thought i saw a female eastern bluebird, did, did see
way down east (1920). silent film era single mother sobbing, emergency-baptizing dying newborn, ice river frogger finale. lowell sherman as handsome as lon chaney.
maria poole, from belden, was at the sewing circle and says . . . .
watched anora at e street, another sham marriage consequences movie even though cinematic century later and so now with bright color
loud sound
bad
tisane hall of shamed, i'll stay with rooibos chai. these days, diet
dr. pepper as close as i get to the impossible tastes of morning after
halloween
read the common good by noam chomsky, interviewed by david barsamian
although most people think the government has a responsibility to ensure reasonable, minimal standards for poor people, they're also against welfare, which is what the government efforts to ensure reasonable, minimal standards for poor people are called. that's a propaganda achievement you have to admire
the people who work in the mills ought to own them
the common assumption that the market system is spreading, which just isn't true. what's spreading is a kind of corporate mercantilism that's supported by - and crucially relies on - large-scale state power
to actually see the slums in bombay and see people living in hideous, indescribable poverty...and these are people who have jobs - they're manufacturing fancy leather clothes that sell on madison avenue and in shops in london and paris
black males in harlem have roughly the same mortality rate as men in bangladesh
if you're much poorer than other people in your society, that harms your health in detectable ways, even by gross measures like life expectancy
thomas friedman..uses the zapatistas as an example of the anti-integrationist pro-safety-net position, and ross perot as an example of the anti-integrationist anti-safety-net position, and dismisses them both as crazy. that leaves the two "sensible" positions, which are illustrated by clinton (integrationist pro-safety-net) and gingrich (integrationist anti-safety-net)
when poor people in central america vote for their own interests, the result is terror organized and directed by the superpower of the hemisphere, and supervised on the local level by the upper class of that country. many countries are so weak that they can't really solve their internal problems in the face of us power; they can't even control their own wealthy. their rich have virtually no social obligations - they don't pay taxes and don't keep their money in the country
let the people who borrowed the money pay it back
why hasn't foreign debt held back the development of countries of east asia?
japan, south korea and taiwan not only controlled labor and the poor, but also capital and the rich. the debt went for internal investment, not export of capital.
japan didn't allow export of capital until its economy had already reconstructed. south korea didn't either, until forced to remove capital controls and regulation of private borrowing, largely under us pressure, in very recent years. (it's widely recognized that this forced liberalization was a significant factor in south korea's 1997 liquidity crisis.)
latin america has the worst income inequality in the world, and east asia has perhaps the least. latin america's typical imports are luxury goods for the wealthy; east asia's have been mostly related to capital investment and technology transfer. countries like brazil and argentina are potentially rich and powerful, but unless they can somehow gain control over their wealthy, they're always going to be in trouble
some of the rural workers in brazil have an interesting slogan. they say their immediate task is "expanding the floor of the cage." they understand that they're trapped inside a cage, but realize that protecting it when it's under attack from even worse predators on the outside, and extending the limits of what the cage will allow, are both essential preliminaries to dismantling it. if they attack the cage directly when they're so vulnerable, they'll get murdered
in the early 1800s, bengal produced more books per capita than any place in the world
what's called the left includes leninism, which i consider ultra-right in many respects. the leninists were certainly very interested in political power - in fact, more so than anyone.
leninism has nothing to do with the values of the left - in fact, it's radically opposed to them. that was recognized at the time by mainstream left marxists like anton pannekoek, paul mattick and karl korsch. even trotsky had predicted that the leninists would turn to dictatorial rule (before he decided to join them)
i'm not saying things are great now, but they are much better, in virtually every area
in the early 1960s, the south was a terror state
the rights of corporations were mostly given to them by courts and lawyers, not by legislation, and that power system could erode very quickly
john f. kennedy sent the air force to bomb south vietnam and you couldn't get a single person to think about it
that's been the story for a couple of thosand years or so. go back to the oldest recorded texts and see what happens to the people who didn't march in the parade...like socrates
when i speak to elite audiences, i constantly get asked, what's the solution? if i say obvious things like pick your cause and go volunteer for a group that's working on it, that's never the answer they want. they want some sort of magic key that will solve everything quickly, overwhelmingly and effectively. there are no such solutions. there are only the kind that people are working on in massachusetts towns, in self-governing villages in india, at the jesuit center in colombia
speaking truth to power makes no sense. there's no point in speaking the truth to henry kissinger - he knows it already. instead, speak truth to the powerless - or, better, with the powerless
i don't even know what i ought to do
11/28
