From nmgoro@gmail.com Mon Dec 31 03:25:16 2007 Received: from rv-out-0910.google.com ([209.85.198.190]) by lists.econ.utah.edu with esmtp (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from ) id 1J9Hpb-0003Sy-LW for a-list@lists.econ.utah.edu; Mon, 31 Dec 2007 03:25:15 -0700 Received: by rv-out-0910.google.com with SMTP id f5so4321065rvb.59 for ; Mon, 31 Dec 2007 02:25:47 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.140.134.15 with SMTP id h15mr6241938rvd.51.1199096747751; Mon, 31 Dec 2007 02:25:47 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.141.29.13 with HTTP; Mon, 31 Dec 2007 02:25:47 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: <2fa158550712310225o5e9ac91aya423219ff7f78226@mail.gmail.com> Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 11:25:47 +0100 From: "=?UTF-8?Q?N=C3=A9stor_Gorojovsky?=" To: "The A-List" In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64 Content-Disposition: inline References: Subject: Re: [A-List] Future of Socialism X-BeenThere: a-list@lists.econ.utah.edu X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.9 Precedence: list Reply-To: The A-List List-Id: The A-List List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 10:25:16 -0000 RGVhciBZb3NoaWUsIG1heSBJIHRyYW5zbGF0ZSBhbmQgcHVibGlzaCBQcm9mLiBTaW5naMK0cyB0 ZXh0PyBUaGFuayB5b3UKYW5kIGJlc3QgZm9yIDIwMDgKCjIwMDcvMTIvMzAsIFlvc2hpZSBGdXJ1 aGFzaGkgPGNyaXRpY2FsLm1vbnRhZ2VzQGdtYWlsLmNvbT46Cj4gPGh0dHA6Ly9tcnppbmUubW9u dGhseXJldmlldy5vcmcvc2luZ2gyOTEyMDcuaHRtbD4KPiBGdXR1cmUgb2YgU29jaWFsaXNtCj4g YnkgUmFuZGhpciBTaW5naAo+Cj4gLS0KPiBZb3NoaWUKPiA8aHR0cDovL21vbnRhZ2VzLmJsb2dz cG90LmNvbS8+Cj4KCgotLSAKTsOpc3Rvcgo= From nmgoro@gmail.com Mon Dec 31 03:26:10 2007 Received: from rv-out-0910.google.com ([209.85.198.187]) by lists.econ.utah.edu with esmtp (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from ) id 1J9HqT-0003TD-St for A-list@lists.econ.utah.edu; Mon, 31 Dec 2007 03:26:09 -0700 Received: by rv-out-0910.google.com with SMTP id f5so4321267rvb.59 for ; Mon, 31 Dec 2007 02:26:41 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.140.226.14 with SMTP id y14mr2091362rvg.164.1199096801033; Mon, 31 Dec 2007 02:26:41 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.141.29.13 with HTTP; Mon, 31 Dec 2007 02:26:41 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: <2fa158550712310226o2466a496tdbfb8f096cb4a01c@mail.gmail.com> Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 11:26:41 +0100 From: "=?UTF-8?Q?N=C3=A9stor_Gorojovsky?=" To: "The A-List" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Subject: [A-List] Oops X-BeenThere: a-list@lists.econ.utah.edu X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.9 Precedence: list Reply-To: The A-List List-Id: The A-List List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 10:26:10 -0000 Sorry, msg intended for Yoshie. Best for 2008 for all, anyhow!!!!!!!!!!!!! From critical.montages@gmail.com Mon Dec 31 08:00:39 2007 Received: from fg-out-1718.google.com ([72.14.220.159]) by lists.econ.utah.edu with esmtp (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from ) id 1J9M87-00046k-3S for a-list@lists.econ.utah.edu; Mon, 31 Dec 2007 08:00:39 -0700 Received: by fg-out-1718.google.com with SMTP id l27so2361981fgb.45 for ; Mon, 31 Dec 2007 07:01:11 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.86.84.5 with SMTP id h5mr12338912fgb.27.1199113271835; Mon, 31 Dec 2007 07:01:11 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.86.1.3 with HTTP; Mon, 31 Dec 2007 07:01:11 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 10:01:11 -0500 From: "Yoshie Furuhashi" To: "The A-List" In-Reply-To: <2fa158550712310225o5e9ac91aya423219ff7f78226@mail.gmail.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Disposition: inline References: <2fa158550712310225o5e9ac91aya423219ff7f78226@mail.gmail.com> Subject: Re: [A-List] Future of Socialism X-BeenThere: a-list@lists.econ.utah.edu X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.9 Precedence: list Reply-To: The A-List List-Id: The A-List List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 15:00:39 -0000 Yes, we love to see Prof. Singh's article in Spanish! Let us know when it gets published in Spanish, and also send me a copy of it in Spanish, so I can forward it to him. On Dec 31, 2007 5:25 AM, N=E9stor Gorojovsky wrote: > Dear Yoshie, may I translate and publish Prof. Singh=B4s text? Thank you > and best for 2008 > > 2007/12/30, Yoshie Furuhashi : > > > > > Future of Socialism > > by Randhir Singh > > > > -- > > Yoshie > > > > > > > -- > N=E9stor > --=20 Yoshie From charlesb@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Dec 31 10:50:05 2007 Received: from [71.159.22.21] (helo=gwia.ci.detroit.mi.us) by lists.econ.utah.edu with esmtp (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from ) id 1J9Om5-0004N2-KG for A-List@lists.econ.utah.edu; Mon, 31 Dec 2007 10:50:05 -0700 Received: from Comm-MTA by gwia.ci.detroit.mi.us with Novell_GroupWise; Mon, 31 Dec 2007 12:50:35 -0500 Message-Id: <4778E595.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> X-Mailer: Novell GroupWise Internet Agent 7.0.1 Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 12:50:30 -0500 From: "Charles Brown" To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Subject: [A-List] Mich.'s tough times drawing to a close (?) ...but... X-BeenThere: a-list@lists.econ.utah.edu X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.9 Precedence: list Reply-To: The A-List List-Id: The A-List List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 17:50:06 -0000 Friday, December 28, 2007 2008 industry outlook Mich.'s tough times drawing to a close But more pain expected before gain Louis Aguilar and Sofia Kosmetatos / The Detroit News Michigan's economy in the past few years has often been described as gripped in a "one-state recession," and while no one predicts a rose garden for the state in 2008, there are at least some signs this may be the last tough year before the state begins a slow rebound in 2009. But not before more pain. As it has since 2000, Michigan will lag -- badly -- behind the national economy, which by itself is expected to be sluggish at best. Locally, tens of thousands of job losses will continue, particularly in the auto industry. Home values may continue to drop, and the number of foreclosures should grow. The impact will be deep and wide, from the declining budgets of state and local governments to the tightening of consumer spending. "But a crisis is a terrible thing to waste," said Patrick Anderson, founder of Lansing's Anderson Economic Group, "and we've been facing crisis in Michigan long enough that we've begun to tackle some of the structural issues to turn around." Detroit's auto industry in particular made great strides this year in addressing structural problems as a result of groundbreaking new labor contracts with the United Auto Workers and other cost-cutting measures. But as University of Michigan economist George Fulton says, recently released data show that, alongside the losses, the state's economy consistently produces large job gains in education and health services. "There must be some vitality in an economy that can continue creating jobs even though it's not keeping pace with the leakage," Fulton said. "If the leaks can be plugged, the state's economy and labor market have the capacity to grow and prosper. And therein lies both our challenge and our opportunity." What's ahead for five key Michigan industries: Economy Next year may be Michigan's final year of big economic pain before the state slowly starts to bounce back, according to five prominent economists. For the eighth straight year, the Great Lakes State will bleed jobs, primarily manufacturing work. As many as 51,000 workers will see their jobs disappear in 2008, according to a forecast by University of Michigan economists Joan Crary, George Fulton and Saul Hymans. The state's unemployment could hit 8.2 percent, a level not seen since 1992. By the bleak Michigan standards set so far this decade, next year's jobs losses in auto manufacturing will be moderate -- about 21,000, the UM economists said. That will trickle down to moderate job losses in other sectors, including construction, professional and business services and trade, transportation and utilities, predicts Comerica Inc. chief economist Dana Johnson. Not all sectors will continue to slide. Education and health services will add 10,000 jobs next year, the UM forecasters believe. The tourism industry should grow as the high price of gasoline and even the slow U.S. economy keep people closer to home for vacation, according to Anderson, who also sees the potential for high-tech auto jobs and work created by research at state universities. The national economy will not slide into recession, the economists contend, which helps what most believe will be Michigan's final year of decline before a soft rebound begins in 2009. Auto industry Next year was supposed to be a new, leaner start for Detroit's auto industry. Instead, grim predictions of dwindling U.S. light vehicles sales are casting a dark cloud over the recent progress made by Detroit's Big Three to improve their competitiveness against lower-cost foreign rivals, including reaping savings from groundbreaking labor contracts brokered this year with the UAW that will shift retiree health care costs to the union, among other cost savings. The struggling housing industry, the squeeze on credit, and high oil prices will challenge automakers in the new year. Most analysts predict U.S. vehicle sales will plunge by 500,000 units or more compared to 2007's estimated level of 16.1 million. Forecasts range from CSM Worldwide's estimate of 15.8 million to Ford Motor Co.'s prediction of 15.2 million, based on calculations for the first six months of next year. If auto sales drop by half a million or more, the impact will be wide and deep, including likely consolidation of automotive suppliers, fewer dealerships and lower state tax revenue. Suppliers tied closely to SUV and truck components, where sales are dropping most steeply, are likely to be hard hit, said David Cole, chairman of the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor. Automakers have laid off nearly 100,000 workers in the last two years, and announced more cuts this fall along with more buyouts. General Motors Corp. will offer buyouts to 5,200 of its 34,000 hourly workers starting in January. Chrysler LLC and Ford Motor Co. workers recently learned they'll be on extended layoff early in the year. Energy However you heat your house or run a vehicle, expect to pay higher prices. Assuming normal weather, a typical Michigan resident can expect his or her heating bill from November to March 2008 to hit about $764, a $15.28 increase from last winter, according to the state's semi-annual Energy Appraisal report by the Michigan Public Service Commission. The mix of higher prices and increased usage could cause natural gas bills to increase by 8 percent this season compared to last winter, according to the energy report. Residential natural gas prices now are 2 percent higher than last winter. Residential heating oil prices are up sharply because of increases in crude oil prices. Crude oil's run to nearly $100 a barrel in the second half of 2007 increased the price of gasoline and many consumer goods, and many analysts think prices will average around $75 a barrel in 2008. But due to geo-political risks and supply, the cost of motor gasoline and diesel will remain volatile, according to the federal Energy Information Administration. Both gasoline and diesel prices are projected to average well over $3 per gallon nationally in 2008, with gasoline prices peaking at more than $3.40 per gallon next spring, the EIA projects. Road and bridge builders are seeking a 9-cent increase in Michigan's 19-cent gas tax. The increase would be phased in at 3 cents a year for three years and is being pitched by the Michigan Infrastructure & Transportation Association to collectively generate $1 billion annually in money for road work. But Gov. Jennifer Granholm opposes raising the state's gas tax. She's expected to sign a bill in January that sets up an Alternative Road Funding Task Force made up of legislative leaders and leaders from manufacturing, tourism and public transportation to look for other ways to pay for infrastructure improvements. Her State of the State address in January will likely spell out ways she will try to strengthen Michigan's economy through alternative energy development. Housing This time last year, there was cautious optimism the housing market, both nationally and locally, might stabilize. Now -- though it hardly seems imaginable -- things could get worse for at least half of 2008 before improving, according to home builders, economists and investors. The impact of the subprime mortgage mess is far from over and that will mean more foreclosures and declining home values, experts contend. The National Association of Home Builders expects the national housing market to pick up in 2009 after hitting bottom in the middle of next year, according to David Seiders, the NAHB's chief economist. In Metro Detroit, which lags behind the national economy, home values may continue to decline for most of next year. In March, the number of adjustable rate mortgages in the United States will peak, with $110 billion resetting to higher monthly payments for homeowners, said Drew Sygit, a certified mortgage and equity planner for Meadow Mortgage in Bloomfield Hills. Locally, that will result in more foreclosures, Sygit said. Other experts share in the low expectations for 2008. More than 90 percent of publicly traded home builders have negative outlooks or are under review for downgrade, Moody's Investors Service said in a recent report. And 33 percent of building materials companies have negative outlooks, according to the report. Before the market bottoms out, local counties and municipalities will likely be forced to slash budgets, which will mean fewer services. In January, local governments learn how much their revenues will drop due to falling property tax assessments, said Patrick Anderson, founder of Lansing's Anderson Economic Group. The one bright spot is rentals, which will continue to go strong, as people ride out the housing storm. Health care Metro-Detroit health care systems will continue their race to attract customers with new hospitals, expansions and renovations in 2008. They will spend millions on projects that cater to patients with pampering atmospheres and the latest technology. Industry experts are keeping a close eye on two new suburban hospitals: St. John Providence Park Hospital in Novi, set to open in the summer, and Henry Ford West Bloomfield Hospital, scheduled to open in Spring 2009. The Novi hospital, for example, will look and feel like a modern hotel, with dual corridors (one for patients and visitors, another for moving materials), large patient rooms with room service, flat screen TVs and pull-out couches for visitors. Despite renovations being made at Detroit hospitals, they stand to lose doctors and patients -- and with them, income -- to the new hospitals. "We'll see changes next year that we haven't seen anything like in the last several years," said Adam Jablonowski, executive director of the Wayne County Medical Society.The addition of two new suburban hospitals comes as Flint-based McLaren Health Care grows in Metro Detroit. In northern Oakland County, McLaren is developing a $600 million health care village it hopes will include a 200- to 300-bed hospital. The industry will also keep a close eye on Beaumont, Grosse Pointe, formerly Bon Secours Hospital, which Beaumont Hospitals bought in 2007. It's the Royal Oak-based health system's first major entry into Wayne County. Across industries, companies will continue to grapple with rising health care costs, even though the rate of increases has slowed. Businesses will focus more next year on more aggressive wellness programs in the workplace and will continue to pass some of the cost increases to employees. You can reach Louis Aguilar at (313) 222-2760 or laguilar@detnews.com. From charlesb@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Dec 31 11:59:36 2007 Received: from [71.159.22.21] (helo=gwia.ci.detroit.mi.us) by lists.econ.utah.edu with esmtp (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from ) id 1J9PrM-0004Sm-QC for A-List@lists.econ.utah.edu; Mon, 31 Dec 2007 11:59:36 -0700 Received: from Comm-MTA by gwia.ci.detroit.mi.us with Novell_GroupWise; Mon, 31 Dec 2007 14:00:04 -0500 Message-Id: <4778F5DA.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> X-Mailer: Novell GroupWise Internet Agent 7.0.1 Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 13:59:54 -0500 From: "Charles Brown" To: ,"PEN-L list" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Disposition: inline Subject: [A-List] Top economist says America could plunge into recession X-BeenThere: a-list@lists.econ.utah.edu X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.9 Precedence: list Reply-To: The A-List List-Id: The A-List List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 18:59:37 -0000 I doubt it. As we speak, the Economic Wizards are blowing up new bubbles. = Double Bubble, Toil and Prosperity. CB http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20071224/024472.= html >From The Times December 31, 2007 Top economist says America could plunge into recession Suzy Jagger in New York Losses arising from America=E2=80=99s housing recession could triple over = the=20 next few years and they represent the greatest threat to growth in the=20 United States, one of the world=E2=80=99s leading economists has told The = Times. Robert Shiller, Professor of Economics at Yale University, predicted=20 that there was a very real possibility that the US would be plunged = into=20 a Japan-style slump, with house prices declining for years. Professor Shiller, co-founder of the respected S&P Case/Shiller=20 house-price index, said: =E2=80=9CAmerican real estate values have already = lost=20 around $1 trillion [=C2=A3503 billion]. That could easily increase = threefold=20 over the next few years. This is a much bigger issue than sub-prime. We=20 are talking trillions of dollars=E2=80=99 worth of losses.=E2=80=9D He said that US futures markets had priced in further declines in house=20 prices in the short term, with contracts on the S&P Shiller index=20 pointing to decreases of up to 14 per cent. =E2=80=9COver the next five years, the futures contracts are pointing to = losses=20 of around 35 per cent in some areas, such as Florida, California and = Las=20 Vegas. There is a good chance that this housing recession will go on = for=20 years,=E2=80=9D he said. Professor Shiller, author of Irrational Exuberance, a phrase later used=20 by Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman, said: =E2=80=9CThis= is a=20 classic bubble scenario. A few years ago house prices got very high,=20 pushed up because of investor expectations. Americans have fuelled the=20 myth that prices would never fall, that values could only go up. People=20 believed the story. Now there is a very real chance of a big recession.=E2= =80=9D He pointed out that signs at the beginning of 2007 that had indicated=20 that some states were beginning to experience a recovery in house = prices=20 had proved to be false: =E2=80=9CStates such as Massachusetts had seen = some=20 increases at the beginning of the year. Denver also looked like it had = a=20 different path. Now all states are falling.=E2=80=9D Until two years ago, each of America=E2=80=99s 50 states had experienced = a=20 prolonged housing boom, with properties in some =E2=80=93 such as = Florida,=20 California, Arizona and Nevada =E2=80=93 doubling in price, fuelled by = cheap=20 credit and lax lending practices to borrowers who ordinarily would not=20 have been able to secure a mortgage. Two years ago, the northeastern=20 states of America became the first to slide into a recession after 17=20 successive interest-rate rises between June 2004 and August 2006 hit = the=20 property market. Last week, new numbers from the S&P/Case Shiller index showed that = house=20 prices had declined in October at their fastest rate for more than six=20 years, with homes in Miami losing 12 per cent of their value. ### ---------------------------------------------------------------------------= ----- From cbcox@ilstu.edu Mon Dec 31 16:43:41 2007 Received: from smtp2.ilstu.edu ([138.87.124.35] helo=smtp.ilstu.edu) by lists.econ.utah.edu with esmtp (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from ) id 1J9UIH-0004qQ-D2 for a-list@lists.econ.utah.edu; Mon, 31 Dec 2007 16:43:41 -0700 Received: from ilstu.edu (unknown [10.100.1.27]) by smtp.ilstu.edu (Postfix) with ESMTP id C49B56C2D for ; Mon, 31 Dec 2007 17:44:12 -0600 (CST) Message-ID: <47797ED0.B19E5EA3@ilstu.edu> Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 17:44:16 -0600 From: Carrol Cox X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.79 [en] (Windows NT 5.0; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: The A-List References: <4778F5DA.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: Re: [A-List] Top economist says America could plunge into recession X-BeenThere: a-list@lists.econ.utah.edu X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.9 Precedence: list Reply-To: The A-List List-Id: The A-List List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 23:43:42 -0000 Recessions are essential to the health of capitalism --- and they have come quite regularly over the entire history of industrial capitalism. Whether one is coming now or in two years, one _will_ of course come. Such repeated events are of very little political interest (though they often coincide with the switch from Demireps to Republicrats or vice versa). It is worth speculating (as long as one remembers it is pure speculation and not a prediction) on the possibility/likelihood of some recession in (say) the next 20 years turning into that very rare phenomenon, A Depression. (One in the 1870s, another in the 1930s, none since.) A depression, unlike a recession, runs on for a lengthy period of time, with internal ups and downs (up in 1936, down in 1938), and the _upticks_ within a depression can be a time of huge left growth. Recessions, on the other hand, are almost always bad for left politics, for they depress and individualize people;, sending them scurrying for individual survival with no time nor energy for politics. Carrol From shimogamo@attglobal.net Tue Jan 01 02:17:19 2008 Received: from kcout01.prserv.net ([12.154.55.31]) by lists.econ.utah.edu with esmtp (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from ) id 1J9dFO-0005Kl-Rj for a-list@lists.econ.utah.edu; Tue, 01 Jan 2008 02:17:19 -0700 Received: from [192.168.1.11] (p6e4dab.kyotnt01.ap.so-net.ne.jp[218.110.77.171]) by prserv.net (kcout01) with ESMTP id <20080101091751201002ftnje> (Authid: jpinet.totten3); Tue, 1 Jan 2008 09:17:52 +0000 X-Originating-IP: [218.110.77.171] Message-ID: <477A0531.8020705@attglobal.net> Date: Tue, 01 Jan 2008 18:17:37 +0900 From: Bill Totten User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.6 (X11/20071022) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: a-list , ugly New World , World City Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-2022-JP Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: [A-List] Forecast for 2008 X-BeenThere: a-list@lists.econ.utah.edu X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.9 Precedence: list Reply-To: The A-List List-Id: The A-List List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 01 Jan 2008 09:17:19 -0000 Clusterfuck Nation by Jim Kunstler Comment on current events by the author of The Long Emergency (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2005) www.kunstler.com (December 31 2007) For the tiny fraction of people who actually pay attention to real events - those, for instance, who know the difference between Narnia and Kandahar - the final hours of 2007 leading into the fog-shrouded abyss of 2008 must induce great racking shudders of nausea. Has there ever been a society so exquisitely rigged for implosion? The whole listing, creaking, reeking edifice stands like one of those obsolete Las Vegas pleasure palaces awaiting a mere pulse of electrons to ignite a thousand explosive charges perfectly placed to blow away the structural supports. The inertia holding everything together that I described in last year's forecast finally melted away at mid-summer and events began spooling out of control. Specifically, the massive tonnage of debt-backed securities circulating through the financial sector stood revealed for the mostly worthless bales of paper they truly are, and the investment community was left suspended in mid-air, grinning unconvincingly, like Wile E Coyote thirteen yards beyond the edge of the mesa, with a sputtering grenade in each hand and an anvil tied to his ankles. The whole second half of 2007 in the ranks of finance was a desperate rear-guard action to stave off the inevitable work-out. The fiasco over at Bear Stearns was instructive. Not long after two of their hedge funds blew up in August, the company announced that the funds had been chartered in the Cayman Islands and were therefore beyond the reach of official US legal machinery - meaning, forget about lawsuits, you losers, chumps, and suckers who bought into our jerry-rigged scams ... submit your complaints to the Tough Noogies desk and begone with you! This dodge might have benefited Bear Stearns in the short term, but in the long term it's hard to see why anybody would ever after cast one red cent in Bear Stearns' direction (in the life of this universe or several like it). The summer's blow-ups were followed by truckloads, boatloads, and helicopter loads of rescue "liquidity" delivered through autumn by the Federal Reserve and other central banks in a continuing effort to allow investment houses, mortgage originators, reinsurance firms, and other companies trafficking in suspect paper to avoid declaring greater losses. Then the foreign sovereign wealth funds jumped in with five billion here, ten billion there, coming away with big chunks of ownership, but of what? Of companies with liabilities in excess of assets? Mostly, these desperation moves worked to paper over virtual bankruptcy through the crucial Christmas holiday, when yearly bonuses are doled out, which spared the boards of directors from having to explain why executives were lined up at the loading docks filling their Lincoln Navigators with stupid dope piles and knots of the shareholders' loot. On the ground out in the heartland, in the anxiety-drenched, over-valued beige subdivisions of California and the ennui-saturated pastel McHousing tracts of Florida (not to mention the pathetic vinyl outlands of Cleveland and Detroit) a mighty keening welled forth as mortgage rates adjusted upward, and loans stopped "performing", and "for sale" signs failed to turn up buyers, and sheriff's deputies showed up with the rolls of yellow foreclosure tape, and actual ownership of the re-poed collateral entered a legal twilight zone somewhere north of the Florida State Teacher's Pension Fund and south of the Norwegian Municipal Councils' investment portfolios. What a mighty goddam mess was left out there by the boyz at the Wall Street genius desks, who engineered a magical system for eliminating risk from the capital markets - only to see it leak back in from a million holes and seams and collapse the greatest bubble ever blown. In the background, the US dollar sank to record lows against the euro and the pound sterling, the price of oil jumped 56 percent across the year just grazing the $100-a-barrel mark, drought punished the American southeast and Australia's grain belt, floods ravaged Texas and England, the polar ice shrank dramatically, but the US escaped any major hurricane action for a second year in a row. Except for the murder of Mrs Bhutto just a few days ago, the international scene was supernaturally quiet. Even Iraq fell into a torpor, variously attributed to utter exhaustion among the warring factions or to the US troop "surge" under general Petreus. Iran got a surprise clean bill-of-health on its nuclear bomb-making activity from America's own investigators, to the consternation of Mr Bush & Company. The non-human denizens of Planet Earth didn't have such a good year. Honeybees, Yangtze river dolphins, and house sparrows took big hits, and Al Gore went up another suit size (as well as winning part of the Nobel Prize for his Powerpoint show). Which brings us finally to the heart of the matter: what's coming down the pike starting tomorrow, January 1 2008? Down and Dirty I shudder to imagine how things will play out now as we turn the corner into 2008. Not to put too fine a point on it, but my little walnut brain can't imagine any scenario in which the US economy doesn't end up on a gurney in history's emergency room. It's not necessary to rehash the particulars of the Greenspan bubble-blowing disaster. The outcome is what concerns us. The web cables have been blazing for months with arguments as to what form the workout will take. There's little disagreement about the fundamentals at the housing end of things. The housing market is in a death spiral. Eventually, the median price of a house will have to fall back to the median income, and it has a very long way to go, perhaps fifty percent. Until that happens, houses will be generally unsellable. At the same time, of course, an anxious finance sector will be offering fewer mortgages and on much more rigorous terms, so there will be far fewer qualified buyers even for distress sales. And the median income itself may soon not be what it has been. The whole equation has changed. As the painful re-pricing process plays out, many owners/sellers will be upside-down and under water in what they owe on the mortgage in relation to the value of the house they occupy. Quite a few may have lost jobs and incomes along the way. Most of these unfortunates would be better off just mailing in the keys and walking away. But in so far as these awful liabilities are peoples' homes, full of all their stuff and their childrens' stuff, not to mention being the repository of all their previously-imagined wealth, as well as their hopes and dreams, walking away is psychologically more easily said than done. Surely in this election year, schemes will be advanced to bail out these poor suckers. But the beneficiaries of such a putative bail out would be far outnumbered by the home-owners still making mortgage payments, plus property taxes jacked up during the recent orgy by greedy public officials, and I don't think this majority would stand for the unfairness of seeing their neighbors simply let off the hook on their obligations. Perhaps the one thing that congress could do is change the insane law that treats foreclosures like some kind of bizzaro capital gain and piles additional huge tax demands on people who can no longer afford to buy their kids a frozen burrito. The issue of what to do about the dispossessed will be so politically red-hot that it could upset the election process - but I get a bit ahead of myself. One thing the public doesn't get about the housing debacle is that it is not just the low point in a regular cycle - it is the end of the suburban phase of US history. We won't be building anymore of it, and those employed in its development will have to find something else to do. Now, unfortunately the whole point of the housing bubble was not really to put X-million people in so many vinyl and chipboard boxes, but rather to ramp up a suburban sprawl-building industry as a replacement for America's dwindling manufacturing economy. This stratagem ran into the implacable force of Peak Oil, which not only puts the schnitz on America's whole Happy Motoring / suburban nexus, but implies a pervasive trend for contraction in everything from the daily distances we can travel to the the very core idea of regular economic growth per se - at least in the way we have understood it through the age of industrial capital. But to return to my point, something like forty percent of all new jobs after the year 2000 were created in the final burst of suburban expansion - everything from the excavators to the framers to the sheet-rockers, and then the providers of granite countertops, the sellers of appliances and furnishings, and cars to service the far-out new subdivisions, and so on. This is the end, therefore, not only of the production "home builders", but perhaps everything from Crate and Barrel to WalMart, too, eventually. By the way, the housing collapse was only one phase of a more generalized real estate debacle, because the commercial side of the business has also begun a nauseating slide into non-performance and equity destruction. In other words, we built way too many strip malls, power centers, and office parks. God knows what will happen to the owners of these white elephants, or the mortgage and lien holders of these things - but as one wag remarked to me some years ago as we both gazed upon a forlorn abandoned strip mall outside of Tulsa, "... we don't need that many evangelical roller rinks ..". What happens out there on the housing market scene will certainly redound in banking and finance and whatever still constitutes the US economy generally. The fears and uncertainties surrounding all credit-backed tradable securities derive first from the millions of troubled home mortgages dangling slowly in the wind. These fears and uncertainties will multiply as defaults commence in commercial real estate, and desperate individuals next enter a wave of credit card default, all of it, too, securitized and sprinkled all over the world. None of this stuff has yet been priced into the public disclosures of the many troubled banks and bank-like companies holding it. Nor does anyone really know how this is affecting the hedge funds, and their staggering leveraged positions in things that are looking more and more like quicksand. I can't imagine that quite a few major banks will not collapse in the first half of 2008. It is hard to escape the conclusion that many hedge funds will also blow up, given the unsoundness of their counter-parties' positions, not to mention the frailty of the bond reinsurers. But the death of more than a few hedge funds could easily unwind the entire global finance system - meaning a period of destructive chaos followed by a set of severely different institutional arrangements, with untold loss of imagined capital wealth along the way and big changes in everyday life. The world has never really been in a situation like this before and it is impossible to say what it might lead to. But there is no doubt that the American public has enjoyed an artificially high standard of living in relation to the value of what we actually produce - fried chicken, hair extensions, and the Flaver Flav Show - so the conclusion is pretty self-evident. Others have said (and I concur) that 2008 will be the year that the issue of Peak Oil not only takes stage in the forefront of American politics, but pushes global warming aside as the most immediate threat to the "modern" way of life. There is every reason to believe that the world has arrived at its all-time oil production peak - and some statisticians would even pin-point the exact moment as July 2006. Since then a few new and crucial story-lines have emerged to allow us to understand what is happening out there on the world oil scene. One story-line is that only "demand destruction" among the world's poorest nations has kept the oil markets functioning "normally" among the OECD nations and the rising Asian players. Even so, oil priced in US dollars more than doubled in 2007. It remains to be seen whether demand destruction in a wobbling US economy - with the suburban builders crippled - will keep oil prices from jumping into the uncharted territory beyond $100 a barrel. But two other forces are in operation now. One is the growing oil export problem, soon to be a crisis. It now appears that exports, in nations with surplus oil to sell, are going down at an even steeper rate than production declines. Why? They are using more of their own oil. The population is growing robustly. The Saudi Arabians are building the world$B!G(Bs largest aluminum smelter and many chemical factories. This takes a lot of oil. Russia, another big exporter, saw its car sales jump by fifty percent in 2007. Mexico is depleting so rapidly, and using so much more of its own oil, that it might be out of the export game altogether in three years. That will be bad news for the US, since Mexico is tied with Saudi Arabia as America's number two leading source of oil imports. Remember, the US now imports close to three-quarters of all the oil we use. The second new factor on the Peak oil scene is "oil nationalism". It is prompting countries like Norway and Russia to husband more of their own resources as the awareness hits that they are past peak and might want to keep their own motors humming further into the future. Oil surplus nations are also trending more toward selling their oil on the basis of long-term contracts with favored customers rather than just auctioning the stuff off on the futures market. This makes oil a much more important element in geopolitical power politics. Note that the US may not enjoy "favored customer" standing among many of these nations. Matt Simmons, the leading investment banker to the oil industry, predicted at a major conference in October that the US is much closer to encountering a problem with chronic spot shortages of oil (and gasoline, of course) than the public realizes, and Simmons says that this supply problem will be extremely disruptive in every imaginable way - economically, politically, and socially. Most of the commentators I take seriously see the price of oil oscillating in 2008 between $80 and $160-a-barrel. Simmons says Americans will keep sucking up the price increases, but they will probably freak out over spot shortages. I have no idea how presidential election politics will play out in 2008. It must be obvious that so many nasty pitfalls lie out there in the months ahead that something's got to shake up the current scripted mummery among the contenders. The current batch of candidates will soon find their story-lines and pre-cooked messages out-of-date as the nation faces crises in finance and energy (at least). Given the uneventful geopolitical scene of the past eighteen months (since the Hezbollah-Israel War and up to the murder of Mrs Bhutto in Pakistan), odds are that the US will have more rather than less trouble from the rest of the world in 2008 - especially if our own financial recklessness trips up the global economy. Back in the early days of George W Bush, even before 9/11, I used to joke with my friends that Bill Clinton would return as the Emperor Bill the First. The joke doesn't seem so funny anymore with Hillary off and running. I never liked the way she muscled her way into a US senate seat - sending the message, in essence, that there was not one genuine New York resident qualified for the job. But there is so much more about her I dislike now, starting with her presumption of dynastic entitlement to the annoyingly phony way she nods her head (like one of those old "drinky-bird" toys) to put across the idea that she is a fabulous "listener". I write this a few days before the Iowa caucuses and then the New Hampshire primary. New York's Mayor Bloomberg is suddenly making noises again about entering the race as an independent. That might lead to a situation as fractured as the one in 1860 that saw a multi-party scuffle send Lincoln into office (or the election of 1912 when Teddy Roosevelt made a credible run on the independent Bull Moose line). At the moment, I'd like to see both John Edwards and Barack Obama roll on. The mere thought of a president Huckabee gives me the chilblains, and the rest of the Republican pack I would not want to have as my county supervisor. In any case, whoever ends up in the oval office will preside over one king-hell of a clusterfuck. In the immortal words of TV's erstwhile "Mr T", I pity da fool who gets elected into this mess. There will be a whole continent full of bankrupt, re-poed, and idle former WalMart shoppers, many of them with half of their skin tattooed and many of that bunch all revved up to "roll heavy and gun up" against the folks who screwed them. Which leads me to my penultimate observation of the moment: 2008 will be the year that celebrity wealth goes into hiding. A land full of people crying into their foreclosure notices will take a dim view of the Donald Trumps and P Diddys luxuriating out there and may come looking for scalps - though in the case of Mr Trump they'll be sorry they woke up the wolverine that lives on his head. Basically, though, I'm not kidding. Conspicuous displays of wealth will be so "out" that Mr Diddy might take to club-hopping in a 1999 Mazda. Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton may have to double-up living in a minuteman missile silo to keep the angry mobs of fans-turned-vengeful-berserkers away. Okay, my final comment. After being chastised endlessly about mis-calling the DOW in 2006 (I said 4000), I have learned my lesson about making numerical predictions for the stock markets. So let's just say there is no fucking way that the DOW, the NASDAQ, and the S & P will not end the year 2008 absolutely on their asses. The charade of permanent prosperity based on getting something for nothing is over. That sound you hear out there is reality knocking on the door. It has been standing out in the cold for a long time and it is not happy with us. http://jameshowardkunstler.typepad.com/clusterfuck_nation/ http://www.billtotten.blogspot.com http://www.ashisuto.co.jp From shimogamo@attglobal.net Tue Jan 01 19:15:45 2008 Received: from kcout03.prserv.net ([12.154.55.33]) by lists.econ.utah.edu with esmtp (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from ) id 1J9t8z-0007ES-3m for a-list@lists.econ.utah.edu; Tue, 01 Jan 2008 19:15:45 -0700 Received: from [192.168.1.11] (p6e4dab.kyotnt01.ap.so-net.ne.jp[218.110.77.171]) by prserv.net (kcout03) with ESMTP id <2008010202162320300oirike> (Authid: jpinet.totten3); Wed, 2 Jan 2008 02:16:24 +0000 X-Originating-IP: [218.110.77.171] Message-ID: <477AF3EA.1010507@attglobal.net> Date: Wed, 02 Jan 2008 11:16:10 +0900 From: Bill Totten User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.6 (X11/20071022) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: a-list , ugly New World , World City Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-2022-JP Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: [A-List] The Kings of England X-BeenThere: a-list@lists.econ.utah.edu X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.9 Precedence: list Reply-To: The A-List List-Id: The A-List List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 02 Jan 2008 02:15:45 -0000 The unaccountable people who launched the Iraq war have learnt nothing from it. by George Monbiot Published in the Guardian (January 01 2008) If you doubt that Britain needs a written constitution, listen to the strangely unbalanced discussion broadcast by the BBC on Friday. The Today programme asked Lord Guthrie, formerly chief of the defence staff, and Sir Kevin Tebbit, until recently the senior civil servant at the Ministry of Defence, if parliament should decide whether or not this country goes to war. The discussion was a terrifying exposure of the privileges of unaccountable power. It explained as well as anything I have heard how Britain became party to a crime that might have killed a million people. Lord Guthrie argued that parliamentary approval would mean that intelligence had to be shared with MPs; that the other side could not be taken by surprise ("do you want to warn the enemy you are going to do it?"), and that commanders should have "a choice about when to attack and when not to attack". Sir Kevin maintained that "no prime minister would be able to deploy forces without being able to command a parliamentary majority. In that sense the executive is already accountable to parliament." Once the prime minister has his majority, in other words, MPs become redundant. Let me dwell for a moment on what Lord Guthrie said, for he appears to be advocating that we retain the right to commit war crimes. States in dispute with each other, the UN Charter says, must first seek to solve their differences by "peaceful means" (article 33) {1}. If these fail, they should refer the matter to the Security Council (#37), which decides what measures should be taken (#39). Taking the enemy by surprise is a useful tactic in battle, and encounters can be won only if commanders are able to make decisions quickly. But either Lord Guthrie does not understand the difference between a battle and a war - which is unlikely in view of his 44 years of service {2} - or he does not understand the most basic point in international law. Launching a surprise war is forbidden by the charter. It has become fashionable to scoff at these rules and to dismiss those who support them as pedants and prigs, but they are all that stand between us and the greatest crimes in history. The International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg ruled that "to initiate a war of aggression ... is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime" {3}. the tribunal's charter placed "planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression" {4} at the top of the list of war crimes. If Britain's most prominent retired general does not understand this, it can only be because he has never been forced to understand it. In September 2002, he argued in the House of Lords that "the time is approaching when we may have to join the United States in operations against Iraq ... Strike soon, and the threat will be less and easier to handle. If the United Nations route fails, I support the second option." {5} No one in the chamber warned him that he was proposing the supreme international crime. In another debate in the Lords, Guthrie argued that it was "unthinkable for British service men and women to be sent to the International Criminal Court", regardless of what they might have done {6}. He demanded a guarantee from the government that this would not be allowed to happen, and proposed that the British armed forces should be allowed to opt out of the European Convention on Human Rights. The grey heads murmured their agreement. Perhaps it is unfair to single out the noble and gallant lord. The exceptionalism of the British establishment is almost universal. According to the government, both the Commons public administration committee and the Lords constitution committee recognise that decision-making should "provide sufficient flexibility for deployments which need to be made without prior parliamentary approval for reasons of urgency or necessary operational secrecy". {7} You cannot keep an operation secret from parliament unless you are also keeping it secret from the UN. Sir Kevin appears to have a general aversion to disclosure. In 2003 the Guardian obtained letters showing that he had prevented the fraud squad at the ministry of defence from investigating allegations of corruption against the arms manufacturer BAE, that he tipped off the chairman of BAE about the contents of a confidential letter the Serious Fraud Office had sent him and that he failed to tell his minister about the fraud office's warnings {8}. In October 2003, under intense cross-examination during the Hutton inquiry into the death of the government scientist David Kelly, he revealed that the decision to name Dr Kelly was made in a "meeting chaired by the Prime Minister". {9} That could have been the end of Blair, but a week later Sir Kevin quietly sent Lord Hutton a written retraction of his evidence {10}. No one bothered to tell parliament or the press; the retraction was made public only when the Hutton report was published, three months later {11}. Blair knew all along, and the secret gave him a crushing advantage {12}. The discussion also reveals that Guthrie and Tebbit appear to have learnt nothing from the disaster in Iraq. They are not alone. Soon before he stepped down last year, Tony Blair wrote an article for the Economist called What I've Learned {13}. He had discovered, he claimed, that his critics were both wrong and dangerous and that his decisions, based on "freedom, democracy, responsibility to others, but also justice and fairness" were difficult but invariably right. He called his article "a very short synopsis of what I have learned". I could think of an even shorter one. We have yet to hear one word of regret or remorse from any of the major architects - Blair, Brown, Straw, Hoon, Campbell and their principal advisers - of Britain's participation in the supreme international crime. The press and parliament appear to have heeded Blair's plea that we all "move on" from Iraq. The British establishment has a unique capacity to move on, and then to repeat its mistakes. What other former empire knows so little of its own atrocities? When people call our unwritten constitution a "gentleman's agreement", they reveal more than they intend. It allows the unelected gentlemen who advise the prime minister to act without reference to the proles. Britain went to war in Iraq because the public and parliament were not allowed to know when the decision was made, what the intelligence reports really said, and what the attorney-general wrote about the legality of an invasion. Had the truth not been suppressed, our armed forces could never have attacked Iraq. Real constitutional reform requires much more than the timid proposals in the green paper on the governance of Britain, which are likely to appear in a new bill in a few weeks' time. Yes, parliament should be allowed to vote on whether to go to war, yes the Royal Prerogative should be rolled back. But the prime minister, his diplomats, civil servants and generals would still decide which wars parliament needs to know about, which crimes could be secretly committed in our name. Real constitutional reform means not only handing power to parliament; it also means confronting the power of the cold, unaccountable people who act as if it is their birthright. www.monbiot.com References: 1. http://www.un.org/aboutun/charter/ 2. Lord Guthrie, 24th March 2004. House of Lords debates, Column 731. http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200304/ldhansrd/vo040324/text/40324-05.htm 3. Marjorie Cohn, professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, 9th November 2004. Aggressive War: Supreme International Crime. http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/110904A.shtml 4. The Avalon Project at Yale Law School. Nuremberg Trial Proceedings. Vol 1: Charter of the International Military Tribunal. http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/imt/proc/imtconst.htm#art6 5. Lord Guthrie, 24th September 2002. House of Lords debate, Column 896. http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200102/ldhansrd/vo020924/text/20924-03.htm#20924-03_spnew9 6. Lord Guthrie, 14th July 2005. House of Lords debate, Column 1234. http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200506/ldhansrd/vo050714/text/50714-08.htm#50714-08_spnew0 7. Home Office, July 2007. The Governance of Britain. Green paper. Para 28, page 19. http://www.official-documents.gov.uk/document/cm71/7170/7170.pdf 8. David Leigh and Rob Evans, 13th October 2003. MoD chief in fraud cover-up row. The Guardian. 9. Sir Kevin Tebbit, 13th October 2003. Hearing Transcript, The Hutton Enquiry, para 57. http://www.the-hutton-inquiry.org.uk/content/transcripts/hearing-trans47.htm 10. Richard Norton-Taylor and Owen Bowcott, 2nd February 2004. Tebbit's late change put Blair in clear. The Guardian. 11. ibid. 12. John Kampfner, 2004. Blair's Wars. pages 350 and 364. Free Press, London. 13. Tony Blair, 31st May 2007. What I've learned. The Economist. http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9257593 Copyright (c) 2006 Monbiot.com http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2008/01/01/the-kings-of-england/ http://www.billtotten.blogspot.com http://www.ashisuto.co.jp From mstainsby@resist.ca Wed Jan 02 04:22:46 2008 Received: from defout.telus.net ([199.185.220.240]) by lists.econ.utah.edu with esmtp (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from ) id 1JA1gM-0007s4-Od; Wed, 02 Jan 2008 04:22:46 -0700 Received: from priv-edtnaa06.telusplanet.net ([64.180.6.225]) by priv-edtnes28.telusplanet.net (InterMail vM.7.08.02.02 201-2186-121-104-20070414) with ESMTP id <20080102112334.YFIT29066.priv-edtnes28.telusplanet.net@priv-edtnaa06.telusplanet.net>; Wed, 2 Jan 2008 04:23:34 -0700 Received: from [64.180.6.225] (d64-180-6-225.bchsia.telus.net [64.180.6.225]) by priv-edtnaa06.telusplanet.net (BorderWare MXtreme Infinity Mail Firewall) with ESMTP id D49FLNLR4N; Wed, 2 Jan 2008 04:23:34 -0700 (MST) Message-ID: <477B7438.5040908@resist.ca> Date: Wed, 02 Jan 2008 04:23:36 -0700 From: Macdonald Stainsby User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.9 (Windows/20071031) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: "Radical anti-capitalist environmental discussion." , Redbadbear@yahoogroups.com, The A-List Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Subject: [A-List] The Bouchard-Taylor Commission's Hijacking of 'Gender Equality' X-BeenThere: a-list@lists.econ.utah.edu X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.9 Precedence: list Reply-To: The A-List List-Id: The A-List List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 02 Jan 2008 11:22:47 -0000 Gender, Race, and Religious Freedom The Bouchard-Taylor Commission's Hijacking of 'Gender Equality' by Anna Carastathis The Dominion - http://www.dominionpaper.ca Immigrant rights activists and community members demonstrate during a Montreal stop of the Bouchard-Taylor commission in late November. Photo: CMAQ Last November, the West Coast LEAF (Legal Education and Action Fund) issued a report based on its Women's Equality and Religious Freedom Project (WERF). Some of the overarching questions that the Project explored were “What is the nature of religious discrimination experienced by women of faith? What are the ways in which women balance and navigate the experiences of discrimination and interlocking systems of oppression in their daily lives?” The report also addresses specific areas such as same-sex marriage; polygamy; use of religious arbitration in family law; and immigration law. The full report can be found here. The Taylor-Bouchard Commission on "reasonable accommodation" in Québec has prompted a great deal of commentary on the relationship between gender equality and freedom of religion. For instance, the Conseil du statut de la femme du Québec (CSF) has recommended that the Québec Charter of Rights and Freedoms be amended so that gender equality is given relative priority over the right to religious expression. In light of these developments, the Dominion interviewed Harsha Walia, who authored the report based on Advisory Committee discussions, to get an anti-racist and feminist perspective. The Dominion: Why is religious freedom a feminist issue? Harsha Walia: This is an important issue because the “religious freedom debate” actually has less to do with religion or secularism than it does with race. Particularly in the post 911 climate, religion is a highly politicized, racialized, and publicly constructed identity. For example, invoking a Muslim identity is not about defining the beliefs of a person of Muslim faith; rather, it is a euphemism for Arabs, Middle Easterners, and South Asians (who may not actually be Muslim). In the context of the “War on Terror” this racialized imagery is very important, as there is a need to have an identifiable ‘enemy’ who is supposedly threatening Western values. The use of such language and imagery is rooted in a colonial legacy; therefore fighting patriarchy is intrinsically linked to fighting colonization and racism. This is also an issue for feminists because feminism is currently being, as it historically has been, co-opted by imperial and colonizing forces. Historian Leila Ahmed has written, “Whether in the hands of patriarchal men or feminists, the ideas of western feminism essentially functioned to morally justify the attack on native societies and to support the notion of the comprehensive superiority of Europe.” An increasing number of feminists have expressed concerns regarding various state interventions on behalf of the “disempowered foreign woman”. For example, feminists have questioned the use of “protecting women” as a rationale for the occupation of Afghanistan. Similarly, the discourse surrounding human trafficking taps into notions of victimized Third World women and justifies restrictive border controls. Dominion: What do you think about the discourse of "reasonable accommodation" that has come to dominate public discussions in Québec? HW: It is astounding how many people who identify themselves as pro-feminist are expressing the need to ‘save women from the hijab’ and how there needs to be ‘limits to multiculturalism.’ First, it is hypocritical to talk about Canada’s “over-tolerance” of multiculturalism when the very nature of the debate positions racialized immigrant communities as not ‘belonging’ to Canadian society; as Outsiders” who need to be accommodated. It reveals the shallow self-congratulatory nature of Canadian multiculturalism under which rests a fundamentally white national consciousness. Second, such a debate aims to portray a sense of victimization where Canadian culture is being violated by “Outsiders.” This process of demonization, ‘othering’ and racism that targets particular communities for greater scrutiny has very real consequences in the present day context, being used to sell illegal wars and occupations across the globe, and restricting the rights and civil liberties of migrants within these borders. It is also problematic to talk about secularism in a seemingly neutral way as it ignores the foundations of Christianity within the Canadian state and the violent role that Christianity has played in colonizing and assimilating indigenous peoples for example. It is also ironic that many of those rejecting the “authority” of religion so readily accept the authoritative ideologies of capitalism, consumerism, and liberal secularism, which are far more normalized in Western societies. The most damaging consequence of this debate is that it removes the capacity for women’s agency by reinforcing the idea that being a ‘Muslim feminist’ for example is impossible; forcing women to accept narrower definitions of self, despite occupying multiple locations across citizenship, religion, class, sexuality, and race. Furthermore, discussions of gender inequality ‘within’ certain religions or cultures renders invisible the universal systems of patriarchy that all women contend with, while homogenizing and fossilizing religions in definitive ways. Dominion: In the report, I found your critique of the distinction between polygamy and polyamory compelling. Can you elaborate? HW: One of the major problems with the distinction between polygamy and polyamory is that it relies on and perpetuates racist assumptions. While polyamory is used to define a relationship based on mutual negotiation between “independent people,” polygamy refers to a “cultural practice.” Such a dichotomy reinforces assumptions that women in racialized cultures are being more exploited and less independent than “autonomous women” from dominant white cultures. This is not to suggest that polygamy cannot be critiqued; it is to highlight this double standard and how such differentiations are based on the premise that racialized cultures are inherently more hostile to women. The reality is that the practice of both polygamy and heterosexual polyamory exist within a global context of systemic discrimination against women and girls. The current-day reality is that 99% of polygamous marriages are characterized by men having multiple wives. But it is dangerous to suggest that the roots of polygamy lie in ‘religious culture’ because cultures and religions do not offer homogenous narratives. Various conservative ideologies are on the rise across the globe because that is the socio-political context within which we are operating. Religion can be used to justify polygamy, but if we recognize that the current practice of polygamy is not about a particular religion or culture (which reinforces racism) -- it is, rather, a manifestation of a universal system of patriarchy -- then we can more readily reject those “freedom of religion” arguments that are used to prevent discussion about the effects on women in an anti-racist manner. Dominion: How should feminists be addressing the issue of religious freedom as it intersects with the marginalization of racialized, immigrant, and indigenous women? HW: We must contend with the reality that culturally-imperialist feminisms are being forced upon women across the world and the narrative of women’s rights serves as a crucial tool in the pro-war and anti-immigrant propaganda machine. Such a theft of feminist principles is advancing everything but genuine equality for women. Instead, we must choose a path that is feminist as well as anti-racist, anti-militarist, pro-immigration, queer- and trans-positive, and class-conscious. This includes questioning and challenging the legitimacy given to state-based responses such as prisons as a solution to violence, border controls as a solution to trafficking, child apprehension as a solution to women and child poverty, and militarization as a solution to third world women’s liberation. It is important to avoid falling into the racist traps that infantilize racialized women, while at the same time maintaining a basic commitment to gender and sexual equality that cannot be breached by religious or cultural justifications. We must avoid a culturally imperialist feminism that seeks to impose Western notions of gender equality and ‘sameness’ onto other women. This does not imply that we become culturally relativist and begin to support any unjust practice. Cultural diversity or freedom of religion should not serve as a shield to scrutinize against gender-oppressive practices. Walking this line requires us to pay attention to specific contexts, to listen to those women whose rights we purport to stand for, and to understand that we occupy different relationships of power and privilege. All oppressed women equally deplore sexism and misogyny, but women’s liberation movements must be culturally sensitive and relevant so as to oppose patriarchal elements without attacking or destroying non-white cultures, religions, or identities. Women of colour and indigenous women have consistently pointed out that reducing their oppression to their ‘culture’ represents deeply colonial attitudes. The greater oppression that some women face is directly linked to policies of the state, histories of colonization, the nature of capitalism, and the powerful rise of global conservative ideologies. Most importantly, we must walk alongside those women who are on the front lines of their own struggles and who are agents of their own transformation. They do not need pity or charity, but solidarity and our respect for their leadership and agency. All opinions expressed are of Harsha Walia alone and do not imply endorsement by West Coast LEAF or other participants in the Project. -- Macdonald Stainsby Coordinator, http://oilsandstruth.org -- moderated radical news & discussion list: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/rad-green In the contradiction lies the hope. --Bertholt Brecht. From ebeer@telecentro.com.ar Wed Jan 02 05:56:45 2008 Received: from maildcarg8.dc-host.net.ar ([200.55.6.138]) by lists.econ.utah.edu with esmtp (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from ) id 1JA39J-0007wR-HZ for a-list@lists.econ.utah.edu; Wed, 02 Jan 2008 05:56:45 -0700 Received: from maildcarg4.dc-host.net.ar ([200.55.6.135]) by maildcarg8.dc-host.net.ar (Sun Java System Messaging Server 6.2 (built Dec 2 2004)) with ESMTP id <0JU00055IQ13N0G0@maildcarg8.dc-host.net.ar> for a-list@lists.econ.utah.edu; Wed, 02 Jan 2008 10:12:39 -0300 (ART) Received: from Sempron2600 ([200.125.100.138]) by maildcarg4.dc-host.net.ar (Sun Java System Messaging Server 6.1 HotFix 0.05 (built Oct 21 2004)) with ESMTPA id <0JU000K1XPAI4GD0@maildcarg4.dc-host.net.ar> for a-list@lists.econ.utah.edu; Wed, 02 Jan 2008 09:56:43 -0300 (ART) Date: Wed, 02 Jan 2008 09:57:26 -0300 From: Ezequiel Beer To: a-list@lists.econ.utah.edu Message-id: <00c001c84d3f$06b012e0$8a647dc8@Sempron2600> MIME-version: 1.0 X-MIMEOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.3198 X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2900.3138 Content-type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset=iso-8859-1; reply-type=original Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-priority: Normal Subject: [A-List] Some Add Coments About 2008 X-BeenThere: a-list@lists.econ.utah.edu X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.9 Precedence: list Reply-To: The A-List List-Id: The A-List List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 02 Jan 2008 12:56:46 -0000 The Contra Ofensive on the Keynesianism by the Econometric Neoliberal Framework from the Post War II is showing some ends as the Housing US ubble - thanks of Greenspan/Benmarke MacroEconomic Policies - , the Global Warming and the increasing of losses on the middle class ( Krugman articules quite explain it ) as an increasing of Poverty. This " framework crisis " of the Economics or the Political Economy may push on GeoEconomical or GeoPolitical Analisys as it can study the Whole and their Particularities. As the International Financial Matters push by the Fed and the UE Central Banks add to the Middle East situation and the increasing power of Iran-China-Rusia could give a chance to some periferic countries far from the " WorldWide Investment Currents " have a endogenus economic acumulation run by a state/political hand. Could be the aim of Kirchner in Argentina? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOBMoi9oet8&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsYaaG_Adhg&NR=1 Extracts From Peron: Melodia del Sentimiento by Leonardo Favio From sjy_estrien@sympatico.ca Wed Jan 02 09:29:25 2008 Received: from bay0-omc3-s3.bay0.hotmail.com ([65.54.246.203]) by lists.econ.utah.edu with esmtp (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from ) id 1JA6T7-00008v-Sq for a-list@lists.econ.utah.edu; Wed, 02 Jan 2008 09:29:25 -0700 Received: from hotmail.com ([207.46.9.243]) by bay0-omc3-s3.bay0.hotmail.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.3959); Wed, 2 Jan 2008 08:30:11 -0800 Received: from mail pickup service by hotmail.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC; Wed, 2 Jan 2008 08:30:11 -0800 Message-ID: Received: from 207.46.9.251 by by120fd.bay120.hotmail.msn.com with HTTP; Wed, 02 Jan 2008 16:30:09 GMT X-Originating-IP: [209.29.96.206] X-Originating-Email: [sjy_estrien@sympatico.ca] X-Sender: sjy_estrien@sympatico.ca In-Reply-To: <477B7438.5040908@resist.ca> From: "Jim Yarker" To: a-list@lists.econ.utah.edu Bcc: Date: Wed, 02 Jan 2008 16:30:09 +0000 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1; format=flowed X-OriginalArrivalTime: 02 Jan 2008 16:30:11.0055 (UTC) FILETIME=[BEA00FF0:01C84D5C] Subject: Re: [A-List] The Bouchard-Taylor Commission's Hijacking of 'GenderEquality' X-BeenThere: a-list@lists.econ.utah.edu X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.9 Precedence: list Reply-To: The A-List List-Id: The A-List List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 02 Jan 2008 16:29:26 -0000 >From: Macdonald Stainsby > >For instance, the Conseil du statut de la femme du Québec (CSF) has >recommended that the Québec Charter of Rights and Freedoms be amended so >that gender equality is given relative priority over the right to religious >expression. What the government-created Québec Council on the Status of Women actually recommended - as unreported at Dominion Papers - is that the Québec Charter of Rights and Freedoms have a clause added to it **analogous to the clause in Article 28 of the *Canadian* Federal Charter of Rights and Freedoms to the effect that the equality of men and women cannot be compromised in the name of freedom of religion.** (http://sisyphe.org/article.php3?id_article=2846) The inclusion of this clause in the Canadian Federal Charter and Constitution was the product of intense lobbying by *English Canadian feminists over 20 years ago.* (The principle is also embedded in the Council of Europe's Resolution 1464 on women and religion- ibid). Unsurprisingly while the clause and the federal Charter more generally always were and still are lauded by English Canada's civil libertarians, the mere notion of including it in the Québec Charter arouses a completely different spin, reflecting another pattern of supremacism present in the Canadian federation from its very début, viz, anglo-protestant supremacism or, "if you don't speak white, it just ain't right." Ditto for the hypocrisy surrounding the attacks on the PQ's proposed Québec citizenship bill, which proposes basic competency in French as a criterion for Québec citizenship. Language competency is a criterion for Canadian citizenship as well, but that's ok, cuz Canada's always right. >HW: It is astounding how many people who identify themselves as >pro-feminist are expressing the need to ‘save women from the hijab’ and how >there needs to be ‘limits to multiculturalism.’ It would be interesting some day to have an enumeration of this astounding number, particularly given the bigoted alacrity and intellectual dishonesty with which the Hérouxville "code of conduct" and some marginal presentations before the commission were explicitly associated with the sovereignist movement on this list (in the same manner as was Doc Mailloux, now part of a drearily familiar pattern). Such a yearning to "save women from the hijab" does not appear in the submissions before the commission made by: the Bloc québécois, the Parti québécois, the Société St-Jean-Baptiste, nor that of the Québec Federation of Women (who went in just the opposite vein actually: http://www.ledevoir.com/2007/12/11/168029.html, and as also unreported in the Dominion Papers), all associated in their historical stances and orientations with the sovereignty movement, unlike the CSF. It isn't the mandate of this commission to explore the "Canadian multiculturalism" model, which is not and never has been the basis of state policy in Québec, but rather Québec's own "intercultural" model. As is generally well-known here if less well-known to cyber-opinionators on the English Canadian left who generously appoint themselves as Québec's conscience, Canadian multiculturalism was conceived in part to combat, contain and it was hoped, banalize to the point of erasure the Québec liberation struggle and awareness of the national oppression of French Canadians. (http://www.cyberpresse.ca/article/20071203/CPTRIBUNE/712030991/-1/CPTRIBUNE). From bar@idirect.com Wed Jan 02 10:34:28 2008 Received: from nu2.look.ca ([207.136.100.16] helo=nu.look.ca) by lists.econ.utah.edu with esmtp (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from ) id 1JA7U3-0000FF-SU for a-list@lists.econ.utah.edu; Wed, 02 Jan 2008 10:34:28 -0700 Received: from nu.look.ca ([127.0.0.1] helo=webmail.look.ca) by nu.look.ca with smtp (Exim 4.20) id 1JA7Uq-00017J-UO for a-list@lists.econ.utah.edu; Wed, 02 Jan 2008 12:35:16 -0500 Received: from 207.253.112.178 (Look WebMail authenticated user bar@idirect.com) by webmail.look.ca with HTTP; Wed, 2 Jan 2008 12:35:16 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <49467.207.253.112.178.1199295316.squirrel@webmail.look.ca> In-Reply-To: <477AF3EA.1010507@attglobal.net> References: <477AF3EA.1010507@attglobal.net> Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2008 12:35:16 -0500 (EST) From: bar@idirect.com To: "The A-List" User-Agent: Look WebMail/1.4.1 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Priority: 3 Importance: Normal X-SA-Exim-Mail-From: bar@idirect.com Content-Type: text/plain;charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 2.63 (2004-01-11) on phi.look.ca X-Spam-Level: * X-Spam-Status: No, hits=1.0 required=8.0 tests=NO_REAL_NAME, PRIORITY_NO_NAME autolearn=no version=2.63 X-SA-Exim-Version: 3.0 (built Mon Jun 2 17:21:47 GMT 2003) X-SA-Exim-Scanned: Yes Subject: Re: [A-List] The Kings of England X-BeenThere: a-list@lists.econ.utah.edu X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.9 Precedence: list Reply-To: The A-List List-Id: The A-List List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 02 Jan 2008 17:34:28 -0000 Sadly, even Monbiot does not call for the only change that could begin to bring democracy and accountabilty to Britain-the removal of the queen and the founding of a republic with a constitution. Tom Paine would be astonished to find that two hundred years after his death Britain and Canada are still monarchies with al that implies and the cover of "constitutional monarchy" is just that a cover for the rule of the aristocratic elites in Britain and the continuing colonialism of Canada. Chris > > The unaccountable people who launched the Iraq war have learnt nothing > from it. > > by George Monbiot > > Published in the Guardian (January 01 2008) > > > If you doubt that Britain needs a written constitution, listen to the > strangely unbalanced discussion broadcast by the BBC on Friday. The > Today programme asked Lord Guthrie, formerly chief of the defence staff, > and Sir Kevin Tebbit, until recently the senior civil servant at the > Ministry of Defence, if parliament should decide whether or not this > country goes to war. The discussion was a terrifying exposure of the > privileges of unaccountable power. It explained as well as anything I > have heard how Britain became party to a crime that might have killed a > million people. > > Lord Guthrie argued that parliamentary approval would mean that > intelligence had to be shared with MPs; that the other side could not be > taken by surprise ("do you want to warn the enemy you are going to do > it?"), and that commanders should have "a choice about when to attack > and when not to attack". Sir Kevin maintained that "no prime minister > would be able to deploy forces without being able to command a > parliamentary majority. In that sense the executive is already > accountable to parliament." Once the prime minister has his majority, in > other words, MPs become redundant. > > Let me dwell for a moment on what Lord Guthrie said, for he appears to > be advocating that we retain the right to commit war crimes. States in > dispute with each other, the UN Charter says, must first seek to solve > their differences by "peaceful means" (article 33) {1}. If these fail, > they should refer the matter to the Security Council (#37), which > decides what measures should be taken (#39). Taking the enemy by > surprise is a useful tactic in battle, and encounters can be won only if > commanders are able to make decisions quickly. But either Lord Guthrie > does not understand the difference between a battle and a war - which is > unlikely in view of his 44 years of service {2} - or he does not > understand the most basic point in international law. Launching a > surprise war is forbidden by the charter. > > It has become fashionable to scoff at these rules and to dismiss those > who support them as pedants and prigs, but they are all that stand > between us and the greatest crimes in history. The International > Military Tribunal at Nuremberg ruled that "to initiate a war of > aggression ... is not only an international crime; it is the supreme > international crime" {3}. the tribunal's charter placed "planning, > preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression" {4} at the top > of the list of war crimes. > > If Britain's most prominent retired general does not understand this, it > can only be because he has never been forced to understand it. In > September 2002, he argued in the House of Lords that "the time is > approaching when we may have to join the United States in operations > against Iraq ... Strike soon, and the threat will be less and easier to > handle. If the United Nations route fails, I support the second option." > {5} No one in the chamber warned him that he was proposing the supreme > international crime. In another debate in the Lords, Guthrie argued that > it was "unthinkable for British service men and women to be sent to the > International Criminal Court", regardless of what they might have done > {6}. He demanded a guarantee from the government that this would not be > allowed to happen, and proposed that the British armed forces should be > allowed to opt out of the European Convention on Human Rights. The grey > heads murmured their agreement. > > Perhaps it is unfair to single out the noble and gallant lord. The > exceptionalism of the British establishment is almost universal. > According to the government, both the Commons public administration > committee and the Lords constitution committee recognise that > decision-making should "provide sufficient flexibility for deployments > which need to be made without prior parliamentary approval for reasons > of urgency or necessary operational secrecy". {7} You cannot keep an > operation secret from parliament unless you are also keeping it secret > from the UN. > > Sir Kevin appears to have a general aversion to disclosure. In 2003 the > Guardian obtained letters showing that he had prevented the fraud squad > at the ministry of defence from investigating allegations of corruption > against the arms manufacturer BAE, that he tipped off the chairman of > BAE about the contents of a confidential letter the Serious Fraud Office > had sent him and that he failed to tell his minister about the fraud > office's warnings {8}. In October 2003, under intense cross-examination > during the Hutton inquiry into the death of the government scientist > David Kelly, he revealed that the decision to name Dr Kelly was made in > a "meeting chaired by the Prime Minister". {9} That could have been the > end of Blair, but a week later Sir Kevin quietly sent Lord Hutton a > written retraction of his evidence {10}. No one bothered to tell > parliament or the press; the retraction was made public only when the > Hutton report was published, three months later {11}. Blair knew all > along, and the secret gave him a crushing advantage {12}. > > The discussion also reveals that Guthrie and Tebbit appear to have > learnt nothing from the disaster in Iraq. They are not alone. Soon > before he stepped down last year, Tony Blair wrote an article for the > Economist called What I've Learned {13}. He had discovered, he claimed, > that his critics were both wrong and dangerous and that his decisions, > based on "freedom, democracy, responsibility to others, but also justice > and fairness" were difficult but invariably right. He called his article > "a very short synopsis of what I have learned". I could think of an even > shorter one. > > We have yet to hear one word of regret or remorse from any of the major > architects - Blair, Brown, Straw, Hoon, Campbell and their principal > advisers - of Britain's participation in the supreme international > crime. The press and parliament appear to have heeded Blair's plea that > we all "move on" from Iraq. The British establishment has a unique > capacity to move on, and then to repeat its mistakes. What other former > empire knows so little of its own atrocities? > > When people call our unwritten constitution a "gentleman's agreement", > they reveal more than they intend. It allows the unelected gentlemen who > advise the prime minister to act without reference to the proles. > Britain went to war in Iraq because the public and parliament were not > allowed to know when the decision was made, what the intelligence > reports really said, and what the attorney-general wrote about the > legality of an invasion. Had the truth not been suppressed, our armed > forces could never have attacked Iraq. > > Real constitutional reform requires much more than the timid proposals > in the green paper on the governance of Britain, which are likely to > appear in a new bill in a few weeks' time. Yes, parliament should be > allowed to vote on whether to go to war, yes the Royal Prerogative > should be rolled back. But the prime minister, his diplomats, civil > servants and generals would still decide which wars parliament needs to > know about, which crimes could be secretly committed in our name. Real > constitutional reform means not only handing power to parliament; it > also means confronting the power of the cold, unaccountable people who > act as if it is their birthright. > > www.monbiot.com > > References: > > 1. http://www.un.org/aboutun/charter/ > > 2. Lord Guthrie, 24th March 2004. House of Lords debates, Column 731. > http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200304/ldhansrd/vo040324/text/40324-05.htm > > 3. Marjorie Cohn, professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, 9th > November 2004. Aggressive War: Supreme International Crime. > http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/110904A.shtml > > 4. The Avalon Project at Yale Law School. Nuremberg Trial Proceedings. > Vol 1: > Charter of the International Military Tribunal. > http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/imt/proc/imtconst.htm#art6 > > 5. Lord Guthrie, 24th September 2002. House of Lor > ds debate, Column 896. > http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200102/ldhansrd/vo020924/text/20924-03.htm#20924-03_spnew9 > > 6. Lord Guthrie, 14th July 2005. House of Lords debate, Column 1234. > http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200506/ldhansrd/vo050714/text/50714-08.htm#50714-08_spnew0 > > 7. Home Office, July 2007. The Governance of Britain. Green paper. Para > 28, page 19. > http://www.official-documents.gov.uk/document/cm71/7170/7170.pdf > > 8. David Leigh and Rob Evans, 13th October 2003. MoD chief in fraud > cover-up row. The Guardian. > > 9. Sir Kevin Tebbit, 13th October 2003. Hearing Transcript, The Hutton > Enquiry, para 57. > http://www.the-hutton-inquiry.org.uk/content/transcripts/hearing-trans47.htm > > 10. Richard Norton-Taylor and Owen Bowcott, 2nd February 2004. Tebbit's > late change put Blair in clear. The Guardian. > > 11. ibid. > > 12. John Kampfner, 2004. Blair's Wars. pages 350 and 364. Free Press, > London. > > 13. Tony Blair, 31st May 2007. What I've learned. The Economist. > http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9257593 > > > Copyright (c) 2006 Monbiot.com > > http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2008/01/01/the-kings-of-england/ > > > http://www.billtotten.blogspot.com > http://www.ashisuto.co.jp > ly From critical.montages@gmail.com Wed Jan 02 13:26:31 2008 Received: from fg-out-1718.google.com ([72.14.220.156]) by lists.econ.utah.edu with esmtp (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from ) id 1JAAAY-0000U7-WA for a-list@lists.econ.utah.edu; Wed, 02 Jan 2008 13:26:31 -0700 Received: by fg-out-1718.google.com with SMTP id l27so2841328fgb.45 for ; Wed, 02 Jan 2008 12:27:21 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.86.82.16 with SMTP id f16mr14836029fgb.60.1199305641287; Wed, 02 Jan 2008 12:27:21 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.86.95.1 with HTTP; Wed, 2 Jan 2008 12:27:21 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2008 15:27:21 -0500 From: "Yoshie Furuhashi" To: A-List In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=WINDOWS-1252 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Disposition: inline References: Subject: [A-List] =?windows-1252?q?What=92s_Your_Consumption_Factor=3F?= X-BeenThere: a-list@lists.econ.utah.edu X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.9 Precedence: list Reply-To: The A-List List-Id: The A-List List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 02 Jan 2008 20:26:31 -0000 January 2, 2008 Op-Ed Contributor What's Your Consumption Factor? By JARED DIAMOND Los Angeles TO mathematicians, 32 is an interesting number: it's 2 raised to the fifth power, 2 times 2 times 2 times 2 times 2. To economists, 32 is even more special, because it measures the difference in lifestyles between the first world and the developing world. The average rates at which people consume resources like oil and metals, and produce wastes like plastics and greenhouse gases, are about 32 times higher in North America, Western Europe, Japan and Australia than they are in the developing world. That factor of 32 has big consequences. To understand them, consider our concern with world population. Today, there are more than 6.5 billion people, and that number may grow to around 9 billion within this half-century. Several decades ago, many people considered rising population to be the main challenge facing humanity. Now we realize that it matters only insofar as people consume and produce. If most of the world's 6.5 billion people were in cold storage and not metabolizing or consuming, they would create no resource problem. What really matters is total world consumption, the sum of all local consumptions, which is the product of local population times the local per capita consumption rate. The estimated one billion people who live in developed countries have a relative per capita consumption rate of 32. Most of the world's other 5.5 billion people constitute the developing world, with relative per capita consumption rates below 32, mostly down toward 1. The population especially of the developing world is growing, and some people remain fixated on this. They note that populations of countries like Kenya are growing rapidly, and they say that's a big problem. Yes, it is a problem for Kenya's more than 30 million people, but it's not a burden on the whole world, because Kenyans consume so little. (Their relative per capita rate is 1.) A real problem for the world is that each of us 300 million Americans consumes as much as 32 Kenyans. With 10 times the population, the United States consumes 320 times more resources than Kenya does. People in the third world are aware of this difference in per capita consumption, although most of them couldn't specify that it's by a factor of 32. When they believe their chances of catching up to be hopeless, they sometimes get frustrated and angry, and some become terrorists, or tolerate or support terrorists. Since Sept. 11, 2001, it has become clear that the oceans that once protected the United States no longer do so. There will be more terrorist attacks against us and Europe, and perhaps against Japan and Australia, as long as that factorial difference of 32 in consumption rates persists. People who consume little want to enjoy the high-consumption lifestyle. Governments of developing countries make an increase in living standards a primary goal of national policy. And tens of millions of people in the developing world seek the first-world lifestyle on their own, by emigrating, especially to the United States and Western Europe, Japan and Australia. Each such transfer of a person to a high-consumption country raises world consumption rates, even though most immigrants don't succeed immediately in multiplying their consumption by 32. Among the developing countries that are seeking to increase per capita consumption rates at home, China stands out. It has the world's fastest growing economy, and there are 1.3 billion Chinese, four times the United States population. The world is already running out of resources, and it will do so even sooner if China achieves American-level consumption rates. Already, China is competing with us for oil and metals on world markets. Per capita consumption rates in China are still about 11 times below ours, but let's suppose they rise to our level. Let's also make things easy by imagining that nothing else happens to increase world consumption =97 that is, no other country increases its consumption, all national populations (including China's) remain unchanged and immigration ceases. China's catching up alone would roughly double world consumption rates. Oil consumption would increase by 106 percent, for instance, and world metal consumption by 94 percent. If India as well as China were to catch up, world consumption rates would triple. If the whole developing world were suddenly to catch up, world rates would increase elevenfold. It would be as if the world population ballooned to 72 billion people (retaining present consumption rates). Some optimists claim that we could support a world with nine billion people. But I haven't met anyone crazy enough to claim that we could support 72 billion. Yet we often promise developing countries that if they will only adopt good policies =97 for example, institute honest government and a free-market economy =97 they, too, will be able to enjoy a first-world lifestyle. This promise is impossible, a cruel hoax: we are having difficulty supporting a first-world lifestyle even now for only one billion people. We Americans may think of China's growing consumption as a problem. But the Chinese are only reaching for the consumption rate we already have. To tell them not to try would be futile. The only approach that China and other developing countries will accept is to aim to make consumption rates and living standards more equal around the world. But the world doesn't have enough resources to allow for raising China's consumption rates, let alone those of the rest of the world, to our levels. Does this mean we're headed for disaster? No, we could have a stable outcome in which all countries converge on consumption rates considerably below the current highest levels. Americans might object: there is no way we would sacrifice our living standards for the benefit of people in the rest of the world. Nevertheless, whether we get there willingly or not, we shall soon have lower consumption rates, because our present rates are unsustainable. Real sacrifice wouldn't be required, however, because living standards are not tightly coupled to consumption rates. Much American consumption is wasteful and contributes little or nothing to quality of life. For example, per capita oil consumption in Western Europe is about half of ours, yet Western Europe's standard of living is higher by any reasonable criterion, including life expectancy, health, infant mortality, access to medical care, financial security after retirement, vacation time, quality of public schools and support for the arts. Ask yourself whether Americans' wasteful use of gasoline contributes positively to any of those measures. -- Yoshie From critical.montages@gmail.com Wed Jan 02 13:36:55 2008 Received: from mu-out-0910.google.com ([209.85.134.189]) by lists.econ.utah.edu with esmtp (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from ) id 1JAAKd-0000VR-LP for a-list@lists.econ.utah.edu; Wed, 02 Jan 2008 13:36:55 -0700 Received: by mu-out-0910.google.com with SMTP id g7so3759874muf.0 for ; Wed, 02 Jan 2008 12:37:45 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.86.74.15 with SMTP id w15mr14851660fga.9.1199305864916; Wed, 02 Jan 2008 12:31:04 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.86.95.1 with HTTP; Wed, 2 Jan 2008 12:31:04 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2008 15:31:04 -0500 From: "Yoshie Furuhashi" To: A-List In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline References: Subject: [A-List] Oil Hits $100 a Barrel for the First Time X-BeenThere: a-list@lists.econ.utah.edu X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.9 Precedence: list Reply-To: The A-List List-Id: The A-List List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 02 Jan 2008 20:36:56 -0000 January 2, 2008 Oil Hits $100 a Barrel for the First Time By JAD MOUAWAD Oil prices reached the symbolic level of $100 a barrel for the first time on Wednesday, a long-awaited milestone in an era of rapidly escalating energy demand. Crude oil futures for February delivery hit $100 on the New York Mercantile Exchange shortly after noon New York time, before falling back slightly. Oil prices, which had fallen to a low of $50 a barrel at the beginning of 2007, have quadrupled since 2003. Futures settled at $99.62, up $3.64 on the day. The rise in oil prices in recent years has been driven by an unprecedented surge in demand from the United States, China and other Asian and Middle Eastern countries. Booming economies have led to more consumption of oil-derived products like gasoline, jet fuel and diesel. Meanwhile, new oil supplies have struggled to catch up. Oil markets have become increasingly volatile and unpredictable, with large swings in 2007 that analysts attributed partly to financial speculation, not just market fundamentals. Political tensions in the Middle East, where more than two-thirds of the world's proven oil reserves are located, have also fueled the rise in prices. Gasoline has lagged the rise in the price of oil. It stands at a nationwide average of $3.05 a gallon for regular grade, according to AAA, the automobile club. That is below the all-time peak in May of $3.23 a gallon, but it is 73 cents higher than at this time a year ago. Some analysts worry that gasoline could hit $4 a gallon by next spring if oil prices remain at high levels. Oil is now within reach of its historic inflation-adjusted high reached in April 1980 in the aftermath of the Iranian revolution when oil prices jumped to the equivalent of $102.81 a barrel in today's money. Unlike the oil shocks of the 1970s and 1980s, which were caused by sudden interruptions in oil supplies from the Middle East, the latest surge is fundamentally different. Prices have risen steadily over several years because of a rise in demand for oil and gasoline in both developed and developing countries. -- Yoshie From shimogamo@attglobal.net Wed Jan 02 16:49:34 2008 Received: from kcout02.prserv.net ([12.154.55.32]) by lists.econ.utah.edu with esmtp (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from ) id 1JADL3-0000oZ-Qu for a-list@lists.econ.utah.edu; Wed, 02 Jan 2008 16:49:34 -0700 Received: from [192.168.1.13] (p6e4dab.kyotnt01.ap.so-net.ne.jp[218.110.77.171]) by prserv.net (kcout02) with ESMTP id <2008010223501820200r777qe> (Authid: jpinet.totten3); Wed, 2 Jan 2008 23:50:19 +0000 X-Originating-IP: [218.110.77.171] Message-ID: <477C232F.9070806@attglobal.net> Date: Thu, 03 Jan 2008 08:50:07 +0900 From: Bill Totten User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.6 (X11/20071022) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: a-list , ugly New World , World City Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Subject: [A-List] Daughter of the West X-BeenThere: a-list@lists.econ.utah.edu X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.9 Precedence: list Reply-To: The A-List List-Id: The A-List List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 02 Jan 2008 23:49:34 -0000 by Tariq Ali London Review of Books (December 13 2007) Arranged marriages can be a messy business. Designed principally as a means of accumulating wealth, circumventing undesirable flirtations or transcending clandestine love affairs, they often don't work. Where both parties are known to loathe each other, only a rash parent, desensitised by the thought of short-term gain, will continue with the process knowing full well that it will end in misery and possibly violence. That this is equally true in political life became clear in the recent attempt by Washington to tie Benazir Bhutto to Pervez Musharraf. The single, strong parent in this case was a desperate State Department - with John Negroponte as the ghoulish go-between and Gordon Brown as the blushing bridesmaid - fearful that if it did not push this through both parties might soon be too old for recycling. The bride was certainly in a hurry, the groom less so. Brokers from both sides engaged in lengthy negotiations on the size of the dowry. Her broker was and remains Rehman Malik, a former boss of Pakistan's FIA, who has been investigated for corruption by the National Accountability Bureau and who served nearly a year in prison after Benazir's fall, then became one of her business partners and is currently under investigation (with her) by a Spanish court looking into a company called Petroline FZC, which made questionable payments to Iraq under Saddam Hussein. Documents, if genuine, show that she chaired the company. She may have been in a hurry but she did not wish to be seen taking the arm of a uniformed president. He was not prepared to forgive her past. The couple's distaste for each other yielded to a mutual dependence on the United States. Neither party could say 'no', though Musharraf hoped the union could be effected inconspicuously. Fat chance. Both parties made concessions. She agreed that he could take off his uniform after his 're-election' by Parliament, but it had to be before the next general election. (He has now done this, leaving himself dependent on the goodwill of his successor as army chief of staff.) He pushed through a legal ruling - yet another sordid first in the country's history - known as the National Reconciliation Ordinance, which withdrew all cases of corruption pending against politicians accused of looting the national treasury. The ruling was crucial for her since she hoped that the money-laundering and corruption cases pending in three European courts - in Valencia, Geneva and London - would now be dismissed. This doesn't seem to have happened. Many Pakistanis - not just the mutinous and mischievous types who have to be locked up at regular intervals - were repelled, and coverage of 'the deal' in the Pakistan media was universally hostile, except on state television. The 'breakthrough' was loudly trumpeted in the West, however, and a whitewashed Benazir Bhutto was presented on US networks and BBC TV news as the champion of Pakistani democracy - reporters loyally referred to her as 'the former prime minister' rather than the fugitive politician facing corruption charges in several countries. She had returned the favour in advance by expressing sympathy for the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, lunching with the Israeli ambassador to the UN (a litmus test) and pledging to 'wipe out terrorism' in her own country. In 1979 a previous military dictator had bumped off her father with Washington's approval, and perhaps she thought it would be safer to seek permanent shelter underneath the imperial umbrella. HarperCollins had paid her half a million dollars to write a new book. The working title she chose was 'Reconciliation'. As for the general, he had begun his period in office in 1999 by bowing to the spirit of the age and titling himself 'chief executive' rather than 'chief martial law administrator', which had been the norm. Like his predecessors, he promised he would stay in power only for a limited period, pledging in 2003 to resign as army chief of staff in 2004. Like his predecessors, he ignored his pledge. Martial law always begins with the promise of a new order that will sweep away the filth and corruption that marked the old one: in this case it toppled the civilian administrations of Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif. But 'new orders' are not forward movements, more military detours that further weaken the shaky foundations of a country and its institutions. Within a decade the uniformed ruler will be overtaken by a new upheaval. Dreaming of her glory days in the last century, Benazir wanted a large reception on her return. The general was unhappy. The intelligence agencies (as well as her own security advisers) warned her of the dangers. She had declared war on the terrorists and they had threatened to kill her. But she was adamant. She wanted to demonstrate her popularity to the world and to her political rivals, including those inside her own fiefdom, the Pakistan People's Party (PPP). For a whole month before she boarded the Dubai-Karachi flight, the PPP were busy recruiting volunteers from all over the country to welcome her. Up to 200,000 people lined the streets, but it was a far cry from the million who turned up in Lahore in 1986 when a very different Benazir returned to challenge General Zia ul-Haq. The plan had been to move slowly in the Bhuttomobile from Karachi airport to the tomb of the country's founder, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, where she would make a speech. It was not to be. As darkness fell, the bombers struck. Who they were and who sent them remains a mystery. She was unhurt, but 130 people died, including some of the policemen guarding her. The wedding reception had led to mayhem. The general, while promising to collaborate with Benazir, was coolly making arrangements to prolong his own stay at President's House. Even before her arrival he had considered taking drastic action to dodge the obstacles that stood in his way, but his generals (and the US Embassy) seemed unconvinced. The bombing of Benazir's cavalcade reopened the debate. Pakistan, if not exactly the erupting volcano portrayed in the Western media, was being shaken by all sorts of explosions. The legal profession, up in arms at Musharraf's recent dismissal of the chief justice, had won a temporary victory, resulting in a fiercely independent Supreme Court. The independent TV networks continued to broadcast reports that challenged official propaganda. Investigative journalism is never popular with governments and the general often contrasted the deference with which he was treated by the US networks and BBC television with the 'unruly' questioning inflicted on him by local journalists: it 'misled the people'. He had become obsessed with the media coverage of the lawyers' revolt. A decline in his popularity increased the paranoia. His advisers were people he had promoted. Generals who had expressed divergent opinions in 'frank and informal get-togethers' had been retired. His political allies were worried that their opportunities to enrich themselves even further would be curtailed if they had to share power with Benazir. What if the Supreme Court were now to declare his re-election by a dying and unrepresentative assembly illegal? To ward off disaster, the ISI had been preparing blackmail flicks: agents secretly filmed some of the Supreme Court judges in flagrante. But so unpopular had Musharraf become that even the sight of judicial venerables in bed might not have done the trick. It might even have increased their support. (In 1968, when a right-wing, pro-military rag in Lahore published an attack on me, it revealed that I 'had attended sex orgies in a French country house organised by [my] friend, the Jew Cohn-Bendit. All the fifty women in the swimming-pool were Jewish.' Alas, this was totally false, but my parents were amazed at the number of people who congratulated them on my virility.) Musharraf decided that blackmail wasn't worth the risk. Only firm action could 'restore order' - that is, save his skin. The usual treatment in these cases is a declaration of martial law. But what if the country is already being governed by the army chief of staff? The solution is simple. Treble the dose. Organise a coup within a coup. That is what Musharraf decided to do. Washington was informed a few weeks in advance, Downing Street somewhat later. Benazir's patrons in the West told her what was about to happen and she, foolishly for a political leader who has just returned to her country, evacuated to Dubai. On 3 November Musharraf, as chief of the army, suspended the 1973 constitution and imposed a state of emergency: all non-government TV channels were taken off the air, the mobile phone networks were jammed, paramilitary units surrounded the Supreme Court. The chief justice convened an emergency bench of judges, who - heroically - declared the new dispensation 'illegal and unconstitutional'. They were unceremoniously removed and put under house arrest. Pakistan's judges have usually been acquiescent. Those who in the past resisted military leaders were soon bullied out of it, so the decision of this chief justice took the country by surprise and won him great admiration. Global media coverage of Pakistan suggests a country of generals, corrupt politicians and bearded lunatics: the struggle to reinstate the chief justice had presented a different picture. Aitzaz Ahsan, a prominent member of the PPP, minister of the interior in Benazir's first government and currently president of the Bar Association, was arrested and placed in solitary confinement. Several thousand political and civil rights activists were picked up. Imran Khan, a fierce and incorruptible opponent of the regime, was arrested, charged with 'state terrorism' - for which the penalty is death or life imprisonment - and taken in handcuffs to a remote high-security prison. Musharraf, Khan argued, had begun yet another shabby chapter in Pakistan's history. Lawyers were arrested all over the country; many were physically attacked by policemen. Humiliate them was the order, and the police obliged. A lawyer, 'Omar', circulated an account of what happened: While I was standing talking to my colleagues, we saw the police go wild on the orders of a superior officer. In riot gear ... brandishing weapons and sticks, about a hundred policemen attacked us ... and seemed intensely happy at doing so. We all ran. Some of us who were not as nimble on their feet as others were caught by the police and beaten mercilessly. We were then locked in police vans used to transport convicted prisoners. Everyone was stunned at this show of brute force but it did not end. The police went on mayhem inside the court premises and court buildings ... Those of us who were arrested were taken to various police stations and put in lockups. At midnight, we were told that we were being shifted to jail. We could not get bail as our fundamental rights were suspended. Sixty lawyers were put into a police van ten feet by four feet wide and five feet in height. We were squashed like sardines. When the van reached the jail, we were told that we could not get [out] until orders of our detention were received by the jail authorities. Our older colleagues started to suffocate, some fainted, others started to panic because of claustrophobia. The police ignored our screams and refused to open the van doors. Finally, after three hours ... we were let out and taken to mosquito-infected barracks where the food given to us smelled like sewage water. Geo, the largest TV network, had long since located its broadcasting facilities in Dubai. It was a strange sensation watching the network in London when the screens were blank in Pakistan. On the very first day of the emergency I saw Hamid Mir, a journalist loathed by the general, reporting from Islamabad and asserting that the US Embassy had given the green light to the coup because it regarded the chief justice as a nuisance and wrongly believed him to be 'a Taliban sympathiser'. Certainly no US spokesperson or State Department adjunct in the Foreign Office criticised the dismissal of the eight Supreme Court judges or their arrest: that was the quid pro quo for Washington's insistence that Musharraf take off his uniform. If he was going to turn civilian he wanted all the other rules twisted in his favour. A newly appointed stooge Supreme Court would soon help him with the rule-bending. As would the authorities in Dubai, who suspended Geo's facilities. In the evening of that first day, and after several delays, a flustered General Musharraf, his hair badly dyed, appeared on TV, trying to look like the sort of leader who wants it understood that the political crisis is to be discussed with gravity and sangfroid. Instead, he came across as a dumbed down dictator fearful for his own political future. His performance as he broadcast to the nation, first in Urdu and then in English, was incoherent. The gist was simple: he had to act because the Supreme Court had 'so demoralised our state agencies that we can't fight the "war on terror"' and the TV networks had become 'totally irresponsible'. 'I have imposed emergency', he said halfway through his diatribe, adding, with a contemptuous gesture: 'You must have seen it on TV'. Was he being sarcastic, given that most channels had been shut down? Who knows? Mohammed Hanif, the sharp-witted head of the BBC's Urdu Service, which monitored the broadcast, confessed himself flummoxed when he wrote up what he heard. He had no doubt that the Urdu version of the speech was the general's own work. Hanif's deconstruction - he quoted the general in Urdu and in English - deserved a broadcast all of its own: Here are some random things he said. And trust me, these things were said quite randomly. Yes, he did say: 'Extremism bahut extreme ho gaya hai [extremism has become too extreme] ... Nobody is scared of us anymore ... Islamabad is full of extremists ... There is a government within government ... Officials are being asked to the courts ... Officials are being insulted by the judiciary.' At one point he appeared wistful when reminiscing about his first three years in power: 'I had total control'. You were almost tempted to ask: 'What happened then, uncle?' But obviously, uncle didn't need any prompting. He launched into his routine about three stages of democracy. He claimed he was about to launch the third and final phase of democracy (the way he said it, he managed to make it sound like the Final Solution). And just when you thought he was about to make his point, he took an abrupt turn and plunged into a deep pool of self-pity. This involved a long-winded anecdote about how the Supreme Court judges would rather attend a colleague's daughter's wedding than just get it over with and decide that he is a constitutional president ... I have heard some dictators' speeches in my life, but nobody has gone so far as to mention someone's daughter's wedding as a reason for imposing martial law on the country. When for the last few minutes of his speech he addressed his audience in the West in English, I suddenly felt a deep sense of humiliation. This part of his speech was scripted. Sentences began and ended. I felt humiliated that my president not only thinks that we are not evolved enough for things like democracy and human rights, but that we can't even handle proper syntax and grammar. The English-language version put the emphasis on the 'war on terror': Napoleon and Abraham Lincoln, he said, would have done what he did to preserve the 'integrity of their country' - the mention of Lincoln was obviously intended for the US market. In Pakistan's military academies the usual soldier-heroes are Napoleon, De Gaulle and Atatürk. What did Benazir, now outmanoeuvred, make of the speech as she watched it on TV in her Dubai sanctuary? Her first response was to say she was shocked, which was slightly disingenuous. Even if she had not been told in advance that an emergency would be declared, it was hardly a secret - for one thing, Condoleezza Rice had made a token public appeal to Musharraf not to take this course. Yet for more than 24 hours she was unable to give a clear response. At one point she even criticised the chief justice for being too provocative. Agitated phone calls from Pakistan persuaded her to return to Karachi. To put her in her place, the authorities kept her plane waiting on the tarmac. When she finally reached the VIP lounge, her PPP colleagues told her that unless she denounced the emergency there would be a split in the party. Outsmarted and abandoned by Musharraf, she couldn't take the risk of losing key figures in her party. She denounced the emergency and its perpetrator, established contact with the beleaguered opposition, and, as if putting on a new lipstick, declared that she would lead the struggle to get rid of the dictator. She now tried to call on the chief justice to express her sympathy but wasn't allowed near his residence. She could have followed the example of her imprisoned colleague Aitzaz Ahsan, but she was envious of him: he had become far too popular in Pakistan. He'd even had the nerve to go to Washington, where he was politely received by society and inspected as a possible substitute should things go badly wrong. Not a single message had flowed from her Blackberry to congratulate him on his victories in the struggle to reinstate the chief justice. Ahsan had advised her against any deal with Musharraf. When generals are against the wall, he is reported to have told her, they resort to desperate and irrational measures. Others who offered similar advice in gentler language were also batted away. She was the PPP's 'chairperson-for-life' and brooked no dissent. The fact that Ahsan was proved right irritated her even more. Any notion of political morality had long ago been dumped. The very idea of a party with a consistent set of beliefs was regarded as ridiculous and outdated. Ahsan was now safe in prison, far from the madding hordes of Western journalists whom she received in style during the few days she spent under house arrest and afterwards. She made a few polite noises about his imprisonment, but nothing more. The go-between from Washington arrived at very short notice. Negroponte spent some time with Musharraf and spoke to Benazir, still insisting that they make up and go through with the deal. She immediately toned down her criticisms, but the general was scathing and said in public that there was no way she could win the elections scheduled for January. No doubt the ISI are going to rig them in style. Had she remained loyal to him she might have lost public support, but he would have made sure she had a substantial presence in the new parliament. Now everything is up for grabs again. The opinion polls show that her old rival, Nawaz Sharif, is well ahead of her. Musharraf's hasty pilgrimage to Mecca was probably an attempt to secure Saudi mediation in case he has to cut a deal with the Sharif brothers - who have been living in exile in Saudi Arabia - and sideline her completely. Both sides deny that a deal was done, but Sharif returned to Pakistan with Saudi blessings and an armour-plated Cadillac as a special gift from the king. Little doubt that Riyadh would rather him than Benazir. With the country still under a state of emergency and the largest media network refusing to sign the oath of allegiance that would allow them back on air, the polls scheduled for January can only be a general's election. It's hardly a secret that the ISI and the civilian bureaucracy will decide who wins and where, and some of the opposition parties are, wisely, considering a boycott. Nawaz Sharif told the press that in the course of a long telephone call he had failed to persuade Benazir to join it and thereby render the process null and void from the start. But now that he is back in the country it's unclear whether he will still go ahead with the boycott or try and negotiate a certain number of seats with the Chaudhrys of Gujrat, who had betrayed him by setting up a faction of the Pakistan Muslim League, the PML-Q, to support Musharraf. Perhaps a shared bout of amnesia will bring them together again. What will Benazir do now? Washington's leverage in Islamabad is limited, which is why they wanted her to be involved in the first place. 'It's always better', the US ambassador half-joked at a reception, 'to have two phone numbers in a capital'. That may be so, but they cannot guarantee her the prime ministership or even a fair election. In his death-cell, her father mulled over similar problems and came to slightly different conclusions. If I Am Assassinated, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto's last will and testament, was written in semi-Gramsci mode, but the meaning wasn't lost on his colleagues: I entirely agree that the people of Pakistan will not tolerate foreign hegemony. On the basis of the self-same logic, the people of Pakistan would never agree to an internal hegemony. The two hegemonies complement each other. If our people meekly submit to internal hegemony, a priori, they will have to submit to external hegemony. This is so because the strength and power of external hegemony is far greater than that of internal hegemony. If the people are too terrified to resist the weaker force, it is not possible for them to resist the stronger force. The acceptance of or acquiescence in internal hegemony means submission to external hegemony. After he was hanged in April 1979, the text acquired a semi-sacred status among his supporters. But, when in power, Bhutto père had failed to develop any counter-hegemonic strategy or institutions, other than the 1973 constitution drafted by the veteran civil rights lawyer Mahmud Ali Kasuri (whose son Khurshid was until recently the foreign minister). A personality-driven, autocratic style of governance had neutered the spirit of the party, encouraged careerists and finally paved the way for his enemies. He was the victim of a grave injustice; his death removed all the warts and transformed him into a martyr. More than half the country, mainly the poor, mourned his passing. The tragedy led to the PPP being treated as a family heirloom, which was unhealthy for both party and country. It provided the Bhuttos with a vote-bank and large reserves. But the experience of her father's trial and death radicalised and politicised his daughter. She would have preferred, she told me at the time, to be a diplomat. Her two brothers, Murtaza and Shahnawaz, were in London, having been forbidden to return home by their imprisoned father. The burden of trying to save her father's life fell on Benazir and her mother, Nusrat, and the courage they exhibited won them the silent respect of a frightened majority. They refused to cave in to General Zia's military dictatorship, which apart from anything else was invoking Islam to claw back rights won by women in previous decades. Benazir and Nusrat Bhutto were arrested and released several times. Their health began to suffer. Nusrat was allowed to leave the country to seek medical advice in 1982. Benazir was released a little more than a year later thanks, in part, to US pressure orchestrated by her old Harvard friend Peter Galbraith. She later described the period in her memoir, Daughter of the East (1988); it included photo-captions such as: 'Shortly after President Reagan praised the regime for making "great strides towards democracy", Zia's henchmen gunned down peaceful demonstrators marking Pakistan Independence Day. The police were just as brutal to those protesting at the attack on my jeep in January 1987.' Her tiny Barbican flat in London became the centre of opposition to the dictatorship, and it was here that we often discussed a campaign to take on the generals. Benazir had built up her position by steadfastly and peacefully resisting the military and replying to every slander with a cutting retort. Her brothers had been operating on a different level. They set up an armed group, al-Zulfiqar, whose declared aim was to harass and weaken the regime by targeting 'traitors who had collaborated with Zia'. The principal volunteers were recruited inside Pakistan and in 1980 they were provided with a base in Afghanistan, where the pro-Moscow Communists had taken power three years before. It is a sad story with a fair share of factionalism, show-trials, petty rivalries, fantasies of every sort and death for the group's less fortunate members. In March 1981 Murtaza and Shahnawaz Bhutto were placed on the FIA's most wanted list. They had hijacked a Pakistan International airliner soon after it left Karachi (a power cut had paralysed the X-ray machines, enabling the hijackers to take their weapons on board); it was diverted to Kabul. Here Murtaza took over and demanded the release of political prisoners. A young military officer on board the flight was murdered. The plane refuelled and went on to Damascus, where the Syrian spymaster General Kholi took charge and ensured there were no more deaths. The fact that there were American passengers on the plane was a major consideration for the generals and, for that reason alone, the prisoners in Pakistan were released and flown to Tripoli. This was seen as a victory and welcomed as such by the PPP in Pakistan. For the first time the group began to be taken seriously. A key target inside the country was Maulvi Mushtaq Hussain, the chief justice of the High Court in Lahore, who, in 1978, had sentenced Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto to death, and whose behaviour in court had shocked even those who were hostile to the PPP. (Among other charges, he had accused Bhutto of 'pretending to be a Muslim' - his mother was a Hindu convert.) Mushtaq was in a friend's car being driven to his home in Lahore's Model Town area when al-Zulfiqar gunmen opened fire. The judge survived, but his friend and the driver died. The friend was one of the Chaudhrys of Gujrat: Chaudhry Zahoor Elahi, a dodgy businessman who had ostentatiously asked General Zia to make him a present of the 'sacred pen' with which he had signed Bhutto's death warrant. The pen became a family heirloom. Zahoor Elahi may not have been the target but al-Zulfiqar, embarrassed at missing the judge, cl