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Mark Lause | 1 Sep 01:11
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Re: Long posts not allowed??

Les offers a telling comment on the potential value of the list for
discussion...as opposed to the mere forwarding of electronic
"clippings."

I've suggested in the past...and would resurrect it here...that we
have particular topics for discussion at intervals.  Other things
could be posted, as usual, of course, but the subject for this week
should be such-and-such.  This would coax from lurkership the many
people who have something to say and might say it, if they thought the
floor was more open to their concern.

Just a suggestion.

ML

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Adam Richmond | 1 Sep 01:52
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George Will: Bring the (ground) troops home from Afghanistan


								From Politico.com:

George Will calls for pull-out

								By:  Mike Allen 
http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=7234F616-18FE-70B2-A84F1D0E014AC4C1

								August 31, 2009 04:46 PM EST
							
						
					
					
						
							
							George F. Will, the elite conservative commentator, will call in his next column for U.S. ground
troops to leave Afghanistan, according to publishing sources. 

“[F]orces should be substantially reduced to serve a comprehensively
revised policy: America should do only what can be done from offshore,
using intelligence, drones, cruise missiles, airstrikes and small,
potent special forces units, concentrating on the porous 1,500-mile
border with Pakistan, a nation that actually matters,” Will writes in
the column, scheduled for publication later this week. 

President Obama ordered a total of 21,000 more U.S. troops into
Afghanistan in February and March, and casualties have mounted as the
forces began confronting the Taliban more aggressively. August saw the
highest monthly death toll for the U.S. since the invasion in 2001, the
second record month in a row.
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sobuadhaigh | 1 Sep 02:31
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Now it's official...

From the analysis by Tom Raum, "Obama keeps Bush 
nominees in top post" comes this telling quote:

"The notion that he's moving the government 
to the left is laughable, it's utterly laughable," 
said Thomas E. Mann, a government scholar at the 
Brookings Institution.

Now that it's official I have three questions.

1. Does this guy post on Marxmail and if so what 
is his name here?

2. Do the people carrying assault rifles outside 
Obama's public appearances and those screaming 
"death to socialists" at town hall meetings
know this?

3. Will it require armed struggle to get a 
decent public option, much less a single payer
health plan?

You can read the whole thing at,

<http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090831/
ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_obama_s_republicans_analysis_2
/print>

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nada | 1 Sep 03:15
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Re: China investing heavily in infrastructure: Railway

Luko...comparing the basic productivity of Chinese rail to US rail 
is...weird. Why? Because the US doesn't have a rail system that is 
particularly "good", not when our highways are the main transport mode 
for most things, including people. I would like to see a comparison with 
*European* rail and Chinese rail since both areas are far more dependent 
on rail than the US. Ours is 'yuck', to be technical about it. And yes, 
I'm a sour old ex-NRPA member and I'm STILL pissed.

But 2 million workers for the aged, decrepit Chinese rail system is 
symptomatic for much of older industry in China, from coal mines where 
there is almost no mechanization, to their coal fired power plants. At 
least the Chinese ARE putting money again into rail...but to the point...

The Chinese economy has bizarre "scissors" when it comes to 
productivity. I've read their auto plants, all modern, well lit 
factories run at more or less the same level of productivity as American 
and European plants. But their old steel mills have something like 1/20 
the productivity per labor hour than US mills do.

Another example: there was a company/union tour of Chinese power plants 
by my union and employer about 10 years ago. The average *older* US gas 
fired power plant has about 60 workers for 500 MWs to 1200 MWs of power. 
A similar Chinese plant in northern China had *2,000* workers for the 
same MW output!!! 2 persons per MW. Amazingly backward. And this is very 
common there.

Basically you have in China a whole sector of industry that works at 
basically 1920 US productivity levels. It is often bypassed by foreign 
owned or newer Chinese plants with modern production methods. This is 
that weird scissors effect that seems to exist there involving 10s of
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S. Artesian | 1 Sep 03:33
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Re: China investing heavily in infrastructure: Railway

Does it include passenger operations?  Because China's  Rail Knowledge 
magazine reports 77,000 KM of total track in China, not 60,000 for 2006. 
And you said that you "guessed" that the Chinese numbers include some 
passenger lines.   I tend to ignore guesses-- old habit.  Anyway the number 
of trains, and the average tonnage per train still stands and shows some of 
the difference in productivity.

Numbers for US railroad employment also include trackworkers, bridge 
builders, signal maintainers, signal designers, train dispatchers, 
mechanics, construction personnel, clerks-- everybody who is employed by the 
railroad, so if China's doesn't include such workers, which seems to be a 
possibility according to your post, then the numbers need to be adjusted for 
that.

You seem to have a growth fetish-- as if simple mass indicates development. 
As any Marxist could tell you,  growth is not development, under capitalism, 
or comboed "state socialism/capitalism."  I know you're not a Marxist, but 
you really need to get off this growth fetish.  The greater productivity of 
US railroads has actually allowed it to reduce its network, reduce trackage 
and the costs associated with maintaining that trackage, while increasing 
revenue tons and revenue ton-mileage while reducing labor requirements, just 
as greater productivity of US agriculture has allowed to operate with less 
acreage, and far fewer farms,  than Chinese agriculture, and with much less 
labor power.  Should we now all hail the progress of Chinese agriculture 
because average plot size is so small that there are many more farms in 
China?

It was you after all who introduced the claim or "possibility"  that China 
had overtaken the US in freight rail transportation. I asked how you were 
measuring that-- what were productivity numbers.  If you can't provide
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Jon Flanders | 1 Sep 03:33

Re: Further comments on health-care legislation


On Mon, 2009-08-31 at 13:24 -0400, Fred Feldman wrote:
> And this is the heart of the QUESTION OF PRINCIPLE for working people,
> including Blacks, Latinos, and the mass of women. Is this bill about
> cutting costs or providing medical care? If it's about cutting costs,
> working people and the oppressed will come out losers, as we always do
> when the government "cuts costs" and we lose jobs, wages, education,
> hospitals and so on and so on.

This bill has some progressive trimmings, but as Business Week has
noted, the health insurance companies have "already won."

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_33/b4143034820260.htm?chan=magazine+channel_top+stories

"They have beaten us six ways to Sunday," said Gerald Shea of the
AFL-CIO. "Any time we want to make a small change to provide cost
relief, they find a way to make it more profitable."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-healthcare-insurers24-2009aug24,0,2392720.story

The bills primary purpose is a bailout for the health insurance complex
which has been hemorrhaging clients during this recession. Mandating
purchase of for profit insurance is just what the doctor ordered for
United Health et al.

As for "cutting costs", since this bill is modeled after the
Massachusetts plan which subsidizes private health insurance for low
income people, there in not likely to be much savings.

Any "public option" that comes out of it is likely to be a feeble thing,
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S. Artesian | 1 Sep 03:40
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Re: China investing heavily in infrastructure: Railway

The US, and its Canadian partners  [Canadian Pacific and Canadian National 
both own US railroads], have the most productive freight rail transportation 
system.  The passenger system is in many places, as David put it, "yuck."

The money's in freight. That's why the bourgeoisie are there, that's why CSX 
and NS went at it hammer and tongs in a bidding war for Conrail.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "nada" <dwaltersMIA <at> gmail.com>
To: "David Schanoes" <sartesian <at> earthlink.net>
Sent: Monday, August 31, 2009 9:15 PM
Subject: Re: [Marxism] China investing heavily in infrastructure: Railway

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Patrick Bond | 1 Sep 05:27
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Re: Long posts not allowed??

I'm voting, as usual, for full posting of articles - copyrights be damned.

The reason is that I sit at the base of Africa (in Durban) and I think 
it's fair to say that this entire continent suffers a huge digital 
divide in getting quick and reliable access to the internet. Many of us 
use downloading programmes for that reason: it's too unreliable to try 
to click onto the URL, and often we will pick up email posts when we're 
offline in any case.

I don't think Les is correct that the downloading of emails is an issue 
- an extra 12kb or whatever won't make any difference once the download 
begins. Like the Cubans Jeff pointed to, I'm guessing that most Africans 
on this list are probably as appreciative as I am when Louis or others 
post entire articles, because it makes it much much easier to get access 
to. Without that, you can imagine the extreme frustration of seeing a 
good few 'grafs and then it vanishes into an unavailable URL.

Durban's access is pretty weak; but this last weekend at a Nairobi 
conference on climate/economic crises, it was quite impossible to get 
onto a hotel (mid-range) wifi, and that crippled my own ability to make 
timely interventions once or twice. Had Marxmail been sending out full 
email versions of material it would have helped enormously. When I've 
been in Zimbabwe from time to time, the problem is amplified 1000 fold. 
And these are in places that the petit-bourgeoisie use for internet 
access; for a proletarian or peasant using a conventional dial-up phone 
access, the ability to regularly get into the URL of a cited article is 
near impossible.

So my vote is for comrades to be comradely, and post the entire article. 
If Louis needs some extra money to handle the added bandwidth for the
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glparramatta | 1 Sep 06:38
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Indonesia: Parliament of the Streets demands free education and health care, housing for the poor | Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal

Photos and text by *Ulfa Ilyas*

On August 25, 2009, a demonstration was held in Jakarta, Indonesia, 
organised by the Parliament of the Streets Alliance at the inauguration 
of newly elected members of parliament. The protesters demanded free 
education for all citizens, free health programs, employment and housing 
programs for poor people.

Henri Anggoro, a leader of the Poor People’s Union (Serikat Rakyat 
Miskin Indonesia, SRMI), which organises in the sprawling shanty towns, 
said that experience has shown that parliament ignores the interests of 
the people. "They only represent the interests of a handful of people, 
rather than representing the people who elected them", he said.

Anggoro challenged the new legislators to advance the political agenda 
of democracy instead of giving priority to the interests of a handful of 
elite and foreign parties. He demanded popular participation, 
particularly in policy making and the national budget.

The Parliament of Streets Alliance has begun organising local councils, 
which could become the embryo of a parliament of the people, Henri said.

Photos and text at http://links.org.au/node/1225

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Néstor Gorojovsky | 1 Sep 10:35
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Devaluation of the USDollar?

Some insist here that US is about to devaluate (strongly) its currency
within a few months.

Anyone aware/interested/informed enough to give some hint on this list?

--

-- 

Néstor Gorojovsky
El texto principal de este correo puede no ser de mi autoría

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