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Tom DeLay’s House Republicans: the party of slavery.
There’s no more accurate way to put it. More here.
Later, DeLay would tell the Washington Post’s Juliet Eilperin that the low-wage, anti-union conditions of the Marianas constituted “a perfect petri dish of capitalism. It’s like my Galapagos Island.”
“Low-wage, anti-union” doesn’t begin to summarize a situation in which people are locked up behind guarded fences, forced to work 70 hours a week, and in many cases, forced into prostitution. But hey, it sure sounds like the Confederate ideal.
I hope you’re confident that the people now running our country won’t eventually decide this would be an appropriate way to treat you. Please, share your confidence with the rest of us. Use a number 2 pencil. Be convincing.
You know, I didn’t used to think that evil consisted of particular people rolling out of bed every morning, looking at themselves in the mirror, crying out Yar har har, what eeeeeeeevile thing shall I do today, and then setting forth with a spring in their step. I’d like to thank Tom DeLay’s Republican Party for convincing me otherwise.
UPDATE: Interesting and evidently well-informed discussion of recent Marianas political history here, here, and here.
Patrick Nielsen Hayden wrote: You know, I didn’t used to think that evil consisted of particular people [asking themselves] what eeeeeeeevile thing shall I do today...
I remember when I had that wakeup call about the Republican Party. It was a Tuesday. It was Tuesday, 13 August 1996 to be precise.
I was at the Republican National Convention— not as an honored guest, but as a gatecrasher. I went with a Powerbook and "blogged" it to Usenet. Here is the Google archive of the article I wrote that evening. This one was not one of my better ones that week— and, I must confess, I was well into my third shot of top-shelf tequila when I wrote it, as I recall.
The whole series of these were on my web pages at wetware.com for the longest time. Later this month, I should have the time to give them the editing they've long deserved. (Regrettably, wetware.com has been reorganized due to the distress of its owner, and my pages there are currently in transition to a new site.)
Y'know, that's a really interesting simile the old [unkind word] picked. Should play really well in Topeka.
Thank you, Patrick. Folks, go to this address. And then read everything else about this story. I don't know if Patrick has it right about evil people, but this has me raging. This should be the story that brings DeLay down.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/05/09/real.delay/
j h, either the tequila or the rage pours forth from that article. I look forward to further reports from the ground when they've been freed from captivity.
When I lived on Guam (a US Territory, thus fully covered by US labor law) it was a pretty sleepy place (1969-1970), with the Navy, AF and Marines the big industries. Later on Tumon Bay became a big resort hotel spot filled with Japanese tourists. The Northern Marianas didn't even hit the radar screen for people who lived on Guam unless they had family there. Heck, even the Pacific Daily News didn't cover it.
I'm startled to see that the paper is now owned by Gannett.
I really wish that I thought that the face we're pointing toward the world wasn't the face of a bunch of frustrated children of privilege saying fuck you because nobody cool thinks they're cool.
Sadly, I don't think that.
I don't think that more and more every day.
I am truly beginning to wonder whether the words "conservative" and "liberal" have different underlying definitions in the US and here. Possibly in the rest of the world, as well.
Consider. A madman ran amuck with two military-style rifles and a pump shotgun, in Tasmania, some years ago, killing (I think) thirty-four people. He was taken alive, tried, found incompetent and jailed "at the Governor-General's pleasure", ie forever.
The larger outcome was that access to semi- or automatic weapons became very, very restricted here. With full bipartisan support, there was compulsory hand-in and buyout. No civilian can lawfully own such weapons now. Only those with a legitimate need for other weapons - single-shot smallbore weapons and legitimate target pieces - can get a licence. Police and licenced security guards may carry some other weapons on duty. Personally, I don't like seeing beat cops with handguns, but there you are. I'm a conservative, in Australian terms.
A few people objected to this lunatic's incarceration, rather than execution. The death penalty has been defunct here for forty years now. A few other people objected to the firearms ban. They were a tiny minority. Vanishingly small. And here's the thing - they were scorned as unregenerate rednecks by nearly everyone, once the heat died down a bit.
Consider this, also: All states now have variations on free access to termination of pregnancy, practically on demand, with the usual medical benefits. (In some jurisdictions, WA among them, some form of counselling process is mandatory, and providers must supply that service. The purpose of this is mainly to ensure that the patient knows her own mind and is not under some sort of external pressure.) Sure, there's a few people who oppose this. They're a tiny minority.
There has been quite a lot of privatisation - the government wants to sell off its 50.001% share in the main telco, over a lot of opposition - but absolutely no challenge whatsoever to the idea of a universal medical benefits scheme paid for by taxation, and a pharmaceutical benefits scheme as well, ditto.
I understand that these ideas are, to say the least, extremely contentious in the USA.
Now, we've got the usual political scandals here. Just now, the Treasurer's under fire for having appointed to the Board of the Reserve Bank a fellow who, being oleaginously rich, was a bit naughty about certain aspects of his taxation return, incurring the muffled wrath of the Commissioner for Taxation. Muffled, because his lawyers could talk louder and faster than the Department's, so he was let off with a caution.
But sweatshops on offshore islands? Dear God, if the Leader of the House here had anything in the nature of a connection with such a thing, the Opposition would come in its collective pants. Questions in the House? It'd be a feeding frenzy. A total blank denial of any knowledge of the conditions might play, but publicly defending them? Give me a break!
The Prime Minister's an obnoxious cunning slippery little liar with a porous memory and a bite like a rabid ferret, but if such words were anywhere on the public record, he wouldn't hesitate an eyeblink before handing the fellow a shovel and pointing out a suitable plot. He couldn't. He'd be blowing his own brains out if he did. And I'd be in there with the pack, demanding the former, if not the latter.
And I'm a conservative in Australian terms.
I've conducted a search and found all of my original Usenet posts from RNC '96 in San Diego that were collected by Google.
Prequel, Insert Obvious Lord Of The Rings Metaphor Here
[Unfortunately, it looks like the entry for Sunday, Por Amor De Dios is missing from the Google archive. Alas]
Monday, Hebrews 9:27 and Gozer The Gozerian
Tuesday, They Teach Young Men To Drop Fire From The Sky
Wednesday, Torgo For President: The Master Likes It
Thursday Bad Journalist, No Hot Dogs
The ones from Wednesday and Thursday are my personal favorites. I still have the photograph of the little Buchananite shrine described in Torgo, and the conversation with Governor Wilson in Bad Journalist really did happen— and yes, I swear I paraphrased him accurately.
While hunting for these, I found a rant on a related topic from earlier that year: When Public Floggings Fail To Humiliate. Reading it all these years later, I'm surprised to see how much of my pessimism in those days was well-placed.
These days, when I see what Tom Delay has gotten himself up to doing, I'm reminded of what I saw at RNC '96. I am not at all surprised. Among their own kind, when they think no one is watching them carefully, they have been like this for longer than I have been watching them. I have pictures of delegates wearing T-shirts that read "Intolerance is a Beautiful Thing!" They were given out by the American Family Association. Eight years later, these were the same people who showed up in New York with purple bandages affixed to their chins.
I agree with Rick Perlstein. It was Nixon who did most of this to us. Nixon.
Patrick, it's a bit more complicated than that.
The Northern Marianas Islands (NMI) are a a US Commonwealth, like Puerto Rico. The people there are US citizens, but they control their own immigration and local laws, including the minimum wage.
It's also one of the few parts of Micronesia that isn't a Third World hellhole. Life expectancy in the Northern Marianas is 71 years, per capita income is around $10,000, and infant mortality is about 5 per 1000. By way of comparison, on the island of Chuuk -- part of independent Micronesia, and just next door by Pacific standards -- life expectancy is 50 years, and infant mortality is 18 per 1000.
Part of the reason for this is the garment industry. It provides about a third of the Northern Marianas' GDP, and is their only export of any significance.
To be clear: there were real abuses in the industry in the 1990s, and some of them were horrific. Most of the garment workers are indeed guest workers (not immigrants... temporary workers, usually staying for between one and three years.) However, by the late 1990s the NMI had embarked on a serious effort to clean up the industry. Reform was halting and piecemeal, but it was happening.
Then the US garment industry decided that the NMI was unfair competition. The NMI sets its own minimum wage, and in the 1990s it was around $2.40 an hour. In a labor-intensive industry, this gave them a significant advantage. So, garment industry lobbyists began asking Congress to shut the NMI industry down. The (very real) human rights violations were a convenient club to beat the NMI with.
I know about this because I lived in the NMI in the 1990s. And we were asking Washington for help. "Help us clean up our act. It's hard to do with local actors alone, because the islands are small, the talent pool is limited, and too many people are deeply in hock to the dominant industry. Send us inspectors to train our inspectors; send us FBI agents and federal prosecutors to help bust offenders; give a firm federal backbone to our struggling reform efforts."
Answer came there none. No ambitious federal bureacrat wants to go to the Northern Marianas Islands; it's a dead-end posting, a trash barge, a Siberia. We had an FBI agent who had a gambling addiction. A federal prosecutor who liked sleeping until noon. And Congress was moving closer and closer to "we'll cure the disease by shooting the patient in the head... take away local control over immigration, send all the Chinese and Filipino guest workers home, and shut down the industry." The fact that this would have destroyed the islands' economy was simply ignored; the NMI has no vote in Congress, and who really cares about 50,000 US citizens twelve hours flight west of LA?
So, in desperation, we turned to Jack Abramoff and Tom DeLay. It was an alliance of convenience; the alternative was having the islands' only industry shut down.
Unsurprisingly, once it was clear that DeLay and friends could defend the NMI, the impetus for local reform slowed way down. Today the NMI is a lot better than it was in the 1990s, but yeah, there are still abuses. It's really hard to run herd on a dominant local industry without outside help. Which it's the federal government's job to give... but that never happened, in the NMI.
But when the alternative was to turn the NMI back into Chuuk...
You can paint Tom DeLay as Satan, and I won't argue with you. But do remember that desperate people make deals with the devil for many reasons, not all of them bad.
Doug M.
So Doug, when you say "shut down the industry", do you mean the same thing as the linked CNN article when it says :
Murkowski wrote a bill to extend the protection of U.S. labor and minimum-wage laws to the workers in the U.S. territory of the Northern Marianas.
or is it specifically the immigration issue that would close the industry down?
David, yes, it's a different world in the USA. And "conservative" hasn't meant much of anything since Reagan--this lot in power aren't conservative even by US standards; hence the term "neo-conservative". The only US left with any real influence on policy is the (conservative) left wing of the Democratic party, called "liberal" because "socialist" is a fighting word here; our majority-dominated system marginalizes anything to the left of that.
Sorry, but this is not related to the topic.
Over the pask few weeks; a small group including myself have been busy creating a website on the truth about terrorism, democracy, dictatorships, human rights, American imperialism etc from the Arab point of view, with a slightly sarcastic twist. I'd be very grateful if you could perhaps have a look at it- there are some good articles we've written which really emphasise the incredible hypocrisy and double-standards of the U.S. political elite in its foreign policy, the injustice of occupation in Palestine and Iraq, as well as a simple 'solution' to solving terrorism which is a must-see. It is not anti-American, nor does it condone or support violence.
Thanks for your time.
Niall, good question. The NMI garment industry swears up and down that, yes, the US minimum wage would kill it. The garment industry lies a lot, but in this case they might have a point. The US minimum wage is $5.15; in the NMI, it's $3.05.
Is the US the right comparandum? Most of the garment workers are coming from countries where $2 per hour is a good wage for a skilled workman. And while the NMI is prosperous by Micronesian standards -- it's Switzerland compared to Chuuk -- it's still poorer than the poorest US state.
I got no problem with extending US Labor laws to the NMI. Should have been done years ago. The minimum wage, I'm a lot less sure about. When I was living there, I supported gradual small increases. This was one of those moderate compromises that everyone hated... the industry thought the workers were already getting plenty ("So much more than they could make back in China!") while people like Murkowski wouldn't accept anything short of the US minimum ("It it's labelled made in the US, it should be made with the US minimum wage!").
FWIW, my opinion is that the wage issue is secondary. There are millions of Chinese and Filipinoworkers who'd love to get $3 an hour. Let them... but make sure their rights are protected.
Doug M.
Doug, I'm not sure that minimum wage laws do any good anywhere, and certainly a wage set as a minimum livable wage in a major US city is going to be way above the going rate in Micronesia.
However, that "Made in USA" label leads people to believe they are buying a product made under US labor laws including the minimum wage, and may be selected specially by people trying to avoid imports made in sweatshop conditions, so it's not an easy one.
(sammy b: I don't see a link or url in your post. You might want to put one there - if our hosts condone it. If it isn't on topic maybe better put it in an open thread, I dunno the etiquette here).
On topic: Recent experience here in Australia on new Industrial Relations laws/union-busting. The Governments' $40 million ad campaign has been summed up as "To compete with China and India we have to give up our way of life/work". Not much of a sales pitch and it went down like a lead balloon, helped along by the first twitch of life our unions have shown in years.
So, what? So if they want to equate “anti-union” with sweatshops, you just keep handing 'em rope.
Dave Luckett: "The Prime Minister's an obnoxious cunning slippery little liar with a porous memory and a bite like a rabid ferret"
*sigh* what a beautiful description. Even if most of the country seems to think "Yeah, but he's OUR obnoxious cunning slippery little liar with a porous memory and a bite like a rabid ferret"
Life expectancy in the Northern Marianas is 71 years, per capita income is around $10,000, and infant mortality is about 5 per 1000.
Doug, do your statistics apply to all people living in NMI, including guest workers, or only to citizens of NMI? If a good life for NMI citizens depends on immiseration of a guest worker class I don't reckon that is something I could support.
The US minimum wage is $5.15; in the NMI, it's $3.05.
Never mind the minimum wage in the NMI, I'm mildly horrified by the US minimum wage - the UK minimum wage is £5.05 per hour. (£3/hour for 16-17 year olds, £4.10/hour for 18-21 year olds). And I'd far rather have low income British benefits than American ones (even if our government spends less per head on healthcare than yours...)
I read the post and it made me think of the old Doonesbury cartoon (in a different but similar context):
Guilty, guilty, guilty...
Nrancis, some states and cities set the minimum wage higher than that. IIRC, San Francisco has thiers set at $10/hr (which is sometimes ignored, but it's still there)
On a related note, De Lay pal Jack Abramoff has bigtime gangland ties
Perhaps if people tie enough weight to this man's chest, he'll cough up some co-conspirators on the hill.
Frequently the Filipino "guest workers" do not actually get to keep any of that wage. One of the problems in the Philippines is that agents will recruit Filipinos for work but require a huge placemenet fee (thousands of dollars). Since the worker cannot pay up front, the agent deducts this from the worker's pay. The worker is left with a pittance, or nothing. It's indentured servitude.
This happens not just to workers (factory, domestic help, caregivers, etc) exported to the Marianas but to other countries, including Canada.
Philippine govt is so corrupt that it is impossible to stop. It would be good if there were protections on the hiring country's side.
Francis -- do bear in mind that everything generally costs half as much in North America, or the other way around, twice as much in Britain. For food and clothes and things you buy this really is the case, rent varies a lot by place, as it does everywhere. So someone who could scrape by on five quid in Britain, could scrape by on five dollars in the US.
I agree about the US benefits though.
Why are we (and note that unlike the Wicked Son, I say "we") different?
scrape by on five dollars in the US
In one of the poorer states, maybe. I was in a minimum-wage job once; I don't recommend it. My last 'permanent' job paid twice federal minimum wage, but in LA it's still not enough to live on: some of my co-workers needed aid for their kids' medical care.
On the plus side, Tom Delay sounds like he is in fact a Darwinist. Well, a Social Darwinist, anyhow.
But do remember that desperate people make deals with the devil for many reasons, not all of them bad.
The devil makes a better profit off of desperate people. How do you think he got to be the devil?
Don't forget about the pregnant women told they must have abortions to keep their jobs.
I've heard of a proposal to tie minimum wage to some key indicator of economic growth, such as GDP. I'm no economist, but I thought this was really interesting. Has anyone heard of this? Thoughts?
Obsidian Wings has a longish comment on this that talks about how the workers were treated. If true, they were forced to buy food from the company store, etc, etc. So their $3/hr quickly became very little.
http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2005/12/please_let_this.html#more
Jo Walton, when was the last time you "scraped by" on $5 in this country, unsubsidized? No one who is not doing so at present, nor has done so at a comparative rate for their own year/country, has any qualifications to make such an absurd assertion.
Minimum wage is not a living wage; there is radical opposition in the US to raising the minimum wage even a little, and no one has ever suggested raising it to a living wage that I know of. It would be laughed out of the halls of government: how else could the Corpo paymasters of the congresscritters (state or national) ever make enough to continue in the lifestyle to which they have become accustomed, more times more than their employees make than anywhere else in the developed world? (And how else could they continue to purchase Senators, and thus the continued blessings of the Invisible Hand? Indignant Beltway insiders - judges and elected officials - walked out of the premier, insulted at being told the truth.)
The purpose of humanity - according to capitalism - is to make immense profits for a select few at the cost of the rest of us. Your stake in it, if you are not one of the select few? (whether or not inclined to say "We have no part in David!" and decamp--)
Well, aside from the lottery-like odds (if that) of joining the few in our moneyed aristocracy (the benefits of our subsidized economy - the "bread" part of our bread-and-circuses, made possible by simply exchanging one form of helotry for another, all of them legal, particularly since we have never had the Claudian Law here to even try to rein in the greed of the Senate and stop the inevitable corruption when Plutocrats and Lawgivers are one and the same (not that it worked then any better than anti-corruption laws work without the will to enforce them in the herenow.)
And so long as the helots are far away, pent in ghettos or across the seas, never threatening the gated communities or even the suburbs, exurbs, and brownstones of Middle America - what does it matter what they suffer? We can always tell ourselves that they'd be even worse off if it were not for this pittance we give them, and who's to gainsay us?
So: Darwinism, slavery, and forced abortion.
Myself I think a country's laws should be intelligently designed.
I know of no industry or business sector that has not cried bloody tears whenever someone proposes raising the minimum wage for workers. Oddly enough, I've never heard so much as a hiccough over proposals to raise the salaries and benefits of management.
I don't see the wage issue as secondary to the worker abuse issue. Governments can mandate decent conditions year after year, and break their collective arms patting each other on the back for doing so, but enforcement, day to day changes in the work culture, come out of the workers themselves insisting on fair treatment. They can't do that if they aren't paid enough even to live badly.
Labourers in the US are, more and more, minimum-wagers. And every year, they are losing benefits - insurance provisions, health care, overtime pay, guaranteed time off, COL increases - one contract clause at a time. NMI is where DeLay & Co would like to shift the US. They don't the misery as a problem that affects them. They just see money in the bank.
Saipan has spent millions on Washington lobbyists and given top Republicans in Congress free trips to the beautiful Pacific island, including one over Christmas for House Majority Whip Tom DeLay."You represent everything that is good about what we're trying to do in America," he told outgoing Governor Froilan Tenorio, a distant cousin of the current governor, at a dinner in Saipan this past New Year's eve.
DeLay and other Republicans have vowed to fight to keep the laws the way they are on Saipan.
http://www.globalexchange.org/campaigns/sweatshops/saipan/abc040100.html
you know, as it happens, when I was living in the U.S every morning I rolled out of bed, looked at myself in the mirror and said "What 'evil' thing am I gonna do today" - but with a diabolical grin cause that maniacal laugh shit is irritating. The main reason I did this was of course bastards like the current U.S ruling class.
Being 'evil' was the only way I could stand to do the looking in the mirror thing.
I wonder if their motivations are similar.
I've been thinking more about Doug M's post. It comes across as an honest report of the situation as viewed from the Northern Marianas. However, that doesn't mean the local view is complete or that the situation is okay. From the inside of a company town a lot of things can seem reasonable that really don't look that way from the outside.
Even it the US garment industry is a lot more powerful than I thought, they're not going to get a bill unanimously passed by the Senate purely on patronage. There had to be some real outrage behind Murkowski's bill. You don't call in people like Abramoff and DeLay to clean up. They were there to stop any cleanup from happening. If the locals really wanted to get things cleaned up, they could have made their case to the Justice Department, Congress and the media in a straightforward way, probably for much less than it cost to deal with Abramoff and DeLay. Supposedly nobody cares about the Marianas, but some people are making a lot of money there, more than enough to buy the very best political juice. As for whatever reforms that have occurred, I'm inclined to give at least some of the credit to the anti-sweatshop movement in the US, putting pressure on the manufacturers. If they can clean up operations in South-East Asia, they can do so in US territory. Finally, I'd like to challenge the idea that paying the minimum wage is not feasible. Essentially the manufacturers are saying that the "Made in the USA" tag is not worth paying $3 an hour. But how do we really know unless we call them on it? My feeling is that their labor costs are already so low that even a large percentage increase in pay would have only a small effect on the overall prices of the clothing, if any. If the workers were paid legal wages, it might reduce some executive bonuses, but I bet the manufacturers would still be profitable. But it could make a huge difference to the workers ability to save up some capital and make a better life for themselves. I think it's worth a try.
If the workers were paid legal wages, it might reduce some executive bonuses,
It appears to me that reducing executive bonuses has been made illegal, considering the lengths those executives will go to prevent that reduction.
You don't call in people like Abramoff and DeLay to clean up. They were there to stop any cleanup from happening.
The problem here is that Congress wasn't proposing a "cleanup". The proposed solution was to cure the disease by shooting the patient.
If the locals really wanted to get things cleaned up, they could have made their case to the Justice Department, Congress and the media in a straightforward way,
This was tried. As I said, there were strong built-in disincentives for federal bureacracies to get deeply involved in Saipan.
Also, the folks trying to bring the Feds in did not have deep pockets. The folks willing to pay Jack Abramoff did.
As for whatever reforms that have occurred, I'm inclined to give at least some of the credit to the anti-sweatshop movement in the US, putting pressure on the manufacturers.
Some. But the key reforms were accomplished either in court, or by agremeent between the NMI government and the feds.
Here's a court case that was a major milestone in the reform effort. Brought in 1999 IMS, but not resolved until 2002.
If they can clean up operations in South-East Asia, they can do so in US territory.
Work in progress. Here's some testimony before the House of Representatives from 2004.
Key grafs:
In the years since the height of the controversy, the CNMI government, the Federal Government and the garment industry itself have all taken major steps to improve labor conditions in the CNMI and to protect the rights of workers. The CNMI government has enacted several reforms since the mid-1990s and has, especially in recent years, established a very good working relationship with Federal authorities. Last September I was pleased to sign, along with Governor Juan Babauta, an historic agreement whereby the CNMI agreed to cooperate with Federal authorities to combat human trafficking and to establish asylum procedures to protect foreign workers.
The garment industry has also made very substantial improvements. In 2000, the Saipan Garment Manufacturers Association entered into a partnership with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to improve working conditions in the garment industry. OSHA’s Regional Administrator recently reported to me the following: “We believe through our joint efforts with the industry, there has been a marked improvement in the safety and health and living conditions of the workers in Saipan..."
Another factor contributing to the improvement of labor conditions in the CNMI is the increased Federal presence in the islands, initiated largely by Congress through the CNMI Initiative on Immigration, Labor and Law Enforcement. That initiative provided the initial funding for several key Federal agencies, such as OSHA, the Department of Justice and the Department of Labor, to establish a presence in the CNMI, where they work cooperatively with the CNMI government and the business community to address problems. Prior to receiving funding under the initiative, none of these agencies had a major presence in the CNMI... The CNMI Initiative has also funded the Federal Ombudsman, a Federal employee who works with Federal and local authorities to ensure that the rights of foreign workers are protected...
We are heartened by the progress that the CNMI has made in recent years.
-- I note in passing that the "CNMI Initiative" has the NMI paying for federal personnel to come out to the islands. The implicit bargain here was, "Fine -- we'll send some people to Siberia, but don't expect us to find a line in our department's budget. You want the help, you find the money."
Doug M.
Tangentially related to executive bonuses, John Bogle has a new book which essentially a rant against runaway CEO's. It's titled The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism.
Back to sweatshops ...
Doug, you've certainly shed some considerable light about this subject that has really given me pause to think about whether we're becoming just as guilty of witch hunting as "the other side." (I don't want to call them Republicans or Democrats or Liberals or Conservatives, because it's all bullsnarky pigeonholing anyway.)
Don't get me wrong; I strongly disagree with DeLay and his cronies, and hope he's ousted from office for his behavior. This post really does make me feel like we're just looking for an excuse to get outraged again.
I'm surprised that DeLay and his fellow Texan W haven't appropriated a slogan which first saw the light in 1948:
War is Peace.
Freedom is Slavery.
Ignorance is Strength.
It so clearly summarises their policy objectives.
Also, the folks trying to bring the Feds in did not have deep pockets. The folks willing to pay Jack Abramoff did.
Thanks, I thought that was probably it, but I wasn't sure.
The challenge is getting the folks with the deep pockets to pay for reforms, even though they are the ones with the greatest stake in the status quo. Basically, I trust reforms pushed through by NGO's like Global Exchange more than I trust voluntary cooperation with OSHA that happens only after OSHA has been taken over by, what do you know, the folks with the deep pockets.
Doug,
There's been a class-action lawsuit, so I presume NMI people were not so happy to be enslaved. What a surprise. But hey, after all, negro slaves in southern US were very well off when compared to the mexicans; only a few of them caused trouble, and were promptly dealt with...
The garment industry should pay for what they get; if it's Made in USA, then they should pay USA wages and grant USA (ridiculous, btw, by european standards) workers rights. One day, I'd like to see a "workers' rights" chapter in the requirements to join the WTO, so that China and friends would be forced to oblige and we'd finally moved on from Marx.
And for all those thinking this is a regional problem: Wal-mart, the company locking workers in the building at night, is constantly hauled by the Republican Party as a model of corporate citizenship.
The "Montgomery C. Burns Party", indeed.
Compelling story, not that I needed any more convincing that DeLay is one of the bad 'uns.
But what's with painting this as a specifically Republican evil? One of those links at the top of the thread went to great lengths to point out that the legislation DeLay killed was drafted by another Republican (then-Senator Murkowski) and passed unanimously by the Senate.
Sounds to me like support for a DeLay-is-evil meme, but not so much for the Republicans-are-the-party-of-slavery meme. Story here appears to be "one Republican attempts to right a wrong; another Republican shoots down the effort."
This is relevent the Garment Industry and the minimum wage, since we're talking about it. (But it isn't relevent to the Marianas, so feel free skip it if you want to stay on topic)
I used to work in the garment industry (two years ago), for a UK wholesaler of blank t-shirts, sweatshirts, polo shirts (I should say they weren't bought by polo players, but schools and companies looking for a cheap uniform. According to the import catalogues americans call polo shirts 'sports shirts'), stuff like that, mainly Hanes and Fruit of the Loom. We sold them to screenprinters, embrioderers and a few independent retailers across britain.
I was their Marketing Manager.
I got paid national Minimum Wage (then less than £5 per hour).
This was despite living in the county with the pretty much the highest cost of living in Britain.
My bosses kept complaining about my poor motivation.
j h woodyatt:
"I've conducted a search and found all of my original Usenet posts from RNC '96 in San Diego that were collected by Google. ...That was you! I thought those were great! -- Aside from the way they left me incoherently depressed, of course.Wednesday, Torgo For President: The Master Likes It
Thursday Bad Journalist, No Hot Dogs"
Avram: "Don't forget about the pregnant women told they must have abortions to keep their jobs."
Guys like DeLay aren't opposed to abortion because they care about the babies. They want pregnancy to be a constant possibility because it's an extraordinarily effective mechanism for social control. Women have to constantly worry that they'll be caught out. Women and men who are caught out often wind up doing low-paid drudge work because they have to support their kid(s) and they have no maneuvering space.
It's much the same as their opposition to rights for gays. If you can attach enough opprobrium to being gay, you can scare and constrain the rest of the population into artificially "straight" behavior in order to avoid any suspicion that they're gay.
Doug - at least one of the links I read while following Patrick's links above suggested that DeLay had, in essence, bribed members of the NMI House of Representatives into voting for a particular candidate for Speaker, using the promise of federal money to do so.
I find that to be ... incredible, if true. Not to mention outrageous. For an officer of the federal government to be interfering in legislative elections in a territory (or, for that matter, in a state) is unethical at best; and for it to continue to go on would threaten the foundations of our political system.
I really hope that it isn't true.
j h woodyatt:
I think "Por Amor de Dios" is here
Yeah, but Teresa, holy cow: "GOP supports forced abortions!" Imagine seeing that as a week's mass news talking point, sometime between now and the '06 elections.
Lots of Democrats have been talking about trying to find middle ground they can share with people who aren't comfortable with legal abortions. Here it is, on a platter, and we don't even have to compromise on abortion rights to take advantage of it. It's pro-life and pro-choice in one package.
Shane, hover over sammy b's name in the post header.
Nancy C, thanks for finding that for me. Now, I can link to the Google archives of the originals and post new versions with the formatting and editorial issues fixed.
Teresa, my thanks for your praise. I've been told they were a little overwrought and too thick with navel-gazing. It was probably the tequila— that's my story, and I'm not ashamed of it. Next time, I'll be a better writer.
They were never properly edited, as should be pretty clear from a cursory reading. (I really did write those on a Powerbook 5300 and posted them immediately to Usenet every night from the motel room over a 28 kbps modem by long-distance telephone to a server in the SF Bay Area.) I really should make the time to scan the photographs to go along with those articles. Mojo made a very nice collage of them for me, and they're hanging in my basement study.
I'd like to do this sort of thing again. I went to DNC 2000 in Los Angeles, but I didn't make the RNC that year. I chickened out on 2004. I suspect I will recover my intestinal fortitude and go to the RNC in 2008— assuming they have one.
One thing I learned from RNC 1996: nothing interesting happens inside the perimeter of the conference. All the interesting stuff happens in the bars and restaurants outside the hall. Or in private hospitality suites in the hotels. You get to see a lot of interesting street theatre, that's for sure. If I go to RNC 2008, I will be absolutely sure to avoid "Blogger Row" at all costs. (Gawd, what a bad idea that was...)
[I'm still trying to integrate Doug M's comment above with what I think about Tom Delay, Jack Abramoff and the NMI story. I'm inclined to commiserate with Patrick in the sentiment from the title of his post: This Is The GOP Plan For You. Oh yes, tender lumplings— yes, they really do have a vision for how capital accounts for the costs of labor. The phrase "Did The Mules Get Out?" is the one that comes to mind when I think about it.]
Doug M, the point is not that good people in NMI are struggling with scant resources (and making some headway even so) to create an economy that's not dependent on sweatshop conditions and corruption in high, middle and low places. The point is that the Speaker of the US House spearheaded efforts to keep those sweatshops sweating, purely for personal gain. Had he failed at the time, this would still be awful; that he was successful is worse, for values of 'worse' where the only appropriate response is 'a terrible, swift sword'.
j h,
You're welcome. I must admit, I'm surprised I had such good google-fu!
I wonder just how much of the money passing through those garment manufacturering company towns actually sticks in the NMI?
Uff da. People -- fen! -- are trying to tell Doug what the point is about the Northern Marianas. You folks. You folksy folksy folks.
Dave Bell, there's a very simple calculation you can make. Doug used Chuuk -- the island formerly known as Truk -- as a comparandum. It's part of the Federated States of Micronesia, which has an average per capita income of about $3000, high-ball estimate. (The currency is US dollars.) Chuuk is probably significantly lower, but as my co-blogger would say, let that bide.
The NMI has an average per capita income of $10000, low-ball estimate.
The difference is $7000 per capita.
There are eighty thousand people in the NMI.
That's 560 million dollars. Per year.
Giacomo, I have a box of hair that makes better historical analogies than you. I have named it Bruce.
Doug, you've certainly shed some considerable light about this subject that has really given me pause to think about whether we're becoming just as guilty of witch hunting as "the other side."
Well, thank you.
Again, I hold no brief for Tom DeLay, and there's no question that horrible stuff happened in the NMI in the '90s.
But the NMI resorted to an alliance with DeLay out of desperation -- not wanting to be turned back into Chuuk -- and meanwhile, things have gotten a lot better there. Largely because of boring, non-sexy grunt work by people at the level of local government, with help from the federal courts.
This post really does make me feel like we're just looking for an excuse to get outraged again.
Compare and contrast: Hilzoy over at Obsidian Wings posted on this exact same issue. I made much the same points in the comments threads, providing links as I have here.
Hilzoy posted an update noting that things had indeed improved in the NMI, and that her outrage was directed at DeLay's defense of sweatshop conditions back in the '90s.
Somehow, I don't think that's going to happen over here.
There are people on both sides of the aisle who've become outrage junkies. Saying "it's more complicated than that" to those people -- on either side -- just annoys them; they don't want things to be complicated, they want their hit of indignation and rage.
Doug M.
Carlos: Per the CIA Factbook, the population of 80,362 breaks down as follows in terms of age:
0–14 years: 19.9% (male 8,332/female 7,646)
15–64 years: 78.5% (male 26,121/female 36,982)
65 years and over: 1.6% (male 646/female 635) (2005 est.)
So that's only 80% who are able-bodied workers (assuming that most in the middle group are).
So I'd take off about 20% from that figure.
(There are other factors I don't know about; I'm going to assume that there is not a small but rich elite that makes the average income considerably different from the median. Also, it's not clear how many foreign gastarbeiters are included in that figure.)
Carlos, there's a difference between "income" and whatr money sticks at the end of the day.
The figures suggest those sweatshop workers earn aroung $10,000 per year, but they buy from a company store to eat -- how do those prices compare -- and are paying off huge fees to employment agencies.
Which is better? $10000 for a year of 70-hour weeks, or $5700 for a year of 40-hour weeks?
The sweatshop makes the per capita figure look better. So what?
Robert L, I'm aware of the difference between "per capita" and "per worker". My rough calculation calls for the former, since it's about the overall benefit to the NMI, which includes children.
Also, as a general note, don't rely on the CIA Factbook as a single source. It's not very good.
Perhaps slightly at a tangent, but this is what Harold Pinter has to say about writing plays, and about how the USA behaves.
Ugh. I'm arguing economics with fen again. Time to go. Maybe the horse will learn to sing.
Carlos, You might search Making Light's archives for earlier posts about addressing posts to "you people."
I do know that at least one sometime poster here is a professor of economics.
I do appreciate your tip about the CIA Factbook. As it happens, I do a lot of fact-checking in my work, and evaluating reliability of sources is frequently a problem. I did figure that since their population figure agreed with yours, they might be reasonably reliable in this case.
As far as I am aware, there is much controversy over just how minimum-wage laws operate on the general economy. I wouldn't presume to say definitively how they do without studying the subject more.
But since you seem to feel that you have superior knowledge in this matter, and in fact probably do, perhaps you can enlighten me: If only a maximum of 80% of the population is working (that's presuming full employment, which I doubt NMI has), and their wages are all raised by X amount, then how is that going to also cost their employers X times the other 20%? I mean, if those workers were getting benefits, sure, because their dependents would be covered. But somehow I don't figure the sweatshop workers are signed up with Blue Cross.
Perhaps you can also tell me how foreign workers, working on foreign materials, and (correct me if I'm wrong here) sending a large portion of what remains of their income home to their families, are going to particularly benefit the local economy. Yes, they have to eat, but that's about it.
I'm well aware of Making Light's past posts about "you people" and "you folks". Hence the "folksy folksy folks" above.
If I think of most fen as "ill-educated, gullible, overly dramatic, and/or actively malign", it's not because I haven't interacted with them. Hell, recently an SF pro with strong fannish ties decided to use his fan group to cyberstalk me, posting what he thought was my private home information on the Internet, accusing me of posting negative reviews of his books on Amazon, and in one particularly bizarre move, discussing with his fanboy minions putting my name on al-Qaeda websites as a Zionist agent.
So, yeah, I have a low opinion of your people's subculture, yup. This thread ain't raising it.
For me, liking SF and having to deal with fen is a little like liking the Oakland Raiders and having to deal with the Raiders' associated baggage. It's despite, not because.
And I know Brad DeLong posts here, thank you very much. Soon, I will have a DeLong number of three.
Anyway. Doug's comparandum is Chuuk. Look it up. It's not a nice place.
Daniel Boone: Sounds to me like support for a DeLay-is-evil meme, but not so much for the Republicans-are-the-party-of-slavery meme.
Daniel, note that the original post specifies, "Tom DeLay’s House Republicans" at the beginning and "Tom DeLay’s Republican Party" at the end.
Carlos: I think part of the problem is that you don't understand that we can concede that the economic conditions on Chuuk are worse than on Marianas and still believe it's unacceptable to lock people into factories, force them to work 70-hour weeks, force women to have abortions to keep their jobs, and force workers to buy from the company store--and then present that system as a praiseworthy system.
That the conditions on Chuuk are worse is hellish. That does not make conditions on Marianas acceptable.
"ill-educated, gullible, overly dramatic, and/or actively malign"
How do fen differ from non-fen, then?
Caveat - I know almost nothing about NMI.
However, I know that in a number of places, cash income for the year is not the only factor in how well one lives. Is this still an area where gardening, gathering and fishing can provide a substantial amount of food? What are the shelter/heating requirements of the area? (Probably a lot less than here in Minnesota.) What other expenses do people need to have cash to pay for? And how much time do they have to expend to get the necessities of life?
I saw a paper, years ago, that stated that people in hunter/gatherer societies actually work a whole lot less than in agricultural societies, and implied Things Have Been Going Downhill Since.
We tend to emphasise cash income without regard to costs (Dave Bell noted the "company store" problem) and needs. I have to pay $100+ a month to keep from freezing, someone in the tropics does not.
Personally, I would prefer to work fewer hours, under better conditions. I would prefer less cash income, but a better life.
Doug:
I appreciate the information you provide to those ignorant of the situation in NMI, or learning about it for the first time. My rage at DeLay, assuming he was accurately quoted (he hasn't denied any of this) was at his arrogance in assuming, Commonwealth status on not, that he, as the Congressman from Texas, should make crucial economic and social decisions about the lives of people on NMI, with or without the invitation of some of these people. You say in your post, "We turned to Jack Abramoff and Tom DeLay." I wonder who "we" is. Were you, personally, making minimum wage, and working at one of these garment factories? Were you a labor organizer? Please don't get mad; I'm not questioning your honesty or integrity, only your perspective. The issue may look different from the sweatshop floor. Nor am I questioning your assertion that calling upon the Fixer and the Hammer worked. I expect it did, and it even may have made some things better for some of the people of NMI. But this is not how I want my government to function. Yes, I know, corruption happens, and on both sides. Hell, on all sides. But when it appears that the ONLY way for conditions to improve is through paying the Fixer and begging assistance of the Hammer, I get very angry. My taxes pays DeLay's salary, and the level of power he has and many of the ways he exercises it is unacceptable to me. I want DeLay to lose his job; I want a lot of the Congressfolk to go home for the holidays and not come back. I want Congress to take its responsibilities to the nation seriously again. I want them all to put their grubby begging hands back in their pockets.
I saw a paper, years ago, that stated that people in hunter/gatherer societies actually work a whole lot less than in agricultural societies, and implied Things Have Been Going Downhill Since.
The book The Paleolithic Prescription also goes into that at some length.
Ah, the Golden Age . . .
FWIW, I think Doug M is making some good points, and, being on the ground and in a position to see, might well be able to answer the questions about company stores and "Forced abortions" (Only in quotes because I haven't looked at the source material to confirm this one) and give us a better perspective. In fact, Doug M, please do. We're interested. we're listening. I like that you've been discussing this in polite terms, and showing your sources.
On the other hand, Carlos has done nothing but wander in and insult a large portion of the local population of the site. I'm wondering if he wants to support Doug M, or if this kind of making-supporters-of-this-view-look-like-rude-generalizing-idiots is a subtle way to undermine Doug M's efforts.
Maybe people in hunter/gatherer societies worked less than in agricultural societies. I'll assume that they also worked less than in computer-using societies. But I'll stick with where I am because of two words:
dental care
Lizzy L: And why they feel the need to have their grubby hands out for money, when they're paid quite well for holding their elected offices (they're well above average income, all of them), is a question which none of them are willing to answer. 'Campaign costs' is not an answer, since they do it year round, and they get publicity fairly frequently in their districts: some of them even send out newsletters pushing their records ... not that they'll ever mention what they've done for NMI, or the tradeoffs they've made in return for favors.
Lizzy L: Hear, hear!
Lenora Rose: Hear, hear!
Serge: Humph, I guess you're right. *grumble* I guess the invention of agriculture wasn't OVERALL a bad thing. But it sure had some huge costs. And "more people can live that way" isn't really sounding like such a good argument any more.
Aconite, who the hell is praising? Strawmen are in aisle four.
Laura R., from everything I have seen, fen have a markedly poorer ability to judge evidence critically than a similar cohort of non-fen. My guess is, you folks have internalized the reading strategies necessary to make sense of SF and consistently apply them to areas where they don't work. Related to, but not necessarily the same as the Brain Eater. That takes care of the first two.
The DRAMA and the malignity come out of the lower than average socialization of the average fan.
Then there's that slack-witted "fans are slans" balderdash that just won't die. Despite busloads of evidence to the contrary.
Lenora, Doug has some tolerance for y'all left. I have hit my tipping point. To translate it into terms some of you might understand better, fan association is now a -3 modifier for intelligence and reason in my book.
Maybe, Xopher, but I'll stick with where I am. By the way - and I know this is drifting off topic - did agricultural societies show an increase in longevity compared to hunter/gatherer societies? Of course, having a bunch of people together in one spot must have had some interesting side-effects where diseases are concerned.
Serge - me too, and I don't know. That would be fascinating to learn.
Remember also that a longer life is not necessarily a better one overall. Taken to extremes, that's why some people sign living wills.
Adding to the topic drift, on dental care:
Some people claim that a "natural" diet prevents tooth decay. This boils down to avoiding white sugar (which I think everyone knows is bad for your teeth) and avoiding white flour (which might be lacking in essential nutrients).
Carlos - then why don't you go away and let us fester in our ignorance, stupidity, and malignance? I don't understand why you keep commenting here, even though you keep saying you're done. Or are you only done with any attempt at serious argument, but still here to sling insults? IME that's a sign of having LOST the argument, not won it...and yes, I HAVE seen people say "that's it, I'm outta here" and actually mean it.
I repeat: if you're so done with us as you claim, why don't you GO AWAY?
Carlos: Aconite, who the hell is praising?
Quoted from the initial topic post at the top of the page:
Later, DeLay would tell the Washington Post’s Juliet Eilperin that the low-wage, anti-union conditions of the Marianas constituted “a perfect petri dish of capitalism. It’s like my Galapagos Island.”
The praising of the system as the last straw was incidental to the point of my post, anyway, which I suspect you chose to ignore because it made it much easier to paint me as one of those overemotional, brainless, unfair fen.
Serge: I have to recommend Guns, Germs and Steel -- it has a lot about exactly what and how agriculture is related to the creation of diseases -- and the resistance to disease.
Carlos: If you have any interest in making a real point, or discussing real economic issues (and the quality-of-life issues that go with them), then you might want to rethink coming at your opponents with an attitude that guarantees they'll dismiss you, your point, and everyone and everything you agree with.
If, on the other hand, you're here to insult the prevailing culture, well, I leave you to Teresa's tender mercies.
(Incidentally, "fans are slans" is complete and utter crap. I think the agreement on this site was virtually unanimous on that point the last time it was brought up. And nobody here now has mentioned it -- or any other generalizations about fandom -- but you. Don't complain about others' possible straw men while building your own.)
Doug M writes:
Also, the folks trying to bring the Feds in did not have deep pockets. The folks willing to pay Jack Abramoff did.
Hmmm. Sounds to me like the folks willing to pay Jack Abramoff could have used their "deep pockets" to help bring in the Feds. Let me guess— there were powerful "disincentives" for them to do that. Disincentives that were highly correlated to their having deep pockets, which— as we've noted— the people who wanted to bring in the Feds did not.
Doug M writes:
Hilzoy posted an update noting that things had indeed improved in the NMI, and that her outrage was directed at DeLay's defense of sweatshop conditions back in the '90s.
Somehow, I don't think that's going to happen over here.
Well, you know— the thread started with people outraged by Delay's defense of slave labor conditions. We certainly seem to have no shortage of outrage for Tom Delay's nonsense— and why, exactly, should that be a problem? The man's politics are monstrous.
Gee, it's nice to know that life in the NMI is oh-so-much less harsh than in the rest of Micronesia. Given what I know about the region (I've traveled some), I'd say Chuuk is probably a garden spot compared to, say, Easter Island, but I've never been to either place.
Was there anybody here trying to challenge your claim that things have not improved in the NMI, or that the Murkowski bill would not have been an economic disaster for the NMI if it had passed? If there was, I didn't see it.
Is there any reason to believe that the methods Abramoff used to stop the Murkowski bill and dick around with the CNMI were necessary and sufficient to address the economic problems of the NMI? I'm very doubtful about that, but I'm willing to hear you out.
Somehow, I think your expectations of what should happen here after you've made your contribution to the discussion might be in need of readjustment.
Thanks, Laura... My wife Susan (as opposed to what other wife?) had read the book when it first came out. There was a mini-series based on it a few months ago, but we missed half of it. I was bummed.
Teresa's tender mercies...
Must refrain... from... making bad... jokes... Must resist...
[shrug] I was wondering where the hits on my blog (which I share with Doug) were coming from.
Lenora, I got plenty of interest in discussing economic issues. Just not with fen. Word games, sure! What's the shortest word in English that has all five vowels?
By the way, Guns, Germs, and Steel is riddled with tendentious arguments. Have you ever tried tracking some of Diamond's sources down? I have. Many of them do not quite say what he says they say.
Serge, that's what the nonrestrictive apposite comma is for. "My wife, Susan, had read the book" means you are naming this literate person twice. "My wife Susan had read the book" implies that your other wives had not!
Those darn missing commas... Reminds me of sitcom Married, With Children. It seems like people kept dropping the pause that separated the title's two elements. The implications of who they were married with were, to say the least, interesting.
Carlos, there are no word games here. In case it wasn't clear, my question was an implied request. You have nothing of interest (or even topicality) to contribute to this thread. Please go away. Contribute to the wordplay threads, if you can do so without insulting everyone.
And if you think "fen have a markedly poorer ability to judge evidence critically than a similar cohort of non-fen," my hypothesis is that you are living in the ivory tower of academia. Certainly you have not lived in the business world, where the ability to judge, or even recognize, evidence is virtually unknown. Fans are BETTER at this than the average person on the street, an entity with whom you are apparently entirely unfamiliar.
If you think so little of fannish culture, why don't you go away from Making Light entirely? Don't let the door hit you on the ass on the way out. Good riddance. Oddly, you've played nice on a number of occasions. One would think you wouldn't care to do that if you thought so little of us. In any case, since you've now made your position clear, I suggest that you stop visiting this little branch of fandom, since you dislike it so much. If you have anything to contribute to the present conversation, tell it to Doug, and he'll couch it in civil terms. But it seems to me you ran out of relevant content some time back, your denunciation of GG&S notwithstanding.
Carlos: So, yeah, I have a low opinion of your people's subculture, yup.
Carlos, I believe I've been polite to you, and in return I've gotten only snark. Dude, you know nothing about me, "my people," my level of education, or whatever subculture they may have. I asked you some questions, but you seem to just be too patronizing to answer them.
Maybe you ought to reread those "you people" posts, because they really seem to apply to you.
And if you think "fen have a markedly poorer ability to judge evidence critically than a similar cohort of non-fen," my hypothesis is that you are living in the ivory tower of academia. Certainly you have not lived in the business world, where the ability to judge, or even recognize, evidence is virtually unknown. Fans are BETTER at this than the average person on the street, an entity with whom you are apparently entirely unfamiliar.
Hm. Hilarious hypothesis about me #5271009, with a side of Slandom Roolz. Probably the only thing you have in common with S.M. Stirling, Xopher.
See, I am giving you folks as much respect as you're giving the people of the Northern Marianas. (I had to do the same thing with fen regarding the people of Botswana recently elsewhere.)
It's rather belittling to talk this way about the hard choices a small group of people has to make in a world that doesn't particularly care for them, no? As if they were objects only there to be manipulated, and that some smug bastard who barely knows them knows them better than they do themselves.
[pause to wait for clue-stick to hit]
I also get the sense that people on this thread want an anti-DeLay loyalty oath before they listen to anyone. Screw that.
I don't know, maybe if Ursula LeGuin wrote a story about it? But with copper-colored imperialists and a hermaphrodite lobbyist from Old Hain. The Chuukese could be indigo and the Chamorros blue. The people living in the boxcars can be from Earth. Maybe then it will make sense.
And Robert L, um, you do know your link goes to your LiveJournal?
Goodness. It's like "Vox Day" spawned.
It's rather belittling to talk this way about the hard choices a small group of people has to make in a world that doesn't particularly care for them, no?
'Carlos' (there's no one of that name visible at the URL you're using): So why are you belittling fen? Are we somehow less likely to be dealing with hard choices than, say, a typical mundane? Your posts are, um, not connecting well with the reality of, frex, my life as a contract technical worker (12 months on, 6 months off), or some of my friends who have been out of work intermittently for more than ten years, mostly because the wonderful people who actually make hiring decisions don't really want to hire middle-aged people and can always find a 'legal' reason not to hire. Sure, I'd like the people in NMI to get paid US minimum wage - it's well below the US continental poverty line - but I see DeLay and his buddies trying to make the rest of us live like that too: stuck with the system because we're too poor either to change it or to leave it. And the people who could have made a difference, didn't even notice.
Ignore 'it', P J. Otherwise it'll believe it exists.
Shortest word with all five vowels: eunoia.
There. 'Fen' rule.
What the heck is 'slan'?
Incidently, I accuse Carlos of either being Norwegian or associating with Norwegians--not that it means anything.
On topic? Not even close. Mea culpa.
Carlos, I raised the question of whether per capita income was a suficiently useful measure, without taking into account local differences in living costs.
You immediately switched to attacking the people; switching from intellect to emotion as your field of battle.
I infer that you choose not to answer the question. Why you should do that, I could speculate on, but that would be pointless. Neither is it worth the effort of taunting you.
Goodbye.
I'll answer what might be the only useful thing Carlos has said.
"By the way, Guns, Germs, and Steel is riddled with tendentious arguments. Have you ever tried tracking some of Diamond's sources down? I have. Many of them do not quite say what he says they say."
That may be - it is a pop. science book, which are notorious for being fuzzier than the drier reading. But it should still give Serge some fodder for his curiosity about the effects of agricultural life re: hunter-gather societies and re: germs. And both Serge and I can do the rest of the research from there if there's more to look into. And since Diamond does provide sources, it's the easiest route to further reading on the subject.
But I'd rather you expanded on your comment here, or gave specific examples, before I go off hunting corroboration for every detail.
'Slan', Laura? In a nutshell? That's the title of A.E. van Vogt's SF novel about a race of telepaths who are hounded by the normals.
Three icons, three people. I'm the coffee mug. C.O.Yu.
Why fen? Because so many of you think you're more capable than the average person on the street in terms of understanding the world because you read science fiction, when in reality... well. Not so much.
What's really annoying about this thread is how the complex situation in the NMI -- a place where people I know have lived -- has been turned into the background for a cheap morality play so that people who need their daily dose of indignation can get their subculture-approved fix.
You know how you fen loathe the thirty
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