off the plantation wrote:

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 Interesting quote from above linked article in Newsweek."To new visitors, it (India) won't look pretty. Many Western businessmen go to India expecting it to be the next China. But it never will be that. China's growth is a product of its efficient, all-powerful government. (italics mine OtP) Beijing decides the country needs new airports, eight-lane highways, gleaming industrial parks—and they are built within months. It courts multinationals and provides them with permits and facilities within days. It looks good and, in many ways, it is that good, having produced the most successful case of economic development in human history."

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off the plantation wrote:

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  Indian Quality of Life Indicators, from Wikipedia and various on-line sources   Efforts to irradicate illiteracy have met with little success since India's independence with only 65.1% of its population (53.4% for females and 75.3% of males) being able to read or write.   Almost 70% of its population reside in rural areas. About 70%  of Indians work in agricultural pursuits   Rampant female foeticide exists in rural areas;   However, India's huge population results in a relatively low per capita income of $3,400 at PPP and is classified as a developing nation.   Under 5 mortality rate in 2003 was 87 per thousand; USA rate 6.3 per 1000 births.  Life expectancy is 61, 5 years lower than the world average, 19 years lower than Japan   The 2005 UN Human Development Report estimated that 30 percent of infants across India are of low weight at birth and 47 percent of children under the age of five are underweight. The report stated: “India has been widely heralded as a success story for globalisation. Over the past two decades the country has moved into the premier league of world economic growth; high-technology exports are booming and India’s emerging middle-class consumers have become a magnet for foreign investors.... But overall the evidence suggests that the pick-up in growth has not translated into a commensurate decline in poverty. “More worrying, improvements in child and infant mortality are slowing—and India is now off track for these MDG [Millennium Development Goals] targets. Some of India’s southern cities may be in the midst of a technology boom, but 1 in every 11 Indian children dies in the first five years of life for lack of low-technology, low-cost interventions. Malnutrition, which has barely improved over the past decade, affects half the country’s children. About 1 in 4 girls and more than 1 in 10 boys do not attend primary school.” The latest UNICEF statistics estimate the percentage of people using “adequate sanitation facilities” at 30 percent; that only 43 percent of child births are assisted by a skilled attendant and that the lifetime risk of maternal death is one in 48. Facing desperate circumstances, 14 percent of children aged between 5 and 14 years are compelled to work and 46 percent of children forced into marriage.

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OtP,

You seem to be comparing India today to some ideal standard of perfection.  I am comparing India today to the India I remember from the 1960s, when India did not produce enough food to feed itself.  The trend lines for India are looking pretty good right now, whereas in the 60s it seemed as if India was a hopeless basket case.  I am not arguing that India is Nirvana; I am simply arguing that when India followed a socialist model, it was a wreck, but that in the period since it has begun to adopt market reforms, it has been making rapid improvement, and seems on track to make even further improvement.  The same is true of China (although I would never want to live in China). 

Again: any society will look bad if you compare it to Utopia, but Utopia doesn't exist and never has.  The great temptation of leftists, however, is to judge reality by utopian standards.  That's what Lenin and Mao did, and look what we got.

Angeline, One World Nation, Voter,

I would appreciate YOUR answers, too, the the question I just asked OtP.  Here it is again:

Let me ask you this: can you imagine why any intelligent, fair-minded, conscientious, ethical person would ever be a conservative (or libertarian)?  I can easily imagine why such a person might be a liberal, and I can also imagine why such a person might alternatively choose to be a conservative or libertarian.

Thanks for what I hope will be honest and non-sarcastic answers. 

Lest we forget wrote:

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Angeline, One World Nation, Voter,
I would appreciate YOUR answers, too, the the question I just asked OtP.  Here it is again:
Let me ask you this: can you imagine why any intelligent, fair-minded, conscientious, ethical person would ever be a conservative (or libertarian)?  I can easily imagine why such a person might be a liberal, and I can also imagine why such a person might alternatively choose to be a conservative or libertarian.
Thanks for what I hope will be honest and non-sarcastic answers. 

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Lest we forget wrote:

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off the plantation wrote:  Interesting quote from above linked article in Newsweek."To new visitors, it (India) won't look pretty. Many Western businessmen go to India expecting it to be the next China. But it never will be that. China's growth is a product of its efficient, all-powerful government. (italics mine OtP) Beijing decides the country needs new airports, eight-lane highways, gleaming industrial parks—and they are built within months. It courts multinationals and provides them with permits and facilities within days. It looks good and, in many ways, it is that good, having produced the most successful case of economic development in human history." I noticed that paragraph, too, but of course the price the Chinese people have to pay for the efficiency of their economy is living in a police state"

No, dude, wrong: I was simply pointing out that central planning and economic failure are not necessarily synonymous, as you had insisted in every previous posting where the topic came up. I despise totalitarianism, come from where it may.

However, the Bush administration, just as Clinton before him, defends "most favored nation status" for China every time it comes up. So American conservatives--Clinton's was the most successful conservative presidency ever--must on some level be OK with the Chinese model. My sense of it is that they really kind of envy Chinese totalitarianism: no unions, no worker safety regulations, no environmental regulations, no troublesome free press, and a honking great penal system that's part of the industrial complex. Sounds kind of like the Reagan Revolution to me. Tear down this wall indeed!

The notion that expanding prosperity will lead to pressure for Chinese political reform is undoubtedly comforting to America's pro-Bejing bourgeoisie--but I keep seeing that guy being run down by a tank in Tienamim Square. Wall Street's Bejing buddies don't seem to respond to popular pressure too well, and social justice takes a long, long time to sort itself out if the only imperatives driving it are economic. In China, a long, long time is about 1000 years. And there is no native tradition of democracy there.

True, citizen activism was able to compel Chang Kai Check's (SP) one party authoritarian regime on Taiwan to greater democracy. But this took place in the context of the rise of native Taiwanese to positions of power orginally reserved for Chang's fellow exiles from the mainland. Also, helping Taiwanese democracy along were American aid, trade exceptions and weaponry, at least until 1976, when the Taiwanese formally recognized the PRC, despite Washington's instruction not to. The Taiwanese didn't "choose" those vaunted free trade models, in other words, they had them thrust upon them, along with the soft totalitarian, pro-USA dictatorship of Chang's Nationalist Party. The Taiwanese were able to win through to democracy by forcing reforms within a reluctant one party-ruled system, but only after they rid themselves of Washington influence. This is kind of what happened in South Korea, another US ally and economic success story that only became democratic when the South Koreans finally rid themselves of the succession of USA-supported authoritarian governments that began with the partition in 1949.

India still can't feed itself, by the way.

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LVN wrote:

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Well, you are a ranter, and we've had five pages now of your anger and contempt. I'm curious as to how long you mean to go on. I'm also curious as to whether you have any positive ideas.

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Little Red Pen wrote:

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  If you feel uncomfortable about wearing your religion on your sleeve or you follow the founders of the nation into deism and agnosticism than you are deemed a "liberal." I'm a little unclear about what you mean here, because the sentence isn't parallel, perhaps on purpose. The founders of the United States of America were crystal clear on their stance on God. They founded a country on Christian principles, because that was the foundation for their lives and the reason they fled Europe. The Colonists didn't leave Europe because they were not allowed to practice Buddhism, Hinduism, Agnosticism, or Athiesm. They left Europe to be free to worship the Christian God in the manner they saw fit. Others came here because of that very reason -- the ability to worship as they fit -- but they were worshipping the same God. Religion was intended to be a major thread in the fabric of the U.S., and I'm not sure there's any evidence to the contrary.

The evidence to the contrary is overwhelming - this is what frustrates me so much with today's brand of conservatism - decisions are being made based upon faulty evidence and purposeful delusion.  Take some history courses - read some books - read the papers and writings of the founders (most of which are available online).  Only the Puritans came to America for so-called religious reasons and they did not represent the majority or the norm in the colonial period.  Me suspects that this version of history is being taught in churches and parochial schools but it is not accurate.

Voter wrote:

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My, my, LVN, your little break certainly seems to have rendered you dyspeptic. I thought that, all in all, the children were playing nicely in the sandbox until teacher came out and viewed the mess disapprovingly. I have found this whole thread stimulating and instructive (well, except for dealing with Cossack). I assume your remark was aimed at Plantation? Odd, isn't it, that I have not sensed "anger and contempt" in his posts, rather frustration and a deep desire for change. Sounds pretty American if you ask me. Oh, and filled with "positive ideas," by the way. Guess it's all in eyes of the beholder.

I have been a little astonished by the number of people who seem to want us to leave (I registered your nominal disclaimer--but I think Freud had something to say about that). Now how could we leave, when we have so much fun pi$$ing you people off.

Try to have a nice day!

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Here's a useful article on the steel industry:

http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/1998/05/bookrevs.htm

I have to confess that I'm getting tired of arguing with OtP.  Normally I love to argue (it's one way to learn), but the patronizing tone ("dude" this and "dude" that) is getting old.  Maybe I'll change my mind and try to continue the "discussion," but right now I have better things to do.

Meanwhile, I'd be interested to know which conservative magazines OtP and his colleagues read on a regular basis.  In other words, what honest effort do they make to broaden their own thinking?  I read every issue the Nation, the New Republic, the NYRB, the NYTBR, and Harper's, to mention a few, and I listen regularly to NPR's wonderfully balanced "news" programs.

My guess is that OtP and his colleagues do very little reading or thinking outside of a very narrow band of sources.

By the way, I am very happy that "Raygun" (boy, isn't that sophisticated rhetoric?) broke the PATCO strike by firing workers who had signed a pledge never to go on strike. 

It seems to me that the main value of this thread is that it illustrates (1) that there are leftist extremists in academia (as is commonly charged) but (2) that they have a few opponents and (3) that both the leftists and their opponents on this thread nevertheless agree that SFT must go.  SFT as the source of unity and harmony: what a concept!

PS: Can't resist one respone to OtP's comment about China.  The reason China has begun to prosper is that it is now far less centrally planned than it once was, and also that whatever central planning is occurring is designed to promote capitalism, not stifle it. 

However, the forces set in motion with the 1959 strike were soon to overwhelm the company from several directions. While the damaging strike had cooled the union’s zeal to walk off the job, it had not lessened the USW drive to make its steelworkers the highest paid in the world.

With each new contract, the gap in wage costs between the American steel industry and steelmakers abroad grew wider. In 1973 the big steelmakers virtually assured the industry’s inflexibility in competing by entering into a long-term, no-strike agreement with the union.

The pact was hailed in many places as a breakthrough in labor relations but it only accelerated the distress. The automatic cost-of-living adjustments were devastating as inflation surged during the 1970s. And there were no offsetting productivity increases.

By the time the long-term agreement had run its course in 1982, the average steelworker was earning $26.29 an hour, counting fringes. Further, they were protected by total health care, had the security of supplemental unemployment benefits and one-half of the senior work force enjoyed a bonus of 13week vacations every five years.

Compounding the mounting burden was the company’s policy of adjusting their white-collar workers’ pay whenever the union received raises.

"You got more raises because of the union than you did on merit," one researcher complained. "I don’t know that anyone ever turned them down, but pretty soon you had your hourly people making more than a foreman. It was demoralizing...a hard situation to live with."

http://www.aliciapatterson.org/APF0704/Strohmeyer/Strohmeyer.html

Look I'm signing off this thread too. I've been impressed with the energy with which LWF, Cossack and oldCBA'r have pressed their arguments, even when they were threadbare, which they weren't quite all the time . . .

But you pro-capitalists have to give up your naive idea that capitalism somehow leaped bloodlessly, full formed into history from the forehead of Adam Smith, while Communism was unprecedented in its sanguinary habits. That simply won't wash.

From the moment capitalism got started by summarily forcing entire generations of  European peasants off the commons, sending them to starve to death in the thousands on the roads, capitalism has had a blood thirst every bit as pronounced as Karl Marx's bastard sons in the USSR and PRC. It's just that capitalism had longer to cover up its crimes and got started in a less information-rich environment than Communism. Please don't malign me as a defender of red genocide just because I want to set the record straight. I know it's senseless to ask this, but it was worth a try. Here's the straight record, a kind of Livre Noir du Capitalisme.

Ascendent capitalism built the Atlantic slave trade into the largest human migration in history, the Middle Passage. Millions died in misery en route during the ensuing 300 years. Working conditions in West Indian and South American agriculture were so harsh that slaves died only slightly less quickly than they could be imported. Thus millions more Africans died in the New World because of capitalism's insatiable hunger for the cheapest possible labor.

In Europe and America, that same taste for cheap labor drove children as young 5 and 6 years old into factories, stunted the lives of millions of factory operatives with its 14 and 16 hour days and built cities into monstrous disease-ridden death traps for the poor and working poor. Again, untold millions of working-class and poor people perished young from disease, malnutrition and overwork so that robber baron industrialists could live in bloated, phillistine luxury. The history of the early industrial revolution may not, in absolute numbers, be as bloody and murderous as the black record of Communism, but it certainly was bloody and murderous enough in proportion to the much smaller world population of the 18th and 19th centuries. But the capitalist Livre Noir doesn't stop back then. In fact it becomes a lot more precise in the 20th and 21st centuries.

Called upon to defend industrialists' access to markets in the Far East, the US flag followed the dollar to some pretty impressive slaughter, ever by 20th century standards. The USA murdered 200, 000 Filipinos in the Insurrection of 1901-1904, over the protests of Mark Twain, William James and other unAmerican types; then the USA bombed a million civilians to death in Japan after Japan had the temerity to try to emulate American imperialism in East Asia; then it was North Korea's turn, where about 2 million civilians perished from an American bombing campaign that targeted dams and reservoirs, in clear violation of the Geneva Convention; then about 1.5 million Vietnamese civilians, the majority of them in the South, were killed by indiscriminate US bombing raids, many in populous areas in the Mekong Delta, where the top brass knew they were killing huge numbers of non-combatants. The entire jungle area of South Vietnam was also seeded with Agent Orange, a dioxin-heavy defoliant that continues to cripple and maim people to this day. These were all war crimes.

In the 70's US support of the Indonesian dictator Suharto inspired him to butcher about 500,000 of his own citizens in an anti-Communist purge that was greeted with wild jubilation in Washington DC. Washington support was also forthcoming when East Timor was purged of indpendence fighters a couple of years later, during the regime of Nobel Prize winner Jimmy Carter, to the tune of another 20-30 thousand dead. 

On the banana republic front, US support of the Guatemalan regime's purge of its Indian population in the 80's was responsible for 100,000 deaths, and Reagan's beloved "freedom fighters" in Nicaragua, the Contras, were equally successful, or equally disastrous, depending on which end of the Made in the USA M-16 and 5.56mm bullet you found yourself.

In west Asia, the US enforced embargo on water sanitation materials to Iraq following Gulf War I killed about 500,000 Iraqi children, 1992-1995. Madeline Albright admitted as much in a 60 Minutes interview with Leslie Stahl in '95. She thought that 500,000 dead children "was worth it" presumably to defend the interests of the Saudi and Kuwaiti monarchies. She wasn't clear about that.

Finally, a study in last year's Lancet--maybe the world's most prestigious medical journal--used standard epidemeological cluster models to study the impact of American bombing and shelling on Iraqi civilian mortality rates since the invasion, the findings? Coverted into real numbers, almost 100,000 dead mainly from US air raids, since March 20 2003. That's about 50,000 a year: even Saddam didn't kill 'em that fast.

To get back to our original topic--what to do about al-Qaeda--,it's vital to understand that our national propensity for 20th and 21st century war crimes is a big part of the context in which al-Qaeda found a constituency and came to kill our citizens en masse on 9/11. But the USA was merely refining the European pattern of murdering the poor and powerless that had been first sketched out 300 years earlier by the enclosures and the Middle Passage.

The awful "experiment" of capitalism was not without its dire human cost, in other words, although several posters here seem to think that it was. One way of seeing Islamist terror is to reckon it one of the social forces created by capitalist world domination that could eventually become too powerful for the capitalist social order to endure. If this happens, Karl Marx, will have something of the last laugh after all.

Finally, I can't help but comment that there sure is an awful lot of anti-union sentiment on this AAUP website. Isn't that sort of ironic?

No Quarter!