Letters to the Editor
ELYDOG
Published Letters: 498 Editor's Choice: 43
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I enjoy Joyce in the morning...
[Read the article: The Breakfast Liberation Front]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I enjoyed the writing, but, as several have noticed, there's not anything here to replace good cereal (Yes, we already know 'puffs' suck). Sometimes good/funny writing is enough to 'feed the soul.' You are what you read...
The main problem at breakfast is that people don't eat it. And when they do its a can of coke or a cup of coffee and a donut... cereal is almost a veritable 'health food'. And actually, it was developed as such, see TC Boyle's "Road to Wellville."
More protein and fruit in the morning seems to be the way to go.
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Brightstar
[Read the article: The 9/11 backlash against women]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I thought Brightstar was a woman.
Ooops.
I like the fact that some women here are trying to therapize this guy. So kind. I'm a guy and trolls like this just need to be ignored. I could say more, but why bother?
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Feminism & Class
[Read the article: The 9/11 backlash against women]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Sajwan,
Women work because they have to, not just because the feminist movement got them out of the kitchen or marriage (work too...) Capitalism demands a full participation of the labor force to reproduce their work force for the next generation.
My mother was widowed in the 50s, and she didn't want to get married again, so she worked. Like a lot of other women. Feminism? Kind of. Need? Yes. And that was after hundreds of thousands of women worked in blue collar jobs during WWII, and were then laid off.
On this thread, no one defines feminism. There are actually many 'feminisms'. There is working class feminism, there is gay feminism, there is middle class or bourgeois feminism. Faludi is actually an astute observer of this culture, but she comes from the middle class feminist movement, on their left wing, from what I can tell. I have read both her prior books, which are enjoyable.
To generalize, bourgeois feminists love having women in places of power. Middle class feminists want to be able to have careers. Working class feminists want higher pay, and better benefits. Gay feminists might fight rape exclusively, or pornography. And of course, sometimes they are mixed. Etc.
This has been going on for awhile. The older feminist movement that just fought for the vote, or against alcohol, were mostly middle class. Working class women were trying to get unions.
So next time you hear 'feminist' ask, what kind?
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Whose Globalization?
[Read the article: All together now: Everybody hates "free trade"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I think it is a good thing that the political parties in the U.S. are stepping back from unrestrained bourgeois globalization. That is a measure of the pressure of ordinary working people in the U.S. who's standard of living is declining as their good jobs disappear. Of course, the powers that be don't really mean it, as they will find a way around it.
Mr. Leonard, by his title for the article, seems upset by this. However, there is no such thing as 'free' trade, as posters have noticed. It is usually stong countries shoving things down the throat of weak countries. Foreign aide and trade many times indebit the poor countries more than none would have done, or ruin their environment, or distort their economies. The strata that benefits the most is the middle class in these countries, who grow. That is the strata Mr. Leonard is close to. So, of course, 'free' trade is good.
Other strata, the workers, farmers and urban poor, do not benefit, and actually I think many of their lives decline. De-population of the countryside has come about at the same time as 'globalization.' The massive urban poor in so many countries has increased.
Some workers are making more money, but they might actually have a worse life than what they had as a farmer. Look at the Mexican migration - all under 'globalization.' The industrialization of England is the template for what is happening. Cheery coal miners, sheds full of thousands sitting doing routine tasks for 12 hours, small children laboring in acid vats of leather... you get the picture.
These people will be the gravediggers of the kind of globalization that makes them semi-slaves. And at that time we'll all be in this together, I think.
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Dialectics
[Read the article: Barney Frank quotes Karl Marx]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Nice to hear Frank quote Marx. And they didn't arrest him?
Silenced,
I think there are not always one thesis, and one anti-thesis, and that is where the fun begins. Not 19th century at all.
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Finance rules
[Read the article: Barney Frank quotes Karl Marx]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Kevin Phillips, in his book, "American Theocracy" pointed out that in 2003 finance became the largest sector of the U.S. economy. And, as posters have pointed out, finance is not really a 'productive' sector in the sense of making or creating anything. It results in wealth transfers, but not wealth creation.
Lenin claimed that monopoly capitalism would end in the triumph of 'finance capital.' Seeems they both agree.
Derivative investments seem to have been made from the immense amounts of capital in the hands of the finance class right now, which is not ever content with ordinary returns.
Quantity into quality hasn't been seriously refuted. It indicates how the 'drip drip drip' of small events can switch reality from one thing to another very quickly at a certain point. Global warming is being understood in just such a way. Gravity was an 'invention' of the 1600s and Newton. I doubt we'll be jettisoning that any time soon. Then there was that fellow Galileo and his old-fashioned theory about the earth going around the sun. Or that geeky Socrates and his damn 'method.' Then there was that 'oh so 20th Century' Einstein stuff.
Dialectics accounts for the motion of events, and incorporates 'quantity into quality.' What does this have to do with "coupled" trading systems? Coupled trading systems have been simply explained in this article. It is when you take a step back that you see a pattern, as Frank did.