision to allow any member to strip the restoration of food stamps from the Agricultural Research bill. 98 Republicans and all but 2 voting Democrats voted against the rule, thereby protecting $819 million in food stamp restorations aiding children, elderly, and disabled legal immigrants. As we write, it looks as though House members will not finish work on this before leaving for the Memorial Day recess, so please call your representative and ask that they vote FOR the Agriculture Research Bill's conference report (S. 1150/H.R. 2534) with NO CHANGES! THANKS FOR YOUR CALLS ON THIS ISSUE! THEY REALLY MADE A DIFFERENCE. --- SIGN-ON TO LETTER OPPOSING PROP 226: INITIATIVE THAT WOULD HARM CHARITIES -- The California Association of Nonprofits (CAN) is collecting signatures from charities around the state for a letter of opposition to Proposition 226, which would significantly restrict the rights of nonprofits to engage in ballot initiatives in California. As the letter states: "Support or opposition of ballot measures -- to create smoke-free restaurants, clean up our beaches, gain wheel chair access through curb cuts on city streets, increase worker safety, support the arts, improve educational programs, reduce community violence -- has been crucial to nonprofit efforts to make the lives of California citizens healthier, safer and more fulfilling." Because the initiative is primarily aimed at unions, very little attention has been paid to the negative impact that it could have on many charities in California. In fact, the California Voter Guide does not even mention that nonprofits are covered. Therefore, it is essential that we get the word out as broadly as possible to let California citizens know that nonprofits would be harmed by this initiative. To see and sign on to the letter, please visit the CAN Web site at http://www.canonprofits.org/226. For further information, contact Florence Green or Stephen Stein at CAN, (213) 347-2070, or Patrick Lemmon at OMB Watch, (202) 234-8494. *********************************************************** -- 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 hvera@nervm.nerdc.ufl.edu Sat May 23 08:14:37 1998 Date: Sat, 23 May 1998 10:13:38 -0400 From: "=?iso-8859-1?Q?Hern=E1n?= Vera" Reply-To: hvera@ufl.edu To: h961138@stud.hoe.se Subject: Re: move beyond injustice the left told I have a difficult time focusing on normative statements (such as those of Kuseni Dlamani) on what the left should or should not do. Especially, when the argument is cast in such abstract, global terms. However, I agree that the left is being overwhelmed, perhaps even defeated by the forces of greed and required obedience. I do not believe we can compete with any degree of success against the global neo-liberal tide and its resources. Not only are we facing a corporate world order, but also the resources of the bureaucracies of the nation states. Luckily, these are far from invincible. But they will not be defeated by broad reaching ideological positioning or media based campaigns as Dlamani seems to suggest. The strategy I favor is that of Latin American "comunidades de base" (grass roots communities) which were responsible to a large extent of the defeat of bureaucratic authoritarianism in the region. The corporate world order and the state in the neo-liberal world cannot reach into the grassroots as effectively as the traditional left organizational forms. In addition ot trade unions and the like among these I include church based self help organizations, academic circles, environmental groups, local actions groups, anti racial, feminist, and gay activism, etc.. We can and should concentrate and take over the grass root. If only we cold defeat our current contentment. -- Hernan Vera, Professor of Sociology Box 11730, University of Florida Gainesville, FL 32611 Phone (352) 392 0251, ext. 232 From h961138@stud.hoe.se Sun May 24 06:25:01 1998 Sun, 24 May 1998 14:24:37 +0200 (MET DST) Date: Sun, 24 May 1998 14:23:42 +0200 To: PROGRESSIVE SOCIOLOGISTS NETWORK From: bd Subject: Re: move beyond injustice the left told In-Reply-To: <3566D992.766C4BAE@nervm.nerdc.ufl.edu> Vera ! I agree to some of your comments, besides I was surprised with what you wrote, not with content but how you expressed yourself. Which implies that you know better, what other people should and shouldn't say and how they should / shouldn't it say concerning the left! So you wanted to imply that when you talk of the grassroots you are not doing what the author of the article (Kuseni Dlamani) was trying to do, let us say advising the left to take action from the downwards upwards? What do you mean by normative statements? So grassroots actions as you write below can't be turned into normative statement or *abstract statements* as you observed in Dlamani's article are based on normative statements? I read Greider William's book Who will Tell the People. He is talking about the same thing, grassroots. This seems to be a new idea on the America continent. In South Africa and Africa at large, have got quite an experience and good knowledge of how the grassroots politics function, far better than any other constituency here on earth. They have used the grassroots to fight apartheid and colonialism and they defeated it. More so these societies are basically structured functionally within these realms- the grassroots. Now you seem to be troubled with abstraction. They're two parts of the coin; theory and praxis. Even if there is need for transformation there is no way, drawing boards are going to be thrown away. You talk of strategy how do you start with your strategy? I do believe, from the side of sociology there is need to tackle the bottlenecks which are devilling this field. For example need to study economic theory and criticising it from a sociological perspective ( bridging the gap between theory and practice), need of understanding the historical processes, the critical theoretical study of the ethnographical nature of every society and embedded economic structures. Without de- masking those undelying pillars on which the present society /ies rests, consumerists studies will replace the grand theories as if it is an equivalent to what hear, is called cultural sociology. What I mean to say is that capitalism as an society- based system, will regenerate itself within those same structures since, the legal frame work , economics based on rational choice is only seeking solutions i.e. within and from the same archaic welfare systems. Let me give an example;- The present social system will argue that they are liberating women from the homes, while at the same time turning these masses of people into wage- workers in the service sector. What has changed? Almost nothing but organisation. One moves from the home, into another home doing exactly the same kinds of job on condition that s/he is being paid a monthly check! Emancipation. When the article tackles the failures of the liberal social democrats in Europe /America it simply reads into the nature of historical progress of the trade unions and politics therein. Trade union do not own the media whereby they can agitate for their needs. Remember too, this sort of politics applauds consumeristic ideologies, far more better than anything else- calling that social justice. How do you shut up people and keep self-consciousness at bay? For example with the help of mass consumption enshrined in the Keynesian economics. That is not the end of the left politics since social democratic principals are built on the same crumbling capitalistic structures. Has the question of ownership been solved? I guess about the 400 million citizens of Western Europe, a good majority is simply factory workers with monthly paycheques as their only possession. There is need to study the failures of these economics structures and there indirect exploitation methods. That is not abstraction since it so happens in reality. Using that as a referential grid in sociology will generate new ideas. There is a need of a pluralistic education system as a solution, far too different from that which was inherited from industrial social structure. Horizontal skill acquisition as opposed from vertical and elitist/ status -class symbiotic nature of western societies. Consensus politics must be replaced with consultation, less of that there is no grassroots or social transformation at all. Bwanika. At 10:13 1998-05-23 -0400, you wrote: >I have a difficult time focusing on normative statements (such as those >of Kuseni Dlamani) on what the left should or should not do. Especially, >when the argument is cast in such abstract, global terms. >However, I agree that the left is being overwhelmed, perhaps even >defeated by the forces of greed and required obedience. I do not believe >we can compete with any degree of success against the global neo-liberal >tide and its resources. Not only are we facing a corporate world order, >but also the resources of the bureaucracies of the nation states. >Luckily, these are far from invincible. But they will not be defeated by >broad reaching ideological positioning or media based campaigns as >Dlamani seems to suggest. > The strategy I favor is that of Latin American "comunidades de base" >(grass roots communities) which were responsible to a large extent of >the defeat of bureaucratic authoritarianism in the region. The corporate >world order and the state in the neo-liberal world cannot reach into the >grassroots as effectively as the traditional left organizational forms. >In addition ot trade unions and the like among these I include church >based self help organizations, academic circles, environmental groups, >local actions groups, anti racial, feminist, and gay activism, etc.. We >can and should concentrate and take over the grass root. If only we cold >defeat our current contentment. >-- >Hernan Vera, Professor of Sociology >Box 11730, University of Florida >Gainesville, FL 32611 >Phone (352) 392 0251, ext. 232 > > __________________ bwanika From MGWENG01@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU Sun May 24 15:21:33 1998 From: MGWENG01@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU Date: 24 May 1998 16:24:15 EDT To: FROM: Morton G. Wenger, Professor Department of Sociology University of Louisville, Louisville, KY 40292 USA Subject: FYI: The Breckenridge Memorandum TELEPHONE: (502) 852-6836 INTERNET: MGWENG01@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU *** Forwarding note from MGWENG01--ULKYVM 05/24/98 16:23 *** To: tell@net.bluemoon.net *** Reply to note of 05/23/98 14:23 FROM: Morton G. Wenger, Professor Department of Sociology University of Louisville, Louisville, KY 40292 USA Subject: FYI: The Breckenridge Memorandum I found S. Tell's post re the "Breckenridge Memorandumn" most interesting, but troubling (BTW, the name is spelled BreckInridge). As someone who lives in Kentucky, perhaps I am more alert to the name Breckinridge than most. The Breckinridge mentioned in Tell's post is alleged to have written a memo in 1897 to a General Miles. The Breckinridge identified as the author of the memo is further named as "J.C. Breckinridge." So far as I know, the only J.C. Breckinridge who appears in US history is John Cabell Breckinridge, who was born in 1821 in Kentucky and DIED IN 1875!!! He was VP under Buchanan and was evicted from the Senate in 1862 after joining the Confederate Army. In 1860 he ran against Lincoln for President as a pro-slavery Democrat.In 1865 he was CONFEDERATE Secretaey of War. Again, he died in 1875. Presumably, he wrote no posthumous memorandum. General Nelson Miles did indeed command the expedition to Puerto Rico during the Spanish-American War and participated in the invasion of Cuba. He was also a genocidal executioner of Native Americans and was the general in command of the army troops sent to Chicago by Cleveland in 1894 to put down the Pullman strikers. It appears that he was personally responsible for the destruction of the village of Crazy Horse in 1877, the same year that he forced the surrender of Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce, and in 1886 he subdued the Apache under Geronimo. Something very wrong has happened here; several possibilities seem to offer themselves: 1) There is another "J.C. Breckenridge" who was US Secretary of War in 1897, who no encyclopedia that I have checked ever heard of. What is public record is that under Cleveland in 1897, the SoW was Daniel S. Lamont. Under McKinley until 1899 the SoW was Russell A. Alger, and he was followed by Elihu Root. 2) This was a Confederate geo-political fantasy written by the actually-existing JCB during the American Civil War. However, it would not likely have been written to Miles, who was a Union stalwart at the time! 3) Lamont or Alger actually wrote the memo. 4) The memo is in whole or part a forgery, or some unbelievably clumsy error has been committed. If 1 is the case, we must be thankful that the previously unknown SoW Breckenridge has now been brought to light. If either 2, 3, and/or 4 are the case, than something very wrong has occurred. Either "El Habenero" has published a significant historical error, and "The Marxist-Leninist Weekly" has reprinted it, or there has been an intentional falsification of history knowingly published by one or both. This cannot be good for communism, nor communists, nor anything calling itself Marxist. Is the history of imperialism so benign in fact that we must rely on errors and/or lies to mobilize sentiment against it??? The actual histories of Breckinridge and Miles alike need no embellishment nor distortion by friends of the people in order to make the case against US policy in the Caribbean, nor that for a connection between racism, colonialism, and hatred of the working classes any-and everywhere. Is the part about the racial composition of the Maine's crew at the time of its sinking true??? If yes, I think people should consider using this "fact" when they teach race/ethnic classes. However, before doing so, one should check sources other than those Tell cites. As a last note, unless 1) above is the case, in which case I offer my abject apologies in advance, I believe we must demand of S. Tell, The M-L Weekly, and El Habenero an expalanation and a clarification/retraction. I ask this as a Marxist: I believe it was Lenin who once said that Marx's thought was strong and durable because it was true. Let us never forget that... Morton Wenger TELEPHONE: (502) 852-6836 INTERNET: MGWENG01@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU From augdeven@telcel.net.ve Mon May 25 06:18:57 1998 by smarty.telcel.net.ve (Post.Office MTA v3.1.2 Reply-To: <@telcel.net.ve> From: "Augusto De Venanzi" To: Subject: Re Move beyond injustice Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 08:18:56 -0400 I read Hernán Vera posting with interest. In fact community level is an appropiate level for fighting neo-liberal order, but we must be aware that corporations and multilateral agencies are making big efforts to penetrate the communities. This they do through local based social programs that generate loyalty toward big corporations ( the oil corporations which are coming to Venezuela with the privatization of portions of this industry are good examples of this). This corporate and multilateral strategy has found some problems, but efforts are being made to solve them. This will not be difficult for it counts with the support of the state ( which has not enough funds to implement significant programs programs ), the media and a growing sector of the academic world who receives funds ( mainly from WB, BID and FMI ) for research. Maybe the neo-liberal order will start to decline when opposition to it grows in the" advanced" world and articulates with periphery expressions such as that which is latent in indian communities, farmers grass roots organizations, people without land ( los sin tierra ), professionals and workers hit by privatizations and the declining middle classes. This looks like a long and complex process which will fail to mature in the absence of some kind of global leadership . Prof. Augusto De Venanzi Escuela de Sociología Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Sociales Universidad Central de Venezuela email: augdeven@telcel.net.ve From jbehar@igc.apc.org Mon May 25 11:24:38 1998 for psn@csf.colorado.edu; Mon, 25 May 1998 10:23:38 -0700 (PDT) Date: Mon, 25 May 1998 10:23:38 -0700 (PDT) From: Joseph Behar To: psn@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Call for Reviews CALL FOR REVIEWS: The Social Science Computer Review (SSCORE) Published quarterly, SSCORE is an established journal of qualitative and quantitative research relating to the use and implications of computers and information technologies in the social sciences. Articles focus on the methodological uses of computers as well as studies of the social impacts of computerization. Other short reports and commentaries deal with instructional, policy oriented, and other related developments in the field of "academic computing". Recently, the Review has sought to expand its coverage of new books dealing with social, political, cultural, and economic issues relating to information technology. If you are interested in reviewing one of the books listed below, please contact me by e-mail or telephone (State your ground mail address). Reviews are usually between 4-6 typewritten double spaced pages and have a reasonable lead time. Samples of previously published reviews are available as well as a statement of general guidelines. Unlike many of the reviews in Contemporary Sociology, reviews in SSCORE allow for fairly in depth reporting and critique. Please briefly state your qualifications and interests. Please feel free to call me for more information or if there any questions. Regards, Joseph E. Behar Associate Book Review Editor SSCORE Department of Sociology Dowling College Oakdale, New York 11769 E-mail: jbehar@igc.apc.org Telephone: 516-567-0356 REvised: 5/25/98 Books available for review: 1) Network Netplay: Virtual Groups on the Internet: Sudweeks, et al. 2) William H. Dutton, editor: Information and Communication Technologies. 3) Gene I. Rochlin: Trapped in the Net: The Unanticiapted Consequences of Computerization. 4) Privacy on the Line: The Politics of Wiretapping and Encryption: Diffie & Landau. 5) Cyberwars: Espionage on the Internet: Jean Guisnel. From gimenez@csf.Colorado.EDU Tue May 26 17:29:13 1998 Date: Tue, 26 May 1998 17:29:09 -0600 (MDT) From: Martha Gimenez Reply-To: Martha Gimenez To: PSN@CSF.COLORADO.EDU Subject: Studies of Disney There is a slim volume that might be out of print: Ariel Dorfman and Armand Mattelart, HOW TO READ DONALD DUCK. Imperialist Ideology in the Disney Comic. International General, New York, 1975. The authors are, respectively, a Chilean literary critic and novelist, and a Belgian sociologist. It was published originally in Spanish, in Chile (1971), and was banned after the coup. It is a very insightful study. Martha *************************************************************************** Date: Wed, 20 May 1998 07:45:11 -0700 (PDT) From: Joseph Behar To: psn@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Studies of Disney Hi, we are presenting a seminar course on Disney: Culture and Power, Any suggestions for critical readings and related texts would be welcomed. Let me know if you are interested in seeing the syllabus. Regards, Joe Behar Marty Schoenhals Dowling College From hvera@nervm.nerdc.ufl.edu Wed May 27 07:10:13 1998 Date: Wed, 27 May 1998 09:09:12 -0400 From: "=?iso-8859-1?Q?Hern=E1n?= Vera" Reply-To: hvera@ufl.edu To: augdeven@telcel.net.ve Subject: Re: Re Move beyond injustice Following Augusto de Venanzi's contribution on how some corporations seek community solidarity, the case of Chrysler-Saturn, Harley Davidson and other such corporations is worth mentioning. These companies aggresively seek consumer loyalty through consumers solidarity among themselves and with the company. Saturn even advertises the racial/ethnic diversity of its plants, and how because of it workers and their families are creative, loyal and realized. -- Hernan Vera, Professor of Sociology Box 11730, University of Florida Gainesville, FL 32611 Phone (352) 392 0251, ext. 232 From wwhite@jaguar1.usouthal.edu Wed May 27 07:55:06 1998 Date: Wed, 27 May 1998 08:54:54 -0500 (CDT) From: "William S. White" To: PSN Subject: Virtual Communities Dear Fellow PSN'rs, I am interested in starting a study on virtual communities, using a list I currently belong to as a case study. Can anyone lead me to some theoretical and empirical work that may have already been completed on the topic. I have yet to do a search for literature, since the thought only entered my mind this morning. But perhaps you can lead me to some good research on the topic. Thank you very much for your help. Bill __________________________________________________________________________ William Sakamoto White "Man truly reaches his full human condition Asst. Professor of Sociology when he produces without being compelled by University of South Alabama physical necessity to sell himself as a wwhite@jaguar1.usouthal.edu commodity." --- Ernesto Che Guevara -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From brook@california.com Tue May 26 22:02:35 1998 Date: Tue, 26 May 1998 20:55:55 -0700 (PDT) To: brook@california.com From: CyberBrook Subject: Jail the Tobacco Executives! Jail the Tobacco Executives! Michael Lerner, _Tikkun_, Vol. 13, No. 3 (May/June 1998), p. 7 http://www.tikkun.org/ The tobacco companies are now threatening to defeat any legislation that would seriously cut their profits. The only reason they had previously agreed to a raise in cigarette taxes and to restraints on advertising to teens was to get a national agreement to limit their liability in suits from families of people who were killed by their product. Now, using the huge financial resources they have amassed by selling these murderous products, they are threatening to unseat legislators with pro-tobacco candidates in the fall elections. Their aim is to use their clout to defeat the McClain bill, which imposes more severe restraints on the marketing of tobacco. What is likely to emerge will be a compromise, based on the assumption that the poisoners of our youth have "a right" to make a living. The more appropriate response would be to indict these people for conspiracy to commit murder, and to do so by using the extensive evidence now becoming available that these companies knew that their product caused cancer and nevertheless, introduced elements to insure addiction. America's jails are filled with hundreds of thousands of people of color whose sole crime is that they used or sold marijuana or other mind-altering drugs, yet tobacco is demonstrably at least as dangerous as pot. Our health care system is in crisis in part because of the many people dying from tobacco-induced illnesses. We need some courageous district attorneys or state attorneys general to actually put these people on trial. Short of that, these companies will continue to market their murder, both to the U.S. and around the world. While it makes sense to provide federal aid to small tobacco growers to assist them in shifting their crops to something that is not poisonous, the government should stop compromising with the large cigarette companies and focus instead on providing jail cells for their top company executives. From draperm@socio.unp.ac.za Wed May 27 01:59:52 1998 Date: Wed, 27 May 1998 09:59:06 +0200 From: "Malcolm Draper" To: psn@csf.colorado.edu, augdeven@telcel.net.ve Subject: Re Move beyond injustice -Reply This debate begins to call into focus the vexed question of civil society which I am busy teaching my students from Coetzee and Graaf (eds) "Reconstruction Development and People" wherein Doreen Atkinson, Monty Roodt and Decan Pillay provide different takes on the issues. Some South African Communist Party thinkers and politicians (Blade Nzimande and Mpume Sikhosane) follow Marx in seeing civil society and people's participation therein, as an individualistic bourgeois activity and space which is not necessary or desirable with a legitimate people's state in place. Lets face it, civil society is best developed in the US where the middle class is strong. Others follow Gramsci in warning against "statolatory" ie. the tendency to worship the state. But Gramsci saw the role of the state in enabling civil society and hopefully mitigating the influence of capital. Lets face it, the ANC never even tried to implement their election promise as formulated in the Reconstruction and Development Programme document (originating in the trade union movement) wherein capital is not given much of a role as an actor in civil society. The sudden awakening to state incapacity brought about an inversion of this thinking. State incapacity is not only a result of globalisation, but also a novice government in power. As Jeremy Cronin of the SACP (who was mentioned earlier in this thread) said in a lecture to my students on the issue of the recant from the RDP to neoliberal GEAR, "My comrades are still trying to find the toilets in the government buildings, let alone running the country." Conceptions of participation and which species or combination should dominate the sward of grasses competing for sunlight, nutrients and water are contested. The problem is that the middle classes are still the dominant variety. We need to change our grassland management practices, but we cannot do it with a timid minimalist approach. From tell@net.bluemoon.net Wed May 27 11:10:22 1998 Date: Wed, 27 May 1998 13:10:15 -0400 (EDT) From: Shawgi Tell To: psn@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Elementary Facts Greetings, The following data is mainly, but not entirely, for the United States. Actual U.S. population is about 270 million. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- - "Between 1983 and 1989 the top 20% of wealth holders received 99% of the total gain in marketable wealth, while the bottom 80% of the population got only 1%" (Edward N. Wolff, "How the Pie is Sliced," 1995). - "The combined wealth of the top 1 percent of U.S. families is about the same as that of the entire bottom 95 percent" (Holly Sklar, Jobs, Income, and Work: Ruinous Trends, Urgent Alternatives, 1995, p. 9). - "The top 0.5% of wealth holders still own 32% of stocks - double the 16% share held by the bottom 90%. Bond ownership is even more top-heavy. The top 0.5% holds 46% of the total, while the bottom 90% holds just 10%" (Unpublished Federal Reserve technical paper, analyzed by Left Business Observer, July 17, 1997). - "The United States is the richest country on the planet yet it has the greatest income disparity.... Sixty percent of all U.S. jobs created since 1979 pay less than $7,000 a year" (Fian Fact Sheet, Welfare by Corporations is Corporate Welfare, http://www.foodfirst.org/corpwell.htm). - "Over one in nine persons in the labor force during 1993 were living below the poverty line. Of these nearly 12 million workers, 70 percent (8.22 million workers) fit the category of working poor" (Denny Braun, The Rich Get Richer, 2nd ed. 1997, p. 238. Based on BLS data). - "The wages of the average non-college-educated male fell 10.1% from 1979 to 1989 and another 7.2% between 1989 and 1995" (The State of Working America 1996-97, Economic Policy Institute, 1996). - "The wages of a young male high school graduate dropped 21.8% in the 1980s and another 6.9% in the 1989-95 period" (Ibid). - "A young female high school graduate earned 18.9% less in 1995 than in 1979" (Ibid). - "While 10.3% of Hispanic families were unemployed in 1996, 19.0% were under-employed" (J. Bernstein, "The Challenge of Moving from Welfare to Work," Economic Policy Institute, 1997). - "Among blacks 16-25, about 35% were under-employed in 1996" (Ibid). - "For most families, increases in net income have come from more hours of work, not increases in hourly pay" (Congressional Study: "Families on a Treadmill: Work and Income in the 1980s," January 17, 1992). - "Real hourly pay of wives increased for most families, but for 60 percent of families, the decline in hourly pay of husbands was greater than the increase in wives' hourly pay" (Ibid). - The total wages of all people who earned less than $50,000 a year - about 85% of Americans - increased an average of 2 percent a year from 1980 to 1989, which did not even keep pace with inflation. By contrast, the total wages of all millionaires shot up 243 percent a year (Internal Revenue Service). - "The cost of a college education rose more than 70% for private schools between the years 1977-1993, and more than 50% for public schools" (U.S. Center for Educational Staistics; Figures are inflation-adjusted). - "Of the 82 women serving in statewide elective executive positions, 3 (3.7%) are women of color" (Center for the American Woman and Politics, 1998). - Percent of revenues for public elementary and secondary schools from the federal level averaged 7.0% between 1970-71 and 1994-95 (NCES, "Mini-Digest of Education Statistics," 1997, p.51). - More than 50% of today's college students will graduate in debt (National Association of Graduate-Professional Students). - Rate of tuition increases before 1978 was 1% below the inflation rate; since 1978 the rate has been more than twice the inflation rate (Ibid). - The student loan default rate in 1977 was 11%; in 1992 it was 22% (Ibid). - American students since 1990 have borrowed as much as the total volume for all of the 1960s, '70s and 80s combined (The Education Resources Institute, "College Debt and the American Family," 1995). - "Gaps in the academic performance of black and white students appear as early as age 9 and persist through age 17" (National Center for Education Statistics, "The Educational Progress of Black Students," 1995, p. 3>. - "Hispanic children start elementary school with less preschool experience than white children, and this gap has widened over time" (NCES, "The Educational Progress of Hispanic Students," 1995, p. 2). - "Bankruptcies increased by 19 percent in 1997 to a record high of 1.4 million filings" (American Bankruptcy Institute, 1998). - "11.3 million children age 18 and under are uninsured - the largest number ever reported by the Census Bureau" (Children's Defense Fund, March 14, 1998). - "Approximately 13.6 million children under age 12 in the United States - 29 percent - live in families that must cope with hunger or the risk of hunger during some part of one or more months of the previous year" (Community Childhood Hunger Identification Project). - "33.1% of all African Americans, 30.6% of Latinos and 18.8% of other non-whites live in poverty, as compared to 9.9% of White residents" (Cynthia Taeber, The Statistical Handbook on Women in America, 1996, p. 145). - Hunger in the U.S. has increased by 50% since 1985 (Center on Hunger, Poverty and Nutrition Policy, Tufts University, 1993). - Between 20 and 30 million Americans suffer from hunger (Congressional Hunger Center, 1995). - Approximately 20% of American adults do not have a high school diploma (U.S. Census Bureau, 1990). - "Each year, almost 5,000 young people, ages 15 to 24, kill themselves. The rate of suicide for this age group has nearly tripled since 1960" (National Mental Health Association, 1997). - Over 1.4 billion people in the world live in abject poverty, surviving on less than $1 US a day. Another 3.3 billion people live in extreme poverty (United Nations Human Development Report, 1997). - By 1996, 36.5 million Americans lived in poverty (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1997a). - Despite its recent increase, the minimum wage remains 15% below its average purchasing power in the 1970s, after adjusting for inflation (Kaufman, 1997). - In 1996, approximately 41.7 million Americans had no health insurance (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1997b). Another 40 million had only limited coverage. - The average income of families in the middle fifth of the income distribution fell in 25 states between the late 1970s and the mid-1990s" (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Pulling Apart: A State-by-State Analysis of Income Trends, December 16, 1997, http://www.cbpp.org/pa-1test.htm). - White, black and Latina women, respectively, earn 75, 65 and 56 percent of white male wages (The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, 1996). - Ninety-six percent of top executives are men (Ibid). - "Women make up nearly 70% of the world's poor and more than 65% of the illiterate" (International Labour Organization, "Women Swell Ranks of Working Poor," 1996). - "In industrialized countries, much of the growth in women's labour force participation has been in part-time jobs. Women make up between 65% and 90% of all part-timers in OECD countries" (Ibid). - "Everywhere, women are paid less than men, and there is no indication that this will change soon. The majority of women continue to earn on average about three-fourths of the male wage outside of the agricultural sector" (Ibid). - "In 1978, corporate CEOs, or chief executive officers, were paid 60 times what the average worker earned. By 1995, CEOs had increased their pay to 173 times the average worker's income" (Abid Aslam, U.S. Rich Benefit at the Expense of the Poor, Third World Network). - Percentage of persons below the poverty level was 12.6% in 1970, 13.0% in 1980, 13.5% in 1990, and 14.5% in 1994 (U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Reports, Series P-60, No. 188, 1995). - "In the United States, where overall violent crime against women has been growing for the past two decades, a woman is physically abused by her intimate partner every nine seconds" (UNICEF, The Progress of Nations, 1997). - "The US, with just 5 times the population of Italy, has 150 times more children in detention" (Ibid). - Share of global income going to richest 20% and poorest 20% of world's population: year share of richest 20% share of poorest 20% ratio rich/poor ---- -------------------- ------------------- --------------- 1960 70.2% 2.3% 30 to 1 1970 73.9% 2.3% 32 to 1 1980 76.3% 1.7% 45 to 1 1989 82.7% 1.4% 59 to 1 [UN, Human Development Report, 1992] - The U.S. has the highest infant mortality, AIDS, road accident, pesticide consumption, homicide, reported rapes, imprisonment and hazardous waste production rates among Switzerland, Japan, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Germany, Austria, France, Finland and Canada (The World Bank, World Development Report, 1994 and UN, Human Development Report, 1994). - Military Budgets, 1996/97 ($billions) U.S. $260 Germany $42 Russia $82 U.K. $34 Japan $50 China $32 France $48 Italy $20 [The International Institute for Strategic Studies: The Military Balance, 1996/97] - "Between 1979 and 1994, the total number of unemployed in the G7 - Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, United Kingdom and the United States - rose from 13 million to almost 24 million, along with 4 million unemployed who have stopped looking for work, and 15 million who work part-time but would rather work full-time" (International labour Organization, 1996). - "Since 1990, an additional 300 million people are making do without decent sanitation" (UNICEF, The Progress of Nations, 1997). It is essential to recognize that income inequality, wealth inequality, poverty, unemployment, under-employment, hunger, job insecurity, suicides, homelessness, student debt, violence, etc. are inter-related problems which continue to worsen here and worldwide. All this and more is happening as a result of the international financial oligarchy's demand that its narrow and self-serving claims be put in first place. If this means to hell with everyone else, then so be it. These facts only further underscore the urgent need for moving society forward. The key to solving these interconnected problems is taking up the politics of empowerment. This means consciously rejecting the Old and thinking and acting in an entirely New way. It means abandoning the status quo and taking up discussion on ending the political marginalization of the working class and people in an extremely serious and honest way. All illusions about capitalism overcoming its ills must be dispensed with and replaced by fresh, modern and progressive ideas. Modern definitions, up-to-date information and enlightened views need to be put forward to help guide the people in their struggles for a better society. No-one can remain aloof at this time. No-one can pretend that their daily life is unaffected by political and economic realities. The anti-social agenda of the world bourgeoisie and reaction only obstructs the creation of a society fit for humans. Without taking up the practical task of vesting supreme decision-making power in the broad masses of the people absolutely nothing will be solved. Shawgi Tell Niagara County Community College tell@net.bluemoon.net From fbp@igc.apc.org Tue May 26 17:35:01 1998 Tue, 26 May 1998 15:58:13 -0700 (PDT) Tue, 26 May 1998 15:57:53 -0700 (PDT) Date: Tue, 26 May 1998 18:17:36 -0400 To: (Recipient list suppressed) From: "John M. Miller" Subject: E Timor Action Network ALERT ActionAlert ActionAlert ActionAlert ActionAlert East Timor Action Network Suharto Falls, Pressure for Political Reform Continues Lobby Congress at Home Until June 1 Contact Your Representative & Senators Today! Now Is The Time To Ban All Military Training & Freeze All Weapons To Indonesia Support A Referendum In East Timor — Senate to Vote in Early June May 26, 1998 * Urge your Representative to support East Timor's right to self-determination by co-sponsoring House Concurrent Resolution (H.Con.Res.) 258. Introduced by Representative Lowey (D-NY), Porter (R-IL), Lantos (D-CA) and Christopher Smith (R-NJ) on April 1, this resolution now has 46 co-sponsors. Urge your Senators to support Senate Resolution (S. Res. 237), introduced on May 22 by Senators Russ Feingold (D-WI), Jack Reed (D-RI) and six co-sponsors to support democracy in Indonesia and self-determination in East Timor. S. Res. 237 could come to a vote on the Senate floor as early as June 2, so call today. * Urge your Representative and Senators to freeze the transfer of ALL U.S. weapons, spare parts and ammunition for Indonesia's military until a popularly elected government emerges in Indonesia and until substantial human rights improvements in Indonesia and East Timor can be demonstrated. Your Representative should co-sponsor Rep. Cynthia McKinney's (D-GA) Indonesia Human Rights Before Military Assistance Act (H.R. 3918). * Urge your Representative and Senators to ban all U.S. military training and exercises with Indonesia. Recently, the Pentagon suspended the Joint Combined Exchange Training (JCET) program to Indonesia. This is a victory, but bans on both JCET and the International Military Education and Training (IMET) program must be made law! Last week's attempt to attach an amendment to the Defense Authorization bill never came to a vote, but a ban on IMET and other training can be included in the Foreign Operations Appropriations bill (scheduled tentatively for the second week of June) and the Defense Appropriations Bill. Urge your Representative to co-sponsor Rep. Nita Lowey's (D-NY) International Military Training Accountability Act (H.R. 3802), introduced with 22 initial co-sponsors on May 13. Note: Congress is now recessed until the beginning of June. Take this opportunity to contact your Representative and Senators in their home offices or while they campaign. To reach your Senators and Representative in Washington, call the congressional switchboard at 202-224-3121. Their local offices should be in your phone book. Write to Senator _________, US Senate, Washington, DC 20510 or Rep. _________, US House of Representatives, Washington, DC 20515. Send a copies of your letter/fax to: Write President Clinton, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., Washington, DC 20500; 202-456-1414; president@whitehouse.gov and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, US State Dept, 2201 C St., NW, Washington, DC 20520, fax: 1-202-647-6434. For a current list of congressional e-mail addresses, phones and faxes try http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/ Please forward the results of your contacts to ETAN's Washington office. ETAN's website at http://etan.org has the most current lists of bill co-sponsors. Check the website or the addresses below for updates. Contact us if you have questions. BACKGROUND Suharto has fallen, but Suharto-ism lives on under Jusuf Habibie and General Wiranto's military regime. Hundreds of Indonesians were killed in a week of protests and rioting. Hundreds more were arrested. Brave student protesters occupied the Indonesian parliament for five days, forcing Suharto out and forcing Habibie into immediate reforms. While jailed labor leader Muchtar Pakpahan and activist Sri Bintang Pamungkas have been freed, hundreds more Indonesians and Timorese remain political prisoners, including East Timor's Xanana Gusmao. We must keep up the pressure for democracy and human rights in Indonesia and East Timor. Urge Congress and President Clinton to formally end all military training and all transfers of weapons, spare parts and ammunition to Indonesia. Call for a referendum in East Timor now. Recently, ETAN helped to expose ongoing U.S. training of Indonesian military units. Opposition to U.S. support of the Indonesian military remains high. With your help, we can enact a complete ban on all military training and weapons transfers to any military regime in Jakarta. The Pentagon recently announced the suspension of military training to Indonesia, but a long-term ban is needed. Now is the time to support democracy in Indonesia and self-determination in East Timor, not the brutal Indonesian military. Lynn Fredriksson Washington Representative East Timor Action Network 110 Maryland Avenue NE #30 Washington, DC 20002 202-544-6911, etandc@igc.apc.org Kristin Sundell, Field Organizer East Timor Action Network 101 Western Ave. # 41 Cambridge, MA 02139 617-868-6600 x319; fax: 617-868-7102 etanfield@igc.apc.org END etanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetan John M. Miller Internet: etan-outreach@igc.apc.org Media & Outreach Coordinator, East Timor Action Network PO Box 150753, Brooklyn, NY 11215-0014 USA; Phone: (718)596-7668 Check out ETAN's new web site: http://etan.org Send a blank e-mail message to timor-info@igc.apc.org to find out how to learn more about East Timor on the Internet etanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetan From jnaiman@acs.ryerson.ca Thu May 28 08:33:03 1998 Date: Thu, 28 May 1998 10:35:35 -0400 (EDT) From: Joanne Naiman To: psn@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Greetings from Orwell's Ontario I received the message below today from a colleague. Ontario is in the midst of a massive reform to public education, including an all new curriculum. The former Toronto Board of Ed. (the gov't has also amalgamated many school boards in an anti-democratic move) had an excellent equity program, most of which is now in tatters. Joanne Naiman Ryerson Polytechnic Univesity Toronto ------------------------------------------- For those out there interested in preserving democracy through education in ontario, here's an extract from a message that I received today from one of our sister faculties of education: "[one of our] profs was at a meeting yesterday fresh from a curriculum writing team meeting for [a secondary school subject area]. They're not allowed to use the words equity, multiculturalism, anti-racism, culture or any other "soft" terms that aren't measurable and don't have direct application to increasing the marketability and competitiveness of students in Ontario." This is not an exceptional instance. It's the norm. And some professors are becoming accomplices in this dumbing down process. What was it George Orwell had to say about Newspeak? David Corson, Professor, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education University of Toronto, Theory and Policy Studies and the Modern Language Centre 252 Bloor St West, Toronto On. M5S 1V6 Canada 1-416-9236641 #2439 http://www.oise.utoronto.ca/~dcorson --- Internet Message Header Follows --- by EDU.YorkU.CA (FirstClass Mail Server v5.11) Fri, 22 May 1998 14:05:51 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 22 May 1998 14:05:51 -0400 (EDT) From: Kari Dehli To: hsmaller@edu.Yorku.ca Subject: SOC FAC: Re: MET's Curriculum Development (fwd) From r.palat@auckland.ac.nz Thu May 28 14:52:14 1998 Date: Fri, 29 May 1998 08:47:55 +1200 From: Ravi Arvind Palat Reply-To: r.palat@auckland.ac.nz To: Kamal Munir Subject: Re: This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --------------C112783E935DDBCBDBDDA28F --------------F992C12C9993909A562B3576 In reply to Kamal Munir's message, I enclose an editorial in today's (Friday May 29, 1998) _The Hindu_ newspaper on Pakistan's nuclear tests. > EDITORIAL: A dangerous escalation > > Date: 29-05-1998 :: Pg: 01 :: Col: a > > WITH PAKISTAN'S DETONATION of five nuclear devices yesterday, > indicating an inevitable succumbing to the pressure of the arms race > initiated by India under the stewardship of the Vajpayee administration, it is > painfully clear that the region is heading for a period of grave crisis. There > is little doubt that the provocative and chauvinistic attitudes struck by the > Vajpayee Government have brought the country to the edge of a precipice. > The substance and style of the BJP-led Government's handling of the > situation arising out of the Pokhran tests has flown in the face of common > sense and rationality, even as they appear to reflect a larger > confrontationist design. > > If indeed the intention of the Vajpayee administration was merely to > sharpen this country's strategic capability and keep alive the credibility of > the nuclear deterrent when it authorised the conducting of the five nuclear > tests, what was the need for the outburst of jingoistic chauvinism that > followed the tests? Senior members of the official establishment, > particularly the Union Home Minister, Mr. L. K. Advani, and the Prime > Minister's Political Secretary, Mr. Pramod Mahajan, had been literally > flinging taunts at Pakistan every successive day since the Pokhran tests. > The first sign that the years of successful Indian diplomacy in relation to the > region and to China had begun to unravel, was contained in the letter sent > by the Prime Minister, Mr. Vajpayee, to the U.S. President and other > heads of government. Mr. Vajpayee's explicit mention of China and > Pakistan as threat factors very clearly linked the display of activism on the > nuclear issue to these two countries, begging the question as to why this > particular threat perception had acquired a sudden urgency. The failure to > explain the nuclear tests in purely strategic terms was just the first blunder. > The manner in which the Government allowed the political climate to > degenerate with its supporters indulging themselves in a frenzy of > war-mongering, sending signals across the border that ``Hindu India'' had > finally come into its own, robbed the Government's claim that these tests > were strategically necessary of any moral substance. > > The second aspect of the deteriorating situation was the complete > abdication of responsibility on the part of the Government to begin a > course of damage containment, diplomatically. Apart from the inexplicable > reticence in coming forward to mend fences with a puzzled China, which > had indeed seemed to be responding to the series of overtures from India > in recent years, the Vajpayee Government did nothing to prevent a further > inflaming of the atmosphere in the context of Pakistan. The Home > Minister's incendiary references to the changed situation as a result of > India's nuclear option in regard to the Kashmir issue raised the temperature > considerably in an arena which required the most sensitive handling. The > sum total of the BJP Government's forays into the arenas of national > security and diplomacy has been a disastrous unravelling of what have > been substantial gains for Indian diplomacy in recent years. The Indo- > Pakistan dialogue was indeed quietly moving forward, aided by the fact > that China, encouraged by its own confidence-building exercises with > India, was in fact strongly hinting to Islamabad to overcome its obsession > with Kashmir and move on to try to improve ties with New Delhi on other > issues. It did appear that India was emerging from the shadow of the Cold > War strategic encirclement by hostile forces, as a result of painstaking > diplomatic exercises initiated in the Eighties. > > That Islamabad finally decided to bite the bullet and conduct its own > nuclear tests, in spite of the tremendous pressure mounted on it by the > United States and its allies, indicates that the weight of public opinion > within Pakistan, inflamed by the provocative and chauvinist attitudes > displayed here, finally triumphed over the prospect of steep costs in terms > of international aid and goodwill. It will be certainly harder for Pakistan > than for India to contend with the impact of the sanctions that will now > follow. This is now the moment for the Government of India to pause and > consider urgently some steps to arrest the escalating tension. The Prime > Minister's suggestion of a no-first-use pact should now be embodied in a > unilateral declaration. Now that both India and Pakistan have finally > unveiled their nuclear status, they need to acknowledge the imperative of > launching a full-fledged confidence building process that would include > steps to lower the threat on both sides of the use of the nuclear option. But > beyond these immediate damage-control measures, the only real way > forward to a peace between the two countries, that now seems > increasingly elusive, is for both Governments to abandon the > confrontationist and bellicose posturing that now characterises mutual > responses. The Vajpayee Government will have to take the lead in this > respect especially given that it was the first to ignite this dangerous and > explosive situation. > --------------F992C12C9993909A562B3576 In reply to Kamal Munir's message, I enclose an editorial in today's (Friday May 29, 1998) _The Hindu_ newspaper on Pakistan's nuclear tests. 

EDITORIAL: A dangerous escalation 

               Date: 29-05-1998 :: Pg: 01 :: Col: a 

               WITH PAKISTAN'S DETONATION of five nuclear devices yesterday,
               indicating an inevitable succumbing to the pressure of the arms race
               initiated by India under the stewardship of the Vajpayee administration, it is
               painfully clear that the region is heading for a period of grave crisis. There
               is little doubt that the provocative and chauvinistic attitudes struck by the
               Vajpayee Government have brought the country to the edge of a precipice.
               The substance and style of the BJP-led Government's handling of the
               situation arising out of the Pokhran tests has flown in the face of common
               sense and rationality, even as they appear to reflect a larger
               confrontationist design. 

               If indeed the intention of the Vajpayee administration was merely to
               sharpen this country's strategic capability and keep alive the credibility of
               the nuclear deterrent when it authorised the conducting of the five nuclear
               tests, what was the need for the outburst of jingoistic chauvinism that
               followed the tests? Senior members of the official establishment,
               particularly the Union Home Minister, Mr. L. K. Advani, and the Prime
               Minister's Political Secretary, Mr. Pramod Mahajan, had been literally
               flinging taunts at Pakistan every successive day since the Pokhran tests.
               The first sign that the years of successful Indian diplomacy in relation to the
               region and to China had begun to unravel, was contained in the letter sent
               by the Prime Minister, Mr. Vajpayee, to the U.S. President and other
               heads of government. Mr. Vajpayee's explicit mention of China and
               Pakistan as threat factors very clearly linked the display of activism on the
               nuclear issue to these two countries, begging the question as to why this
               particular threat perception had acquired a sudden urgency. The failure to
               explain the nuclear tests in purely strategic terms was just the first blunder.
               The manner in which the Government allowed the political climate to
               degenerate with its supporters indulging themselves in a frenzy of
               war-mongering, sending signals across the border that ``Hindu India'' had
               finally come into its own, robbed the Government's claim that these tests
               were strategically necessary of any moral substance. 

               The second aspect of the deteriorating situation was the complete
               abdication of responsibility on the part of the Government to begin a
               course of damage containment, diplomatically. Apart from the inexplicable
               reticence in coming forward to mend fences with a puzzled China, which
               had indeed seemed to be responding to the series of overtures from India
               in recent years, the Vajpayee Government did nothing to prevent a further
               inflaming of the atmosphere in the context of Pakistan. The Home
               Minister's incendiary references to the changed situation as a result of
               India's nuclear option in regard to the Kashmir issue raised the temperature
               considerably in an arena which required the most sensitive handling. The
               sum total of the BJP Government's forays into the arenas of national
               security and diplomacy has been a disastrous unravelling of what have
               been substantial gains for Indian diplomacy in recent years. The Indo-
               Pakistan dialogue was indeed quietly moving forward, aided by the fact
               that China, encouraged by its own confidence-building exercises with
               India, was in fact strongly hinting to Islamabad to overcome its obsession
               with Kashmir and move on to try to improve ties with New Delhi on other
               issues. It did appear that India was emerging from the shadow of the Cold
               War strategic encirclement by hostile forces, as a result of painstaking
               diplomatic exercises initiated in the Eighties. 

               That Islamabad finally decided to bite the bullet and conduct its own
               nuclear tests, in spite of the tremendous pressure mounted on it by the
               United States and its allies, indicates that the weight of public opinion
               within Pakistan, inflamed by the provocative and chauvinist attitudes
               displayed here, finally triumphed over the prospect of steep costs in terms
               of international aid and goodwill. It will be certainly harder for Pakistan
               than for India to contend with the impact of the sanctions that will now
               follow. This is now the moment for the Government of India to pause and
               consider urgently some steps to arrest the escalating tension. The Prime
               Minister's suggestion of a no-first-use pact should now be embodied in a
               unilateral declaration. Now that both India and Pakistan have finally
               unveiled their nuclear status, they need to acknowledge the imperative of
               launching a full-fledged confidence building process that would include
               steps to lower the threat on both sides of the use of the nuclear option. But
               beyond these immediate damage-control measures, the only real way
               forward to a peace between the two countries, that now seems
               increasingly elusive, is for both Governments to abandon the
               confrontationist and bellicose posturing that now characterises mutual
               responses. The Vajpayee Government will have to take the lead in this
               respect especially given that it was the first to ignite this dangerous and
               explosive situation.
  --------------F992C12C9993909A562B3576-- --------------C112783E935DDBCBDBDDA28F begin: vcard fn: Ravi Palat n: Palat;Ravi org: Dept. of Sociology, Univ. of Auckland email;internet: r.palat@auckland.ac.nz note;quoted-printable:Private Bag 92019=0D=0A= Auckland, NEW ZEALAND=0D=0A= Phone:+64-9-373-7599,ext.5313=0D=0A= FAX:+64-9-373-7439 x-mozilla-cpt: ;0 x-mozilla-html: FALSE version: 2.1 end: vcard --------------C112783E935DDBCBDBDDA28F-- From shawna@portal.ca Fri May 29 11:19:16 1998 Date: Fri, 29 May 1998 09:45:46 -0800 To: shawna@portal.ca From: Radical Women Subject: Vancouver Radical Women Public Meeting VANCOUVER RADICAL WOMEN PUBLIC MEETING __________________________________________________ SUNDAY 7 JUNE 4PM __________________________________________________ Eyewitness account from Havana Cuba on the INTERNATIONAL ENCOUNTER OF SOLIDARITY AMONG WOMEN Over 3000 people from 79 countries attended this incredible conference held in Havana Cuba from April 13-16. Radical Women delegates will give a summary of conference achievements and their impressions about the global grassroots women's movement. Rebel Centre, 2278 East 24th Avenue, Vancouver (just one block west of the Nanaimo Skytrain Station) For more information call 604 874-9041 or email shawna@portal.ca __________________________________________________ Radical Women is an autonomous socialist feminist organization dedicated to achieving the full equality of women. We believe this can only be done by making radical changes in the economic, social and political structure. Because of our oppression as women of colour, disabled women, lesbians, and our common exploitation as workers, we have the potential to become acknowledged leaders in the international struggle for justice and freedom. We believe in ourselves. __________________________________________________ From MGWENG01@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU Sat May 30 07:42:23 1998 From: MGWENG01@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU Date: 30 May 1998 09:40:11 EDT To: Subject: Civil Liberties??? I may be a bit out of it, but I was unaware of this twist to Starr's headhunt. It should concern us all, even if we have nothing but loathing for Clinton's politics... http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/w/AP-Lewinskys-Books.html TELEPHONE: (502) 852-6836 INTERNET: MGWENG01@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU From cemck@cs1.presby.edu Sat May 30 14:10:28 1998 Date: Sat, 30 May 1998 16:10:18 -0400 (EDT) From: Charles McKelvey To: PSN@CSF.COLORADO.EDU Subject: Conference in Cuba Conference Commemorating the 40th Anniversary of the Cuban Revolution The conclusion of the year 1998 will mark the 40th anniversary of the triumph of the Cuban Revolution. La Casa de Altos Estudios "Don Fernando Ortiz" of the University of Havana will convene a conference commemorating this important event. The conference is intended for academics, writers, artists and students. Cubans and foreigners are invited to participate in the discussions, round tables and cultural activities planned for the conference. The conference will be held at the University of Havana from November 18 through November 21, 1998. The themes for discussion will include the following: the historic dynamic of the Cuban Revolution; groups, sectors and social classes in the process of the Cuban Revolution; the women's revolution; revolution, economy and social development; community and revolution; revolution, democracy and human rights; ideology and revolution; education and health; cultural revolution; the conflict between Cuba and the United States; revolution and emigration; the Cuban Revolution in the popular imagination; and international relations and activities of the Cuban revolution. The program will include presentations by actors in the Cuban process during the course of the last 40 years. In addition, during the program, a sample of the most well-known expressions of Cuban culture will be presented, along with conferences and discussions concerning these expressions of art. La Casa de Altos Estudios "Don Fernando Ortiz" has asked the Center for Development Studies to organize a delegation from the United States to participate in the conference. U.S. participants wishing to make presentations can do so in English or Spanish. Translators will be available to translate presentations made in English and to provide interpretations for those not understanding or needing assistance with Spanish. The cost for the program is $540 for a package that includes hotel accommodation in double room, breakfast, transportation between airport and hotel and to all conference events, conference registration, translator services, visa from Cuban government, license to travel to Cuba from U.S. government, and fees to the Center for Development Studies. Or an alternate package is available for $615 consisting of the same accommodations and services, except that daily dinner also is included. Participants must make their own arrangements for air travel to Havana. For flight information, contact Marazul Tours, 201-319-9670, fax 201-319-9009. U.S. citizens wishing to participate should send the following information: full name, position (full title, e.g., professor of sociology), institution, work address, home address, work telephone, home telephone, fax number, e-mail address, passport information (passport number, date of issue, country and place of issue, expiration date), place of birth and date of birth. Those wishing to give a presentation should provide a title and one-page abstract of their presentation. (Please submit the title and the abstract in the language in which you intend to present). Send the information by U.S. mail, e-mail, or fax by September 1 to Charles McKelvey, Center for Development Studies, 210 Belmont Stakes, Clinton, South Carolina 29325; e-mail ; fax 864-833-8481. The Center for Development Studies will make consolidated applications for travel licenses from the U.S. government and visas from the Cuban government. The Center for Development Studies is a non-profit organization incorporated in the state of South Carolina on September 23, 1996. Its objectives include increasing understanding of Central America and the Caribbean by conducting travel seminars. In June 1997, the Center for Development Studies conducted its inaugural project, when a group of eight faculty and graduate students in the fields of sociology and political science from various colleges and universities in the United States participated in a three-week travel seminar and research project in Cuba, conducted jointly by the Center for Development Studies and la Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciences Sociales (FLACSO), Programa Cuba. In July 1998, the Center for Development Studies, again in cooperation with FLACSO Cuba, is sponsoring an experiential research seminar in Cuba. Entitled "The Cuban Revolution: Surviving into the 21st Century," the participants are eight university and college professors and graduate students in the social sciences, Romance languages and literature from various universities and colleges in the United States. The Center for Development Studies intends to conduct a similar seminar in Cuba in 1999.