Talk about a leap! As they say in court, this is a fact not in evidence. I find it quite curious how so many folks seem compelled to project their internal political stuff on this event.
(Rakesh continues)
and this
>supposition is reinforced by racially exclusive fora--
Have you and Wotjek been smoking the same stuff? How many times must this be said: NON-BLACKS WERE NOT EXCLUDED! (sorry for shouting).
You seem to ignore the fact that Blacks in the multitude of their other capacities in the world appear in all kinds of other movements in which they function in situations (workplaces, unions, universities, entertainment venues, public services, etc.) with folks of many other racial/ethnic groups. That they should choose on this occasion to gather together for political discourse on their own terms seems to be truly threatening to a number of people on this list, who, in order to express their apprehensions feel compelled to guzzy them up in pseudo-revolutionary rationalizations, assumptions, and hypothesizing based on distortions of what actually had occurred in Chicago last weekend.
In solidarity, Michael
to whom can they turn
>but capital and mustn't they then push forth only those kinds of reforms
>which may be in its interest: anti-discrimination laws towards the end of
>removing market imperfections and consecrating the rule of law; the
>creation of majority minority districts which may have the unintended
>effect of getting more Republicans elected; business set asides which may
>help corporations penetrate minority markets, etc.
>
>I have serious doubts that--whatever the sincere intentions of Manning
>Marable--a black radical congress, standing alone, will not degenerate into
>a weak form of reformism, the beneficiaries of which will be mostly petit
>bourgeoisie. In whose interest is the formation of an autonomous black
>congress? The civil rights establishment of lawyers and politicos who will
>attempt to convince oppressed blacks that enforcement of
>anti-discrimination laws are the key to their emancipation? Those
>politicians who will enlist the support of the black community in their
>run-offs in majority minority districts? Can an indendent black congress,
>not integrally connected to a larger movement, do more than this in
>practical terms? Can a larger movement, drained of the energetic
>participation of blacks, itself avoid degeneration?
>
>>
>>Also, I believe some other posts on this thread have muddied the waters
>>with references to Farrakhan. This only shows naivete, and probably though
>>unintentionally *racist* naivete about the black liberation movement.
>
> Oh, I am a naive racist, am I? I suggested ways in which an autonomous
>black liberation movement becomes trapped in petty bourgeois and viciously
>reactionary politics if it begins with the supposition that isolated and
>despised, blacks can only turn to themselves and effect, in Cornel West's
>words, black operational unity in order to achieve power.
>
>> They will have to either join the WSJ or lead very lonely lives.]
>
>Well, if one is not a true believer, one may never feel lonlier than in
>the midst of conferences organized in terms of her ostensible identity.
>best, rakesh
>--------------------------
>
>http://csf.colorado.edu/mail/pkt/jun98/0306.html
>
>"As the debt gets larger, interest payments grow larger as a percentage
>of total government disbursements. The recipients of this spending are
>not the people who need it the most, as determined by our elected
>representatives, but financiers, speculators and "investors," foreign
>and domestic. As such, interest payments contribute to the increasing
>disparity between rich and poor."
>
>Berglund replied:
>
>http://csf.colorado.edu/mail/pkt/jun98/0322.html
>
>"If the debt and the economy grow in parallel (at the same rate),
>interest payments will grow in absolute figures but not as a percentage
>of the GDP (or of the budget's expenditures) if their growth is kept in
>line with the GDP."
>
>It is not possible for the debt--and here I mean "consumer" debt for
>which government debt is the surrogate--and the economy to grow in
>parallel. Producer or manufacturer's debt is of a different form and
>substance, in that it can be demonstrated that producer debt definitely
>facilitates ~increasing~ capitalist production, while consumer debt
>attempts to facilitate, but is unable to rationally accomplish in the
>long-term, ~increasing~ consumption.
>
>To simplify the analysis as much as possible, assume that 100MU needs to
>be deficit spent every year in excess of taxation to accommodate "full
>employment." The deficit spending is not to be funded by "printing"
>money but by the mechanism of selling to the commercial banking system,
>each year on the same date, one-year bills at ten percent interest.
>
>At the beginning of the first year, 100MU is borrowed, which is credited
>to the general operating budget for spending during the year. 100MU =
>100MU deficit spending. When the second year begins, 200MU is borrowed,
>which "rolls over" the first year's debt by paying 100MU against
>principal and 10MU towards interest, leaving 90MU to be spent from the
>general budget. 10MU + 90MU = 100MU deficit spending. Likewise, 300MU
>is borrowed the third year to pay 200MU in principal and 20MU for
>interest, leaving 80MU for the general budget. 20MU + 80MU = 100MU
>deficit spending, etc. At the eleventh year, 1100MU is borrowed to pay
>1000MU in principal and 100MU for interest, leaving nothing to be spent
>from the general budget, every dollar of deficit spending now goes
>directly to the "rentier."
>
>A dilemma arises at the twelfth year. 1100MU is owed for principle and
>110MU for interest, which can certainly be "rolled over" as before.
>This means that there must be 110MU in deficit spending while only 100MU
>is needed for full employment. 110MU - 100MU = 10MU inflation.
>
>But let's say that, for whatever reason, it is decided that there no
>longer needs to be deficit spending, that the budget now can be
>"balanced." From now on, we will simply "roll over" the debt; 1100MU
>will be borrowed and 1210MU will be collected in taxes for debt service
>to the "rentier," each year into perpetuity.
>
>Now, we decide to "pay down" the debt. The principal is reduced each
>year by collecting more in taxes than we spend from the general budget,
>the difference being applied to the residual principal and accrued
>interest on the debt. The money supply contracts each year, pure
>deflation.
>
>3. What Bill Mitchell's and Warren Mosler's "buffer stock" labor models
>offer us is a slave system for the 21st century--if you do not work, you
>do not eat. Government employment offices will be set up in every
>hamlet, village and city to offer "jobs" at an arbitrarily fixed minimal
>wage to the displaced workers from the closed factories, planting
>"trees" on "denuded" land. The language they use in their arguments is
>the impudent language of slavery: Labor is "bought" and "sold." The
>quotations they cite to support their arguments are from the archives of
>slavery: "In those parts of Africa where land was still in African
>hands, colonial governments forced Africans to produce cash crops no
>matter how low prices were..." This Mosler says is "chartalism," the
>proud paradigm for his "progressive" reforms. And this his paid
>sycophants obsessively augment by hyphenation after hyphenation. Far
>from being the "logical extension" of Post Keynesian thought, it is in
>retrogression to the mindset of the dark ages.
>
>(written by William Ryan, arch nemesis of Mat Forstater)
>
>
>
>