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April 3, 2005
Another Open One
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The pursuit of happiness thread, underappreciated imho, is now history. However I think it would have been relevant to note in that context, as Cockburn does this weekend, that the kid who shot fellow students and himself on the res — was on Prozac.
Psychiatrists–a breed whose adepts, so stated a study published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry in 1980, commit suicide at twice the national rate–have been central to the entire enterprise. The process linking their sorcery to the corporate bottom line has a robust simplicity to it. As Prozac came off Lilly’s research bench and headed for the mass production line psychiatrists labored to formulate a multitude of bogus pathologies to be installed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, whose chief editor in the 1980s was Robert Spitzer MD, an orgone box veteran and adept copywriter skilled at minting new ailments for late twentieth-century America and sanctioning treatment, medication, state funding for the requisite pills (no expensive consultative therapy) and reimbursement by insurance companies.
When detailed research showed likely linkage of Prozac to violent acts. Lilly-liveried psychiatrists were there to douse the flames of doubt. In 1991 the FDA’s Psychopharmacologic Drugs Advisory Committee met to decide whether Prozac should carry a warning label about links to suicide. Five out of the ten panel members (eight of whom were shrinks) had active financial interests in the drugs the committee was investigating, and all voted against requiring a warning, their obvious conflicts duly sanitized by the toothless FDA. Other shrinks in the hire of the drug companies urged ever wider application of Prozac to remedy social angst, inclcluding plans for compulsory Prozac-dosing of youngsters.
[more] — it’s not long, but packed with both fact and sarcasm.
Hey……………Robert Mugabe must be laughing his ass off in Harare!!!!
Posted by: Friendly Fire | Apr 4 2005 11:12 utc | 3
The US military is planning to win the hearts of young people in the Middle East by publishing a new comic.
“In order to achieve long-term peace and stability in the Middle East, the youth need to be reached,”…
“A series of comic books provides the opportunity for youth to learn lessons, develop role models and improve their education.”
The comic is to be a collaborative effort with the US Army, which says it has already done initial character and plot development.
It will be based on “the security forces, military and police, in the near future in the Middle East” and is being produced by US Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg in North Carolina.
Fort Bragg is home to the army’s 4th Psychological Operations Group, known as “psy-op warriors”, whose weaponry includes radio transmitters, loudspeakers and leaflets.
The unit, whose slogans include Win the Mind – Win the Day and Verbum Vincet (The Word Conquers), is schooled in marketing and advertising techniques.
Posted by: b real | Apr 4 2005 14:37 utc | 4
DeA + b real
so when will they start to hand prozac to the Iraqi youth? Or probably not need, as maybe its Bagdhad where all the Heroin from Afghanistan is going.
Bush will become the first U.S. president in history to attend a pope’s funeral. He also ordered U.S. flags flown at half-mast for almost a full week — from Saturday until Friday night — over federal facilities at home and abroad.
He should be made to read load Coles collection on some of the pope`s opinions
Will be interesting to see how securtiy will be handeled. Will they shut of the Vatikan, like they did the center of town in Germany? Are they going to have combat helicopters circeling like in London, with permission to shoot at the people? Millions of people are being expected for the funeral. And seeing that in today’s elections Berlusconi seems to be loosing, I wonder if he is willing to provide the military and all that stuff needed to provide the expected securitity for Bush. And has Bush been invited? Maybe they will dis-invite him, because he complicates everything – what a great thought!
Posted by: Fran | Apr 4 2005 18:31 utc | 7
B: I clearly remember Riverbend writing about that more than one year ago, stating that the Baghdadis were quickly getting addicted to anti-depressors and other similar drugs, including probably prozac or the local equivalent of it. No need, many families are already hooked and kind of stoned because it’s the only way for them not to become totally insane. I fear things only got worse in the last months.
Fran: What I wondered. Bush is coming, as well as Charles, Bliar, Chirac, Schroeder, Zapatero, Berlusconi of course, Kwasniewsky, Barroso and many others. This will be one of the biggest gathering of heads of state, with the whole Catholic hierarchy and some major representatives of other religions. This will probably be the ultimate security nightmare bar none.
Apparently, Bashar el-Assad and the Lebanese leadership will be there as well. Their meeting with Bush will be fun. I just wish Castro, Chavez, Khatami and Kim il-Sung would go as well 😉
Posted by: CluelessJoe | Apr 4 2005 18:38 utc | 8
Yesterdays NYT: Do Taxes Thwart Growth? Prove It
Despite the widespread notion that taxes harm the economy, no one has actually been able to back that up. It’s not that taxes have no effect; they are a major part of the American economic system and affect planning and behavior in many ways. Taxes influence who wins and who loses in a competitive society. But over all, there is surprisingly little evidence that tax rates are an important factor in determining the nation’s economic prosperity.
…
Joel B. Slemrod of the University of Michigan, would agree. He notes that in the 20th century, a rising tax burden in the United States and other developed countries went hand in hand with rising prosperity.
In the book “Taxing Ourselves: A Citizen’s Guide to the Debate Over Taxes,” Professor Slemrod and Jon Bakija examine the relationship between the marginal income tax rate – the rate imposed on additional income in a progressive tax system – and productivity. After all, if you reduce the rate of taxation on income, people should work harder. But the opposite turned out to be true. Looking at the data from 1950 to 2002, the authors found that periods of strong productivity growth actually occurred when the top tax rates were the highest. And they showed that, on average, high-tax countries are the most affluent countries.
That is not to suggest that high tax rates lead to growth. No economist will make that case, although many will say that some things financed by taxes, like education, research, health and infrastructure projects, can contribute to growth. But it does call into question why, if taxes are so bad for growth, their effect doesn’t show up more prominently.
…
One important area of economic activity that does seem fairly responsive to tax rates is business investment. Some of that responsiveness may have more to do with changes in the timing of decisions than in shifts in the level of investment over the long haul. Consider the recent accelerated depreciation allowance. Economists noted a short-term uptick in spending in affected categories, but companies will ultimately need to see an increase in customer demand to continue investing.
In the case of individual savings and work, economists are closer to a consensus. After study of the tax cuts of the Reagan years, most economists agree that taxes don’t play a big part in how hard Americans work. While the study of savings is less precise, large effects from tax incentives haven’t been measured.
That’s worth recalling when considering proposals like a flat tax or a consumption tax. With so much energy focused on minimizing rates, it’s important to keep in mind that taxes are not antithetical to prosperity. None of this should suggest that change is unnecessary. Current tax laws have real problems, including unreasonable complexity.
But reform based on a notion that taxes are bad for the economy is just that: a notion not backed by strong evidence. And the costs of ignoring experience in favor of hope can be high: mounting deficits, decaying infrastructure, inadequate investment in public education and research.
So the next time that some proponent of tax reform promises king-size economic benefits, there’s reason to be skeptical. Like a second marriage, a new tax system can’t work miracles.
Agreed
I’ve been trying to understand these econ threads, and am no expert, but what strikes me is the assumption of the U.S. as a kind of vortex of power sustained by the unhappy accommodation of peripheral capitalist countries; as if Europe and the other imperialist countries are reluctant partners to the at-all-costs sustenance of a U.S. hegemon.
Isn’t it still more preferable to understand these relationships as those always favoring a global capitalist class? When considered as social relations peculiar in this way to global elites, the global capitalist economy more easily becomes the object of a leftist critique focusing on the core contradictions of imperialist exploitation. The primary contradiction in this economic order is the simultaneous preservation of flexible dollar policy needed to stimulate domestic expenditure and militarization and maintenance of a stable dollar necessary for the payment of accounts between nations. Since the late 60s, this contradiction has produced overproduction. Averting this constant problem of underconsumption has been barely accomplished by deficit spending (Keynsian demand-side stimulus) resulting in permanent inflation. Clearing accounts would require deflation/depression, a “solution” unacceptable to no one, or the continuation of deficits and periodic devaluations of the dollar. Unsurprisingly, elites choose the latter two remedies because permanent inflation transfers the costs of the deficit onto consumers. Devaluations, on the other hand, increase American exports and domestic productivity, yet domestic dependencies on non-substitutable imports harm workers because price increases are not offset by higher wages—a problem only exacerbated by declining labor unionization. This has been the (albeit counterintuitive) results of previous dollar devaluations.
As I understand the problem, judged from the advantage of this prescient leftist analysis, the core contradictions are inherent to the “anarchy of production” in capitalism and grotesquely inequitable resource distribution totally dependent on the creation of material scarcity. So, the world economic crisis is not so much the failure of U.S. economic management, but the ongoing contradictions of accumulation driving a chronic global crisis of distribution.
Viewed in this way, the analysis of the present problems should include the too-obvious “solutions” offered by the capitalist class–a class which is now populated by bifocaled Chinese bureaucrats and Russian postmodern commissars. As quickly as you can say mutatis mutandis, the solution will be to shift the burdens of “recovery” onto workers everywhere. This includes devaluation/inflation which will hurt Europeans and Chinese and other consumers.
And in the long run, there is no solution to this contradiction-not devaluation of the dollar nor return to the gold standard nor the creation of an “international money.” The only solution is abolition of the capitalist mode of production itself.—Ernest Mandel
So, have I got this shit right?
Posted by: slothrop | Apr 4 2005 20:23 utc | 10
slothrop – how many among us are not part of the global capitalist class? I know I am part of it, “France d’en haut” and all that, for those of you that have followed that silly French debate.
Posted by: Jérôme | Apr 4 2005 22:49 utc | 11
Police get domestic disturbance call, show up at wrong house, Taser householder
Police get domestic disturbance call, show up at right house, Taser man to death
Posted by: Nugget | Apr 5 2005 2:01 utc | 12
Jérôme
thanks for reading my post. Everyone else seems obsessed about the lifeworks of jean paul. wish it was Sartre and not the pope.
Anyway, in my schoolmarmish way, I was trying to emphasize the need to analyze the present econ crisis in terms of the “inherent contradictions” of capital, and not so much as the U.S. as a bad actor in the global capitalist system. Although, the latter is true–one example is the idiocy of politicians who demand taxcuts during times of surpluses. This strategy is the reverse of Keynesian stimulus.
Anyhow, I was interested in provoking discussion about the classic leftist critique and weather the critique is true, because, although I’m no expert, it seems to be.
Moon of Alabama=the dead pope channel.
Posted by: slothrop | Apr 5 2005 2:46 utc | 13
cher comrade slothrop, am not ignoring your post, have been mulling it over. the result of my mulling so far is only this: is it perhaps inevitable that capitalism in a global context will produce a hegemon, just as in a national context it produces monopoly and cronyism? in other words is the US’ hegemonic (tottering) stature an historic coincidence, result of its relatively low pop and rich natural resources, strategic outcome of WWII and the rest — or is it a structural inevitability given its historical relationship with prior industrial hegemon Great Britan, yada yada?
this is as yet an uncooked train of thought so beware of bacterial infection.
Re: economic hegemony, it seems that it’s evolving and passing from the nation state to the multinationals, and they aren’t going to be thinking of the ‘national interest’ as much as their own. No real change there then.
Trading places
….There were 7,258 multinational companies worldwide in 1969. Thirty-one years later, in 2000, the number had increased ninefold to more than 63,000. By that year, multinationals accounted for 80 percent of the world’s industrial production.
But what is a multinational? Most Americans would answer: a big American manufacturer with foreign subsidiaries. That is wrong in almost every particular.
American-based multinationals are only a fraction–and a diminishing one–of all multinationals. Only 185 of the world’s 500 largest multinationals–fewer than 40 percent–are headquartered in the United States (the European Union has 126, Japan 108). And multinationals are growing much faster outside the United States, especially in Japan, Mexico, and lately, Brazil….
Posted by: Nugget | Apr 5 2005 3:06 utc | 16
@slothrop, this from Peter Gowan may be relevant (part 1) … and part 2 here.
I have not read it yet, but it looks interesting. Abstract: This article situates the Bush administration’s new strategy in the historical context of the international capitalist order established by the United States at the end of the 1940s and argues that this order, though extraordinarily successful for some decades, is now in crisis. The unique capitalist international community that the United States established under its primacy revived international capitalism while preventing geopolitical rivalries between the main capitalist centers. The leading sectors of U.S. business have become dependent on the preservation of the unipolar primacy order for its own economic security and expansion while the American domestic political economy has failed to revive as an industrial economy meeting the rules of international economics, exhibiting growing problems with current account deficits and rising levels of debt. To manage the resulting tensions between the orientation of American transnational sectors and problems in the domestic American political economy, the United States has developed an international monetary and financial regime that is destabilizing and dependent upon the preservation of American political primacy over the capitalist world. But the Soviet collapse has destabilized the primacy system, while the dominant sections of American capitalism are committed to rebuilding it. The Bush administration is seeking to rebuild U.S. primacy, using U.S. military dominance. But this carries very high risks.
Meteor Blades used to post frequently at the Whiskey Bar, and apparently posted on dKos back when Billmon was there too.
I didn’t know he was a long-time kossack until Jerome sent me over there. I was happy to see his posts again.
His family was in a car accident and, as far as I know, they are still in the hospital. There is a thread at dKos to post encouragement and prayers for his family.
Posted by: fauxreal | Apr 5 2005 4:21 utc | 18
Interesting development in Argentina: Bringing Business Back Ashore – Buenos Aires issues world’s first ban on offshore shell companies
Posted by: Fran | Apr 5 2005 4:34 utc | 19
Anyone need a vacation, perhaps??
Why you could Tour London in the Company of none other than David Horowitz AND Christopher Hitchens!!! Martinis not included
Looks like Chris has many new friends these days!
Posted by: jj | Apr 5 2005 7:53 utc | 20
From Turkey, it’s the middle of the thirteenth century, or thereabouts…
A THIRSTY FISH
I don’t get tired of you. Don’t grow weary
of being compassionate toward me!
All this thirst equipment
must surely be tired of me
the waterjar, the water carrier.
I have a thirsty fish in me
that can never find enough
of what it is thirsty for!
Show me the way to the ocean!
Break these half measures
These small containers,
All this fantasy
and grief.
let my house be drowned in the wave
that rose last night out of the courtyard
hidden in the centre of my chest.
Joseph fell like the moon into my well.
The harvest I expected was washed away.
But no matter.
A fire has risen above my tombstone hat.
I don’t want learning, or dignity
or respectability.
I want this music and this dawn
and the warmth of your cheek against mine.
The grief-armies assemble,
but I’m not going with them.
This is how it always is
when I finish a poem
A great silence overcomes me
and I wonder why I ever thought
to use language.
————–
Jelaluddin Balkhi (Rumi)
(I just read that he is “now one of the most widely read poets in America”, though how they worked that out…
One detail I particularly like is that tombstone hat.
Posted by: rigging | Apr 5 2005 10:09 utc | 21
Abu Ghraib was no anomaly
so concludes a BBC report on torture in US prisons.
Another prisoner has a broken ankle. He can’t crawl fast enough so a guard jabs a stun gun onto his buttocks. The jolt of electricity zaps through his naked flesh and genitals. For hours afterwards his whole body shakes.
Lines of men are now slithering across the floor of the cellblock while the guards stand over them shouting, prodding and kicking.
Second by second, their humiliation is captured on a video camera by one of the guards.
The images of abuse and brutality he records are horrifyingly familiar. These were exactly the kind of pictures from inside Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad that shocked the world this time last year.
And they are similar, too, to the images of brutality against Iraqi prisoners that this week led to the conviction of three British soldiers.
But there is a difference. These prisoners are not caught up in a war zone. They are Americans, and the video comes from inside a prison in Texas
They are just some of the victims of wholesale torture taking place inside the U.S. prison system that we uncovered during a four-month investigation for Channel 4 that will be broadcast next week.
Our findings were not based on rumour or suspicion. They were based on solid evidence, chiefly videotapes that we collected from all over the U.S. […]
and on a brighter and more trivial note: Americans, want to find a non-corporate cuppa Joe?
there was a big deal back in 1997 where overflow missouri prisoners shipped to texas prisons were subjected to a bit of the same. might as well throw this link too as a late night bonus.
Posted by: b real | Apr 6 2005 3:10 utc | 25
NYT :Political groups paid two relatives of House leader
The wife and daughter of Tom DeLay, the House majority leader, have been paid more than $500,000 since 2001 by Mr. DeLay’s political action and campaign committees, according to a detailed review of disclosure statements filed with the Federal Election Commission and separate fund-raising records in Mr. DeLay’s home state, Texas.
Most of the payments to his wife, Christine A. DeLay, and his only child, Dani DeLay Ferro, were described in the disclosure forms as “fund-raising fees,” “campaign management” or “payroll,” with no additional details about how they earned the money. The payments appear to reflect what Mr. DeLay’s aides say is the central role played by the majority leader’s wife and daughter in his political career….
…His spokesman said that Mr. DeLay had no additional comment. Although several members of Congress employ family members as campaign managers or on their political action committees, advocacy groups seeking an overhaul of federal campaign-finance and ethics laws say that the payments to Mr. DeLay’s family members were unusually generous, and should be the focus of new scrutiny of the Texas congressman….
…In recent weeks, public interest groups have called on the House ethics committee and the Justice Department to review lavish, privately financed overseas trips for Mr. DeLay and his aides, including a 1997 trip to Russia that was underwritten by a conservative education group closely linked to a powerful Republican lobbyist who often boasted of his influence with the majority leader….
The payments to Mr. DeLay’s family have continued into 2005; the latest monthly disclosure filed by Americans for a Republican Majority shows Mrs. DeLay was paid was paid $4,028 last month, while Mrs. Ferro received $3,681. Earlier statements show that the two women received similar monthly fees from the political action committee throughout 2003 and 2004……
WaPo : A 3rd DeLay travel controversy: 1997 Russia visit reportedly backed by business interests
A six-day trip to Moscow in 1997 by then-House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) was underwritten by business interests lobbying in support of the Russian government, according to four people with firsthand knowledge of the trip arrangements.
DeLay reported that the trip was sponsored by a Washington-based nonprofit organization. But interviews with those involved in planning DeLay’s trip say the expenses were covered by a mysterious company registered in the Bahamas that also paid for an intensive $440,000 lobbying campaign…..
Posted by: Nugget | Apr 6 2005 3:50 utc | 26
Changes to be made to ‘No Child left behind’ law : some children may now be left behind
Posted by: Nugget | Apr 6 2005 4:05 utc | 27
…After study of the tax cuts of the Reagan years, most economists agree that taxes don’t play a big part in how hard Americans work. While the study of savings is less precise, large effects from tax incentives haven’t been measured….
Only if you are studying the work patterns of male Americans! Female Americans have been induced by higher marginal income tax rates to permanently leave the paid workforce ever since Congress invented the ‘secondary earner’ taxpayer category in 1948. Can’t have too many “Rosie-the- Riveter”s – so we don’t!
The elasticity of demand for work as impacted by the income tax rate is very different for male workers than for female workers. [Source: the book Taxing Women by economics professor Edward J McCaffery.]
Posted by: gylangirl | Apr 6 2005 5:01 utc | 28
As a matter of fact, you could use this inelasticity… to artificially reduce the unemployment rate. Just marginalize half the nation’s able working adults by taxing them so much that they quit their jobs voluntarily; you could make them economically dependent on another worker and thereby reduce their proportional representation in industry and government so that their views/ideas/opinions/values are not the dominant feature of public or corporate policy; you could neutralize the far left by economically marginalizing this potential source of power….
Oh, wait.
Posted by: gylangirl | Apr 6 2005 5:15 utc | 29
But it is ok. for the US to sell F-16’s to Pakistan!
US warns EU against lifting China arms ban
I especially liked this paragraph. Is Bush now planing to invade China?
If there ever were a point where there were some conflict or danger, and European equipment helped kill American men and women in conflict, that would not be good for the relationship. It’s better to identify that now.”
Posted by: Fran | Apr 6 2005 5:24 utc | 30
Female Americans have been induced by higher marginal income tax rates to permanently leave the paid workforce ever since Congress invented the ‘secondary earner’ taxpayer category in 1948. Can’t have too many “Rosie-the- Riveter”s – so we don’t!
The elasticity of demand for work as impacted by the income tax rate is very different for male workers than for female workers
…this, of course, assumes females have a choice of whether to work or not, which would assume another salary earner in a family…and this is not always the case…and therefore, it is not a male assumption about work, but an assumption about a primary breadwinner.
but this is, instead, a middle-class female tax circumstance that does not apply to all females, and has, traditionally really, really not applied to women of color.
But Iif I remember correctly, the “secondary earner” issue was part of a larger push to drive females out of the workforce after WWII so that returning GIs would have jobs. (again, this didn’t apply to people who were often limited to jobs as domestics, of course.)
The govt propaganda underwent a huge change as well, so that Rosie died after June hacked her to death with a Cleaver and buried her in an unmarked grave.
Posted by: fauxreal | Apr 6 2005 5:24 utc | 31
@fauxreal,
Indeed, McCaffery’s book details how the secondary earner gender discrimination policy affects different classes. At the lower income level, employed women eschew marriage altogether. At the middle income level employed married women either work fulltime or not at all – doesn’t pay to work part-time, which is what most married women with kids would prefer to do at least temporarily. At the upper income level, married women abandon all hope of earning their living through paid employment. Forced domesticity for the highly educated, potential corporate leaders and policy makers: Mission accomplished.
As to your flip point that only married women who “choose” whther or not to work are targeted: married men don’t face this discrimination. So in America, only men can have both a family and a career. Falling in love? That’s a career killer and poverty risk if you’re female. But, with exceptions, it is still the social norm for both men and women to fall in love, marry, raise kids. Setting only women up to choose between economic security and family ties is unjust. It is not a valid “choice”.
Posted by: gylangirl | Apr 6 2005 6:20 utc | 32
I should add that there are few instances where a husband may be the secondary earner forced out of the paid workforce.
Posted by: gylangirl | Apr 6 2005 6:25 utc | 33
It’s probably below the threshhold of reportable news in the U.S. but the two incidents
of casual homicide in Iraq
reported here
merit attention.
Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Apr 6 2005 7:05 utc | 34
In religious terms, according to teenagers, God cares that each teenager is happy and that each teenager has high self-esteem. Morality has nothing to do with authority, mutual obligations, or sacrifice. In a sense, God wants little more for us than to be good, happy capitalists. Smith and Denton elaborate: “Therapeutic individualism’s ethos perfectly serves the needs and interests of U.S. mass-consumer capitalist economy by constituting people as self-fulfillment-oriented consumers subject to advertising’s influence on their subjective feelings.” And to be good, happy capitalists, we should be good, unless if being good prevents us from being happy.
old cop, young cop feel alright
on a warm San Franciscan night
the children are cool
they dont raise fools
Posted by: anna missed | Apr 6 2005 7:56 utc | 36
Posted by: rigging | April 5, 2005 06:09 AM
“One detail I particularly like is that tombstone hat.”
The head stones are mostly arabic – many have a shell or flower shape on top for a female burial – while a turban or fez shape is for male.
I remembered seeing these once in a photo but danged if I can find one now…
Posted by: beq | Apr 6 2005 14:27 utc | 40
Deanander
Thanks for the links to stangoff, though couldn’t find part 2 of the article.
Nugget’s observation of the composition of global capital suggests the great importance of circumscribing the analysis of the “movement” of capital to the ways in which intercapitalist, rather than international, competition benefits global elites.
Why did I raise this issue? Because the tendency here is often to condemn the predisposition of nations and presumed homogeneity of culture(s) as the cause of what I insist (as underweening specter of Marx here) are the “internal contradictions” of capitalist exploitation. First of all, the claim the U.S. is peculiarly blameworthy for imperialism, resource depletion, etc. risks polluting the analysis with carefree xenophobia and outright chauvanism targeting “Americans.” Second, the logic of this condemnation reinforces the left’s compromise with capital that, were it not for shortsighted and venal American capitalists, capitalism would do a good job allocating resources. Bullshit. With all due respect to my comrades here, I believe the first problem has become a whole way of life for rememberinggiap, and the second problem is usually reproduced by Jérôme.
Of course, the U.S. is the big mirror in which the great contradictions of capitalism can be seen most clearly. I agree hegemony is “inevitable”–this is, after all, the purpose of intercapitalist competition. Yet, we should not for a moment believe such hegemony strategically serves the class interests of a global elite.
BTW. I wouldn’t name names unless the value of those names are great to me.
Posted by: slothrop | Apr 6 2005 15:22 utc | 41
et, we should not for a moment believe such hegemony does not strategically serve the class interests of a global elite.
Posted by: slothrop | Apr 6 2005 15:24 utc | 42
BTW. I wouldn’t name names unless the value of those names is great to me.
yeah, yeah. preview, and lower morning doses of amyl nitrate.
Posted by: slothrop | Apr 6 2005 15:40 utc | 43
16 dead as U.S. military helicopter goes down in Afghanistan
Posted by: Nugget | Apr 6 2005 17:17 utc | 44
At the upper income level, married women abandon all hope of earning their living through paid employment. Forced domesticity for the highly educated, potential corporate leaders and policy makers: Mission accomplished.
-I don’t know what qualifies as upper income level, but it seems, based upon incidental things that I’ve read (so it may just be perception) …anyway, it seems that upper income females have dealt with the problem of “forced domesticity” by hiring nannies.
Maybe upper income women need to be liberated by having their family income taxed at a progressive rate, and have that money go toward good childcare and schools for the children of poor women, and maybe we need an estate tax that doesn’t accumulate wealth in a small portion of a population that did nothing to earn it except be born to rich parents…
I really find it hard to be concerned about “forced domesticity” for rich women when there are women who have to feed their children from church and community kitchens, or when schools, as well, are class segregated by the abilities of parents to contribute to fundraisers, and those same wealthy parents don’t want to distribute funds to poorer schools.
Let those victimized rich women face the sort of stress that the poor face in this country, and maybe then I’d give a damn about their “forced domesticity.”
And this issue of “forced domesticity” is itself a class issue when women working in shit jobs would like nothing so much as to be able to be with their children and not have to work two jobs to pay the rent.
It’s also an erroneous assumption that only rich women are highly educated and potential leaders…not simply because I know a lot of stupid rich women and smart poor women… we all know that there is no statistical correlation between IQ and material success…
As to your flip point that only married women who “choose” whther or not to work are targeted: married men don’t face this discrimination. So in America, only men can have both a family and a career. Falling in love? That’s a career killer and poverty risk if you’re female. But, with exceptions, it is still the social norm for both men and women to fall in love, marry, raise kids. Setting only women up to choose between economic security and family ties is unjust. It is not a valid “choice”.
My point was not flip at all. You take the pov that I was talking about middle-class females. My point was about females who do not have the “luxury” to worry about whether or not it is profitable to work. There is nothing flip about it.
Historically, this has been a criticism of feminism in America, that it focused too much on middle and upper class (white) females, and it, like the rest of the culture, was too traditionally male-identified when considering what is of value.
Men can choose to be part-time workers and stay-at-home parents. However, since our culture does not value such actions, most men do not choose this option….and, of course, they do not value those actions because they are “female identified.” Many women do not want to give up the traditional source of their power as “the parent” who can nurture a child, too, especially if they are denied power in any other sphere.
And believe me, I know very well about the trap for females.
The problem is systemic. In a culture that doesn’t give a shit about its citizens, most especially its children, as evidenced by no universal health care, no decent childcare system that is not based upon wealth, with so little money for schools, so little respect for education or intellectual pursuits…a culture that values shareholders who do nothing to produce wealth over the workers who actually make (whatever country they live in) a product…
In a culture that is based upon a religious tradition grounded in hatred and fear of females (the orthodox prayer “thank you, god, that I was not born a woman” is a real giveaway)…
believe me, my comment was not flip.
Posted by: fauxreal | Apr 7 2005 4:16 utc | 45
@fauxreal.
Ah. There’s a presumption in your response that no wealthy woman would ever use her improved position to help other women/children less fortunate than herself. Now that’s even more flip.
The culture your so abhor is a patriarchal one. The patriarchal culture supresses the positive feminine values such as peace, sharing of wealth, care of children, elderly, poor and sick…. by dividing and conquering women by class.
All women are oppressed regardless of class. Even wealthy women who are completely financially dependent on a spouse are just a younger model away from the financial insecurity that comes with divorce and having abandoned a career. The divorce rate is over 50%. The family law and court procedures that favor the wealthier spouse were written by men and are still largely adjudicated by men in favor of men. Frankly if more women, including those in the upper classes, were more free to enter and lead in the public domain, you’d see better public policies for women and kids across the board.
Posted by: gylangirl | Apr 8 2005 2:46 utc | 46
More on the women’s issues, seems still to be a boys only club.
$29m payout for woman belittled and excluded by Wall Street boss –
Award against UBS is the latest in string of sexual bias cases against big finance firms
When Laura Zubulake’s male colleagues on Wall Street wanted to strike deals with clients they headed to the golf course, the baseball stadium and, inevitably, the strip club.
Amid the machismo, Ms Zubulake, 44, never got a look in. Her lawyers claimed that a male executive at the bank told her she was old and ugly and could not do the job. After making a complaint, she was fired.
…
The most notorious case of sex discrimination on Wall Street was brought against the firm Smith Barney in 1996, which detailed the existence of drinking parties for mainly male brokers in the firm’s basement called the “boom-boom room”, where a toilet bowl hung from the ceiling.
…
Posted by: Fran | Apr 8 2005 4:13 utc | 47
Another one on women’s equality issues – but this one sounds good to me, that is if it works. But I guess it is a good step in the right direction. And interesting how Spain seems to move in the opposite direction of the US, which seems to be heading to copy the dark ages of Spain.
Blow to machismo as Spain forces men to do housework
Spanish men will have to learn to change nappies and don washing-up gloves under the terms of a new law designed to strike a blow at centuries of Latin machismo.
The law, due to be passed this month, is likely to provoke a revolution in family affairs in a country where 40% of men reportedly do no housework at all. It will oblige men to “share domestic responsibilities and the care and attention” of children and elderly family members, according to the draft approved by the Spanish parliament’s justice commission.
This will become part of the marriage contract at civil wedding ceremonies later this year.
Posted by: Fran | Apr 8 2005 4:40 utc | 48
The patriarchal culture supresses the positive feminine values such as peace, sharing of wealth, care of children, elderly, poor and sick…. by dividing and conquering women by class.
again, I take issue with the idea that peace, sharing, caring are qualities that are innate to females, and, thus, not innate in males.
males are also oppressed when these qualities are forbidden for them to express.
look, we’re not really on opposite sides of this issue.
I just take exception to many of your assumptions. I do not think that all females are paragons of social democracy.
recent work has revealed the sadism in female prison guards in the Nazi camps, too..it wasn’t just a male phenomena. was that patriarchy, or the capacity for females, as well as males, to hate based upon race or religion?
And again, I know first hand (except it’s not the right details) about females who are fucked, and not in a good way, when they sacrifice personal goals for family.
Nevertheless, there are females who have so many more problems because they are in poverty. This is a basic issue. “food first. then morality.” (or forced domesticity)
And if you want to argue about women being divided by class…that’s also an issue for males in this country. And race, just like gender, is used to divide classes, as well. but the benefits accrued to each of these categories can be ameliorated by solidarity across gender and race…but only if you first acknowledge “food first. then morality.”
so maybe what you call patriarchy is what I call corporate crony capitalism.
or maybe it’s an issue of hierarchy of needs, and you can’t expect women who are in desperate situations to really care if a rich women is fulfilled by shopping or a job…reductionist, I know, but can’t you see what I’m trying to say about the elistist position of wealthy women that alienates the poor?
Like the wives of plantation owners who benefited from their class/race position and supported the ideas that made slavery possible, rich women, rather than poor ones, have the responsibility toward their sisters in poverty.
And, no, I do not believe that these white women were just as exploited as slaves, and to say that they were seems to deny the reality of slavery. Yes, they were exploited, but they also benefited from the system and, as far as I know, southern plantation wives were not on the front lines of the abolitionist movement.
to say that, “oh, if only females could be the capitalists, then all would be well” sounds like pie-in-the-sky to me. Females can be just as nasty and brutish as males.
in other words, I think that “patriarchy” as an explanation is not inclusive enough, and sentimentalizes females in a totally unrealistic way.
…if only Marie Antoinette had not lived in a patriarchal society, she wouldn’t have told the starving french to eat the burnt remains in the bread ovens… sorry, I do not believe it.
I do not deny prejudice against women. but re-read Barbara Ehrenrich to get where I’m coming from.
Posted by: fauxreal | Apr 8 2005 5:47 utc | 49
gg:
The patriarchal culture supresses the positive feminine values such as peace, sharing of wealth, care of children, elderly, poor and sick
fauxreal:
males are also oppressed when these qualities are forbidden for them to express.
…
so maybe what you call patriarchy is what I call corporate crony capitalism.
That values, tasks and essentially everything are divided into masculine and feminine, and those in the masculine cathegory valued as more important than those in the feminine cathegory is of course essential to the construction of patriarchy. Which values and tasks that end up in which cathegory differs between societies. In the old Sami culture of northern Sweden cooking was a high-status male task.
Looking at which values that are listed as feminine, this looks to me like a corporate crony capitalism patriarchy.
Meanwhile in Sweden (I already posted this on an other thread but it fits better here), a feminist party was started last tuesday and todays polls give them 7% in next years national election. And this is before they even have formulated a comprehensive program or started their campaign. Sweden having a proportional election system and fairly even balance between the powerblocs, a party with 7% of the votes and therefore 7% of the seats can be pretty powerful. And as I see it 7% is probably their core, so there is probably no way to go but up.
Posted by: A swedish kind of death | Apr 8 2005 10:08 utc | 50
In the old Sami culture of northern Sweden cooking was a high-status male task.
How many top chefs are female?
@SKOD – have you found a job yet? It seems that since last Tuesday – at least 14% of Swedish females have too much time on their hands. A ‘feminist party’? How absurd.
Posted by: TEST | Apr 8 2005 14:11 utc | 51
from What Really Happened. April 08, 2005 …
We got it wrong on Iraq WMD, intelligence chiefs finally admit
Posted Apr 8, 2005 07:08 AM PST
The word is “Lied”. The people who claimed Iraq was a threat to the United States justifying invasion LIED.
Yes, that is the word. “LIED.”
LIED. LIED. LIED. LIED. LIED. LIED. LIED. LIED. LIED. LIED. LIED. LIED. LIED. LIED. LIED. LIED. LIED. LIED. LIED. LIED. LIED. LIED. LIED.
LIED.
Deal with it.
This should be enough to impeach Bush and hang Blair. The fact is that this just ain’t gonna happen, and that noone has the guts to do anything.
The wet dreams of a bunch of loonies is the new reality. Time to stop believing in this fantasy that things will return to “normal”.
I need to find something to smoke.
Posted by: DM | Apr 8 2005 14:49 utc | 53
A ‘feminist party’? How absurd.
O absolutely. What will these ladies of leisure think of next? First every parlourmaid wants to learn to read and write — however little good it may do her. Then her wealthier sisters demand [cries of Nonsense! and What Rot!] — demand, I say, in the most unladylike fashion, to attend our Universities! [cries of Shame!] Yet we have it on good authority that education is harmful for females.
As Dr. Edward H. Clarke said in his widely read tract called Sex in Education, or a Fair Chance for the Girls, the female system is not able to do two things well at once. He subscribed to a popular belief that the body was like a miniature economy and that various parts of the body were competing for a limited pool of resources. When a woman studied, he explained, blood would be diverted to her brain, robbing essential organs of a precious life force. The organ that was in direct competition with the brain, of course, was the uterus. Clarke’s book, which was so popular it had to be reprinted 17 times, warned that higher education would cause a woman’s uterus to atrophy.”
Once having invaded the Universities, this monstrous regiment of unnatural females — criminally careless of reputation and reproductive potential alike — even proposes to read and specialise in subjects such as the Maths and Sciences. [Laughter] Yes, gentlemen, the Sciences! though we all know the ladies — bless ’em — are biologically unsuited for such masculine endeavours. The distinguished Professor Summers, whom it will be my honour and privilege to introduce to you shortly, will explain scientifically and exactly why this is so. [cries of Hear, Hear! and Stout Fellow Larry!]
And now, a Political Party! Whatever next? Any day now these “Feminists” will be expecting to own their own property, go into business independently, or even run for electoral office [scattered booing and hissing] — and what a disaster that would be… why, if this goes far enough, married men might even be obliged to do a minor share of the upkeep of the Conjugal Abode! [cries of Never!, Absurd!, and Come, Sir, surely you Exaggerate.]
Outlaw Bloomers, that’s what I say! A harmless eccentricity? — Nay, gentlemen, they are the Thin End of the Wedge. This “Feminism” nonsense must be stopped before it goes any further! Piffle! Absurd!
Feminist party threatens to unseat Swedish premier
Most of the rest of Europe sees the Swedes as role models in their commitment to sexual equality. Sweden has the highest proportion of female representatives in any European political system: 45.3 per cent of Swedish MEPs are women, compared with 18.1 per cent in the UK.
Although the Feminist Initiative is in its infancy, the threat it poses to the ruling coalition is real. The Social Democrats have governed Sweden for six of the past seven decades, and voter fatigue is thought to be one reason for a slide in popularity.
Polls were already showing a slide in popularity for Mr Persson’s coalition and putting it behind an opposition centre-right alliance of four parties – the so-called “bourgeois bloc”. That trend will be accelerated, according to yesterday’s poll, which indicated that almost one third of Left Party voters would switch their allegiance to back the Feminist Initiative. In a sign of his alarm, the Prime Minister has suggested that the supporters of the new feminist group could let the centre-right back into power by the back door.
Posted by: Fran | Apr 8 2005 22:16 utc | 56
DeA. Me too. Monstrous Regiment indeed.
Dr. Edward H. Clarke Not related, I hope.
Posted by: beq | Apr 8 2005 23:18 utc | 58
DM,
to prepare a meal was a male thing to do. Totally. Women making food was strange and odd. Women did craft. Males making tools was something strange and odd. Getting the picture? However, to prepare a meal was high-status, to make a hat was low-status.
And yes I have, though I find it totally unrelated.
And finally, that would be 9 % of Swedish females and 5 % of Swedish males with to much time. Yeah I know, men accepting feminist analysis and supporting a feminist party probably seems absurd to some, but it is the case.
Fran,
our prime minister is afraid of the feminist party, but it has more to do with losing power within the left bloc than with the rightwing bloc winning the election. Actually this might be a way for the left bloc to win the next election which the right bloc looked posed to win. The feminist party would probably have more in common with the left bloc and are taking support from the right as well as the left (though a lot more from the left). A break-up of bloc politics could also be a possibility if the feminists, greens, peasant party and the liberals (right bloc) makes a good election and the socialdemocrats and the ex-communists on the left and the conservative party and the christian democrats on the right make a bad one. Though bloc politics have strong traditions and will probably live on.
Something that might complicate the picture is that in Sweden a party has to get at least 4% to enter the parliament. The greens and the ex-communist which both cooperate with the ruling socialdemocrats are both dangerously close to the 4%-line. The right bloc has had this situation for some time with the peasants party and the christian democratic party both close to the 4%-line. In general some voters from the larger parties in both blocs vote on parties risking falling below 4%, thus keeping them in the parliament. This would mean social democrats loosing power within the bloc if their voters act to save the ex-communists and the greens.
Actually all parties are suddenly declaring initiatives to raise salaries in female-dominated jobs and starting feminist networks within their parties. The only party that does not fret is the christian democrats. They know their voters wants nothing to do with feminism but long for the good old days when (to qoute Douglas Adams) “men were men, women were women and the furry little things from alpha centauri really were furry little things from alpha centauri”. All other parties stand to lose and declares the utter absurdity of founding a party on feminism.
Posted by: A swedish kind of death | Apr 8 2005 23:35 utc | 59
@DeAnander
Loved your Dickensian parody (really). Was that off-the-cuff, or lifted from old copies of Punch magazine that you have lying around? Clever stuff.
OT for just a moment – I was also impressed with the Pope saga on MoA. I take so little interest in religion that I could have swallowed the NPR sacherine without this insight.
Back to feminism. After Ada, Germaine, Maggie, and Condi, what is it exactly that Feminists want? An end to ‘corporate crony capitalism patriarchy’ (presumably to be replaced by a corporate crony capitalism matriarchy).
First take. A literary reference. I have more sympathy for the embattled Mr Morel in DH Larewnce’s Freudian crap, than for the wimpy Paul Morel and his obscene mother.
Second take. A Hollywood reference. Steve Martin in Parenthood. Reality based stuff. For me, about as real as it gets. “Women have choices, and men have responsibilities”.
For me, this suffragette crap is a little passe. You got a problem with your social status – then fight it out mano-a-mano with whoever you have a problem with – but save us this victimhood shit.
@SKOD
I’m can see the Cheshire grins. Great distraction.
Can you tell me the difference between:-
“Raise salaries in female-dominated jobs and starting feminist networks within their parties.”
and
“Raise salaries in low-paid jobs and starting workers networks within their parties.”
Posted by: DM | Apr 9 2005 0:37 utc | 60
Is that suffragist crap so passé? (btw, “Suffragette” was afaik a demeaning nickname coined by male journos to ridicule the women who called themselves Suffragists.) I dunno how it is in Sweden, but in the good ol’ USA, Land of Opportoonity:
Women have made some gains in corporate board memberships — they’re now an underwhelming 13.6 percent, up from 9.5 percent in 1995. And no doubt because women get tired of fighting the ‘men and good ol’ boys first” mentality at most companies, new business startups by women are at an all-time high.
But these few successes pale in comparison to the outrageous pay inequity that exists for their sisters in the everyday workforce. The National Committee on Pay Equity reminds us that even though the Equal Pay Act was passed more than 40 years ago, women working full time, year round, still make only 76 cents for every dollar that a man makes. Worse, black women get 66 cents and Hispanics only 55 cents. Even the best-case 24-cent gap adds up to a very unequal scorecard. Totaling more than $300,000 for the average woman’s career, it can mean the difference between owning a home or renting, sending your kids to college vs. sending them to flip burgers and a decent retirement vs. penury in old age.
Naysayers claim that there really is no pay gap — the shortfall is due to ”choices” that women make: Females just naturally like the jobs with lower pay or less risk. Tell that to the women cleaning toilets at the airport. In reality, in every field, from law and medicine to teaching or clerking at department stores, the women make less for doing exactly the same work as the men.
Women Earn Less, Period
it ain’t over until it’s over.
Guardian comment on Iraq Let them eat bombs
..
These results are even more disheartening for those of us in the Department of Making Things Better for Children in the Middle East By Military Force, since the previous attempts by Britain and America to improve the lot of Iraqi children also proved disappointing. For example, the policy of applying the most draconian sanctions in living memory totally failed to improve conditions. After they were imposed in 1990, the number of children under five who died increased by a factor of six. By 1995 something like half a million Iraqi children were dead as a result of our efforts to help them.
…
And this is why we at the department are appealing to you – the general public – for ideas. If you can think of any other military techniques that we have so far failed to apply to the children of Iraq, please let us know as a matter of urgency. We assure you that, under our present leadership, there is no limit to the amount of money we are prepared to invest in a military solution to the problems of Iraqi children.
…