Wis[s]e Words

Schadenfreude

Published on October 16, 2002Leave a comment

So the much lauded rightwing coalition of CDA (Christian democrats), VVD (neoliberals) and LPF (idiots, mostly) has collapsed. Oh dear. And I was sooo enjoying the LPF soap.

So what happened to the Revolution, the New Politics the LPF would bring? What happened to Pim Fortuyn’s heritage? Well, it turned out that stuffing a party full of nitwits, egotrippers and cocky businessmen is not a good idea. Without Pim Fortuyn as leader to guide them, power struggles erupted. The party had no vision, no experience and no leader. It was part of a coalition with the two parties with the worst reputation for power games, whom both had long experience in keeping coalition partners down. The LPF never had a chance.

All of which means there will be new elections soon. Until then, there’s nobody governing the country and important decisions cannot be taken… What this will mean for the upcoming decision about extension of the EU, to which the Netherlands has to give its consent, is anybody’s guess.

Objectivists defend blacklisting

Published on September 6, 2002

I was idly googling on Michael Italie, the sewing machine operator and SWP member who was fired from his job at Goodwill after he ran for mayor of Miami, when I came across this gem: The Importance of Blacklisting, hosted at the Objectivist Center.

In this article, one Roger Donway describes the case of Michael Italie and argues that Goodwill was in their right to fire him, that in fact this was a tactict objectivists should emulate. He argues that blacklisting is justified in defending “bourgeois standards”:

The central issue of the Goodwill case has nothing to do with the right of free speech or the right to run for office, for those rights were not touched. The central issue of the Goodwill case is nothing but the right of citizens to weaken their destroyers by refusing to fund them. Of course, when alumni and employers withdraw their money, Marxist professors and anti-capitalist employees will whine, “Don’t I have a right to my own opinion?” To which the proper answer is: “Yes. And I’ll be happy to debate your opinion, if I have time. Meanwhile, I decline to support those who attack the political-economic system that makes my support possible.”

[…]

Consequently, I believe that libertarians should openly align themselves with the philosophical advocates of bourgeois morality, whatever the cost in popularity may be. They should point out that a major virtue of abolishing government regulation and subsidies will be a greater need for rationality, personal responsibility, and productiveness; a greater need for prudence, sobriety, and thrift; a greater concern for one’s own reputation and a greater reliance on the reputations of others, with a corresponding esteem for those behaviors — patriotism and cultural assimilation, marriage and child- rearing, decorum in conduct, speech, and appearance–that are commonly thought to be indicators of personal solidity.

But libertarians should go further still. They should also urge plausible, non- political mechanisms –ostracism, boycott, and blacklist–that will impose severe costs on those who flout bourgeois standards.

In short, Dunway argues punishing people for their political beliefs by taking away their livelyhood is okay, that objectivists should in fact use this tactic to “defund the Left”. Pretty vile, if you ask me. It’s typical of a certain breed of Libertarian: quick to claim the moral high ground, though their deeds are anything but moral.

Next G8 summit will be in France

Published on August 1, 2002Leave a comment

Set your agendas: according to the next G8 summit will be “early June 2003”, in Evian-les- Bains, France. According to the article, the most likely dates the conference will be held on are 1-3 June.

Evian-les- Bains, a tourist town best know for its mineral water, is somewhat easier to reach then where this year’s G8 summit was held, Kananaskis, Albert, but still less so then Genoa. It’s a small town, with approximately 7,500 inhabitants. Our socalled leaders are still trying to keep the riffraff out.

If elitism is not your thing, remember that there’s an alternative, the European Social Forum:

It is an an open meeting space designed for in-depth reflection, democratic debate of ideas, formulation of proposals, free exchange of experiences and planning of effective action among entities and movements of civil society that are engaged in building a planetary society centered on the human being.

Crisis of capitalism

Published on August 1, 2002Leave a comment

An FT investigation has found that the top management of the 25 biggest recent US corporate collapses amassed $3.3bn from share sales, payoffs and other rewards. In this special report we examine who made those fortunes, how they did so even as their companies were heading for bankruptcy, and what lessons can be learned by regulators and corporate governance reformers.

So reads the teaser for a Financial Times special report on the barons of bankrupcy. Lots of interesting material there, though much of it is available only for subscribers.

Ian Fleming used to say that once is happenstance, twice is coincidence but thrice is enemy action. I feel the same about the current wave of business scandals: this is not an aberration, this is built into capitalism as it is now and it will happen again. Still, it’s shocking to realise the scale on which those socalled top executives stole money from their companies, shareholders and workers. If it were up to me, those people should immediately pay back the money they swindled.

Socialist gets fired for his political beliefs

Published on July 5, 2002

(This is old news, as it happened in October of last year but still instructive.)

Michael Italie was a sewing machine operator at Goodwill Industries in Florida, who also ran for mayor of Miami on behalf of the US Socialist Workers Party. A few days after he appeared on a televised debat with the other candidates for mayor, he was sacked:

On Oct. 22, a sewing-machine operator named Michael Italie was fired by Goodwill Industries, the network of nonprofit groups best-known for collecting and selling used clothing and furniture in order to provide job training for the disabled. Among Goodwill’s lesser-known functions is to supply low-cost contract labor to the federal government. Italie’s job was to sew U.S. Navy jackets in Goodwill’s Miami plant. The factory had been humming since Sept. 11; to meet the surging demand for American flags, it had gone on a 24-hour production schedule.

At 5 p.m., half an hour before the conclusion of his 10-and-a-half-hour shift, Italie’s supervisor called him into the personnel office, where he was greeted by the plant’s head of security. “Because of your views of the U.S. government, which are contrary to those of this agency, you are a disruptive force and cannot work here anymore,” he said, according to Italie. “Take your things and go.”

Italie does indeed have a view of the U.S. government that is unconventional, even hostile: As a member of the Socialist Workers Party, he favors creation of a “workers’ and farmers’ government” in the United States along the lines envisioned by Karl Marx, V.I. Lenin, and Leon Trotsky. (The Socialist Workers Party began life in 1928 as a Trotskyist splinter from the Communist Party U.S.A., but over the past 30 years the venerable blood-feud between Leninists and Trotskyites has faded.) “We don’t advocate violence,” Italie told Chatterbox. “Violence is rooted in the capitalist system.” (He really does talk like that.)

According to the above Slate article this politically motivated firing was completely legal. I find that disturbing. In my view employers should never be able to fire their workers for what they do outside work (apart from criminal activities like
theft or rape).