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Titolo: Per Aramesh e per chi non sa che DEMOCRATS = REPUBLICANS

This article was originally published in Z Magazine. See below for
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"Mandate for Change,"
or Business as Usual
Noam Chomsky
Z Magazine, February 1993 
As the victors were recovering from the celebration of their electoral
triumph in November, the front-page headlines read: "The Economy:
Aides plan a scaled-back early agenda." "A group of aides to
President-elect Bill Clinton is preparing an economic plan for the
Democrat's early days in office that would postpone action on some of
his more sweeping proposals in favor of a moderate increase in
infrastructure spending, preliminary steps to control rising health
care costs and a series of business tax breaks that rated little
mention during the campaign," political correspondent Peter Gosselin
reported. In the following days, Clinton's advisers, including those
on the progressive fringe, reiterated the message, which had been
understood all along by corporate-financial sectors; the steadiness of
the markets and strength of the dollar were among the many indications
of the general satisfaction with Clinton's imminent victory in the
business world, which was soon to be reassured further by his top
appointments and indication of priorities. 
The magic word in Clinton's campaign had been "Change," a
reorientation of policy toward the needs of the great majority of the
population who had suffered from Reagan-Bush "trickle down" economics
-- in practice, an upward flood -- and had swept Clinton into office
on the promise of an end to the party for the rich. But it would be
unfair to speak unkindly of the newly-elected President for clarifying
at once that the fine words of the campaign were not intended
seriously, that the "Mandate for Change" proclaimed by a Clinton think
tank meant "Business as Usual," as it did when Eisenhower's PR team
coined the phrase. "Campaign pledges [are] made to be broken," Harvard
political scientist and media specialist Marty Linsky explained when
President Bush called for "revenue enhancement" after winning the 1988
election with a pledge not to raise taxes. To accuse Bush of violating
his campaign pledge was a "political cheap shot." When he led the
public in his "read my lips -- no new taxes" chant, Bush had merely
been expressing his "world view," making "a statement of his hopes."
The same precepts hold for his successor. 
Only the most naive, who do not comprehend the democratic system,
could think that their political representatives mean what they say.
Sophisticates understand that "elections and governing are different
ball games, played with different objectives and rules." "The purpose
of elections is to win," Linsky elaborated, expressing the contempt
for democracy that is standard fare among educated elites; and "the
purpose of governing is to do the best for the country" -- where "the
country" is to be understood as "those who matter," though honesty on
that score as well would be too much to expect. 
This course of instruction is helpful. The lessons have broad
application. Take the concept "jobs." It is beyond doubt that more and
better jobs are desperately needed. "Job destruction [is] worse than
we thought," economists Lawrence Mishel and Jared Bemstein report,
with "more than 17 million workers, representing 13.2 percent of the
labor force, ...unemployed or underemployed in July [1992]," a rise of
8 million during the Bush years. Furthermore, some three-fourths of
the rise in unemployment is permanent loss of jobs. Meanwhile the
stagnation of real wages changed to sharp decline from the mid-1980s,
extending even to college-educated, while "of the gain in income per
head, 70 percent accrued to the top 1 percent of income earners, while
the bottom lost absolutely," MIT economist Rudiger Dombusch observes,
so that "For most Americans, it is no longer true that the young
generation can count on being economically ahead of its parents," a
significant turning point in the history of industrial society. 
One can therefore appreciate the passionate concern expressed by
political figures, corporate leaders, and their press agents over the
need to create jobs for suffering Americans. Heartening indeed, until
we recall our lessons. Looking a bit more closely, we find that the
word "jobs" has taken on an entirely new meaning: "profits." Thus when
George Bush takes off to Japan with a bevy of auto executives in tow,
he waves the banner "jobs, jobs, jobs," meaning "profits, profits,
profits," as a look at his social and economic policies demonstrates
without equivocation. The press and air waves resound with promises to
increase "jobs," put forth by those who do what is in their power to
send them to high-repression, low-wage regions, and to destroy what
remains of meaningful work and workers' rights, all in the interest of
some unmentionable seven-letter word. All becomes clear once we join
the sophisticates who understand that "the purpose of rhetoric is to
delude," while "the purpose of governing is to do the best for `the
country'" in the technical sense of that term. 
That "the country" in whose interests policy is designed is to be
understood in class terms is, of course, no recent insight. Those who
have been properly instructed in the famous "canon" will surely have
"learned" that Adam Smith denounced the mercantilist and colonial
systems as harmful and absurd, while preaching the virtues of free
trade. As explained in the introduction to the Chicago bicentennial
edition of Wealth of Nations by noted Chicago economist George
Sligler, "Americans will find [Smith's] views on the American colonies
especially instructive. He believed that there was, indeed,
exploitation -- but of the English by the colonists," contrary to what
the uninitiated might think. But few are likely to have discovered
what Smith actually wrote. Mercantilism and colonialism may have
harmed the general population of England, Smith concluded, but were of
great benefit to the "merchants and manufacturers" who "have been by
far the principal architects" of policy; their interests have "been
most peculiarly attended to" by the system, though not the interests
of consumers and working people. (As for the English colonists in
America, the harsh regulations imposed upon them by imperial England
were "a manifest violation of the most sacred rights of mankind,"
Smith wrote, though nothing like the "savage injustice" of the
treatment of the lesser breeds). 
In brief, mercantilism and empire were among the many devices that
regularly shape social and economic policy into a welfare project for
the rich and powerful -- definitely not the right lesson for
impressionable young minds. In this and many other ways, the contents
of Smith's classic have been crucially modified as they enter
contemporary ideology in the hands of his latter-day disciples, to
form part of the "free market" theology preached by a variety of
cynics. 
Smith's class analysis of policy-formation retains its relevance, and
Linsky's lessons add a useful supplement. If "change" once again
translates into new methods of enhancing existing power and privilege,
we need only recognize that that is what is best for "the country,"
properly construed. Returning to the "sweeping proposals" that were
instantly recognized to be "unnecessary" and "inappropriate," we may
recall that the public was not merely indicating a preference for
curtailing "rising health care costs" and for unspecified
"infrastructure spending." Over two-thirds of the public have
regularly called for the kind of national health insurance that exists
in one or another form in all other industrial societies, in place of
the highly bureaucratized "private enterprise" U.S. system, with its
harsh rationing of health care by price and huge administrative
expenses and other inefficiencies (the British National Health Service
devoted 4 percent of total health-care expenditure to administrative
costs in the late 1980s as compared with 21 percent in the U.S., the
distinguished British conservative Ian Gilmour points out; the
comparison with Canada is similar). And an overwhelming majority (83
percent in the latest Harris poll) protested that "the rich are
getting richer and the poor are getting poorer," that "the economic
system is inherently unfair," as the president of the polling
organization summarized popular feelings. Small wonder that Reagan's
popularity is barely above Nixon's, far below other living
ex-Presidents, and that he is particularly disliked by working people
and "Reagan Democrats." 
But on a wide array of matters such as these, Clinton cannot be
criticized, even unfairly, for quick abandonment of "campaign pledges"
that are "made to be broken," since the pledges were never made. Both
political factions, along with their sponsors and the ideological
managers, understand that the childish confusions of the rabble need
not be considered by the "men of virtue" who have assumed the
responsibility of governing since the origins of the Republic, always
seeking what is best for "the country." 
Popular confusions extend quite far. Through the 1980s, considerable
majorities favored a nuclear freeze, social spending over military
spending, more government regulation to protect worker health and
safety, higher taxes if necessary for such purposes, and so on. The
errors of the rabble are also prevalent among the other beneficiaries
of the Reagan-Thatcher revolution. The British Social Attitudes survey
for 1992 finds that "respondents came out in favour of public spending
by bigger margins than ever," the London Guardian reports, with 65
percent favoring higher taxes and more spending. 
Perhaps they are reacting to Thatcher's achievements in creating the
worst crisis for manufacturing industry in the 19th-20th century,
destroying almost one-third of the manufacturing plant within a few
years by blind pursuit of Friedmanite and laissez-faire doctrines that
were falsified and failed at every turn, yielding a "miserable
performance" for the economy through 1990, lowering growth rate,
rapidly increasing poverty while playing "Good Samaritan only to the
better off" and giving London almost the appearance of "a third-world
capital" -- despite the huge shot-in-the-arm provided by North Sea oil
and the sharp decline in prices of Third World exports (Ian Gilmour,
in his incisive review of a decade of "Dancing with Dogma"). The
result was to send Britain to "Europe's poorhouse," the Financial
Times observes in October 1992, "technically poor enough to apply for
extra European Community cash" along with Spain, Ireland, Portugal,
and Greece. Much the same happened in Australia, where a Labor
government tried the same "cruel experiment" with the same
consequences, a "dismal tale of economic failure," conservative Robert
Manne points out in the business press, reviewing the well-documented
"disaster." 
The destructive impact of neoliberal dogma on Third World societies
has been extensively discussed. Less familiar is the fact that the
three English-speaking societies, which danced with the same dogmas
(though only to a limited extent, being powerful enough to violate the
rules) suffered accordingly, a fact that should "have, at the very
least, planted the seeds of doubt," Manne comments, with reference to
Australia. In all three societies the doubts were allayed by what MIT
economist Paul Krugman describes as a "combination of mendacity and
sheer incompetence," referring specifically to attempts to suppress
the truth "by the Wall Street Journal, the U.S. Treasury Department,
and a number of supposed economic experts," a record that demonstrates
"the extent of the moral and intellectual decline of American
conservatism," a record matched in England and Australia. 
As in the United States, the rabble in Britain have dangerous thoughts
about the private economy. Asked how profits should be distributed, 42
percent chose investment, 39 percent workforce benefits, 14 percent
consumer benefits (lower prices), and 3 percent share-holders/managers
benefits. Asked how profits would be distributed, 28 percent predicted
investment, 8 percent workforce benefits, 4 percent consumer benefits,
and 54 percent shareholders/managers benefits. The conviction that the
economic system is "inherently unfair" is widely shared, but well
beyond the reach of the political system in societies that have
succeeded in reducing the general public to a spectator role, as
leading democratic theorists have long urged. 
Problems of Governance
While the two factions of the business party agree over a broad range,
they differ in popular constituency and sometimes in tactical
preferences. These are only tendencies, reflecting shifting alliances,
but they are real and sometimes have policy consequences. The popular
base of the Democrats lends more towards working people, the poor,
women, minorities -- the rabble generally. The Republicans, who have
been more open and forthright in presenting themselves as the party of
owners and managers, have sought to create a popular base through
appeal to jingoism, fear, religious fanaticism, and the like. That
provides substantial outreach. Religious fundamentalists alone are a
huge popular grouping in the United States, which resembles
pre-industrial societies in that regard. This is a culture in which
three-fourths of the population believe in religious miracles, half
believe in the devil, 83 percent believe that the Bible is the
"actual" or the inspired word of God, 39 percent believe in the
Biblical prediction of Armageddon and "accept it with a certain
fatalism," a mere 9 percent accept Darwinian evolution while 44
percent believe that "God created man pretty much in his present form
at one time within the last 10,000 years," and so on. The "God and
Country rally" that opened the national Republican convention is one
remarkable illustration, which aroused no little amazement in
conservative circles in Europe. 
Needless to say, neither political faction offers its popular
constituency any real influence over matters of importance to "the
country," but their concerns can be addressed at the margins. The
dramatic assault on civil liberties during the Reagan years is a case
in point. With a different popular base, Clinton will doubtless
mitigate these policies, a matter of no small significance for
personal life, though with only marginal impact on the primary task:
to ensure the proper functioning of the welfare state for the rich. 
Here objective problems arise that cannot be ignored, and there are
differing perspectives within the business community (hence the
political system) as to how they should be addressed. One major
concern is "industrial policy"; that is, the state role in sustaining
private enterprise; the role of the state in securing "jobs," to
resort to Politically Correct Newspeak. This was perhaps the major
real issue in the 1992 election. 
It is hardly a secret that every successful industrial society, from
England to the East Asian NICs, achieved that condition and maintains
it by radically violating market principles. These principles do serve
useful functions: they can be selectively invoked to restrict social
spending, to undercut competitors, and to open Third World societies
to more efficient exploitation (including now much of Eastern Europe).
Within the ideological system, therefore, neoliberal doctrine is
highly praised. But business has always insisted that a powerful state
intervene to regulate disorderly markets, organize a public subsidy
for advanced industry, suppress labor and independent forces at home
and abroad, and in other ways protect the interests of those who
control investment and finance, and thus set the general conditions
within which the "architects of policy" meet their responsibilities.
Any illusions that capitalism might be a viable system vanished --
apart from the secular theologians -- with the Great Depression and
the successful recovery from it under the wartime command economy,
administered by corporate executives who learned their lessons well. 
Like all advanced societies, the U.S. has relied on state intervention
in the economy from its origins, though for ideological reasons, the
fact is commonly denied. During the post-World War II period, such
"industrial policy" was masked by the Pentagon system, including the
Department of Energy (which produces nuclear weapons) and NASA,
converted by the Kennedy administration to a significant component of
the state-directed public subsidy to advanced industry. 
By the late 1940s, it was taken for granted in government-corporate
circles that the state would have to intervene massively to maintain
the private economy. In 1948, with postwar pent-up consumer demand
exhausted and the economy sinking back into recession, Truman's
"cold-war spending" was regarded by the business press as a "magic
formula for almost endless good times" (Steel), a way to "maintain a
generally upward tone" (Business Week). The Magazine of Wall Street
saw military spending as a way to "inject new strength into the entire
economy," and a few years later, found it "obvious that foreign
economies as well as our own are now mainly dependent on the scope of
continued arms spending in this country," referring to the
international military Keynesianism that finally succeeded in
reconstructing state capitalist industrial societies abroad and laying
the basis for the huge expansion of Transnational Corporations (TNCs),
at that time mainly U.S.-based. 
The Pentagon system was considered ideal for these purposes. It
imposes on the public a large burden of the costs (research and
development, R&D) and provides a guaranteed market for excess
production, a useful cushion for management decisions. Furthermore,
this form of industrial policy does not have the undesirable
side-effects of social spending directed to human needs. Apart from
unwelcome redistributive effects, the latter policies tend to
interfere with managerial prerogatives; useful production may undercut
private gain, while state-subsidized waste production (arms,
Man-on-the-Moon extravaganzas, etc.) is a gift to the owner and
manager, who will, furthermore, be granted control of any marketable
spin-offs. Furthermore, social spending may well arouse public
interest and participation, thus enhancing the threat of democracy;
the public cares about hospitals, roads, neighborhoods, and so on, but
has no opinion about the choice of missiles and high-tech fighter
planes. The defects of social spending do not taint the military
Keynesian alternative, which had the added advantage that it was
well-adapted to the needs of advanced industry: computers and
electronics generally, aviation, and a wide range of related
technologies and enterprises. 
The Pentagon system of course served other purposes. As global
enforcer, the U.S. needs intervention forces and an intimidating
posture to facilitate their use. But its economic role has always been
central, a fact well-known to military planners. Army Plans Chief
General James Gavin, in charge of Army R&D under Eisenhower, noted
that "What appears to be intense interservice rivalry in most
cases...is fundamentally industrial rivalry." It was also recognized
from the outset that these goals require "sacrifice and discipline" on
the part of the general public (NSC 68). It was therefore necessary,
Dean Acheson urged "to bludgeon the mass mind" of Congress and
recalcitrant officials with the Communist threat in a manner "clearer
than truth," and to "scare hell out of the American people," as
Senator Vandenberg interpreted the message. To carry out these tasks
has been a prime responsibility of intellectuals throughout these
years. 
Public acquiescence was largely secured by fear. By the 1980s,
however, the cry that "the Russians are coming" was losing its
efficacy. The problem of the vanishing pretext was a troublesome one
throughout the decade, heightened by the erosion of public tolerance
in the face of growing economic problems. Major propaganda efforts
were undertaken to conjure up new demons: international terrorism,
Qaddafi and crazed Arabs generally, Sandinistas marching on Texas,
Hispanic narcotraffickers, etc. The absurdity of the pretexts did not
prevent them from having a certain effect though with only temporary
success, a problem that must be faced. 
Aiding the Pentagon
In passing, we may note that the current PR campaign in Somalia has
similar motives, a fact that is scarcely even disguised. The First
Landing was carefully staged for TV. Pentagon briefings directed
journalists to where they were wanted, even advising them when and
where "to set up their cameras" (New York Times). Pentagon officials
encouraged "extensive media coverage in a bid to cast the US mission
in the most positive light," the Washington Post reported, noting "the
invasion's made-for-Hollywood quality," which aroused considerable
ridicule in Europe, and occasionally here. These officials were "eager
to advertise both to Somalia and the rest of the world the
precedent-setting humanitarian mission," the Post reported, omitting
the quotes around the last two words that authentic journalism would
require. 
The operation will be "a good experience for other countries and for
us to see what effect American generosity has on these types of
disaster," the overseas relief chief of USAID Andrew Natsios, stated:
"millions of lives will be saved Americans should feel very good about
themselves" -- and about the Pentagon budget that allows such miracles
of generosity. Officials "didn't hide the fact that they wanted to
make it as easy as possible for the news media to cover an event that
portrays them in a good light," Peter Grier reported in the Christian
Science Monitor. "With the military budget crumbling, a little
favorable publicity can only help." For the Marine Corps, the
operation is a "showcase...at a time when Congress is under intense
pressure to produce post-Cold War defense savings," the Post
commented, and the whole affair is nothing less than "a public
relations bonanza at just the right time." JCS chair Colin Powell
added that the effort is a "paid political advertisement" on behalf of
plans for an intervention force. The military "convoys were more a
symbolic show for the world's television cameras than any serious
effort to get a steady stream of food moving" New York Times
correspondent Jane Perlez reported two weeks after the landing, under
the heading "Somalia, We Are Here! (Now What Do We Do?)." 
The intervention "seemed to be largely devoid of ulterior political
motives," Perlez added, a phrase that is obligatory even in reports
that bring out clearly the overriding "political motives" and the
great efforts to achieve the desired effect. These efforts were so
obvious that only the most disciplined were able to suppress entirely
what they knew and to marvel that the intervention "was justified
solely on moral grounds" and thus put "the question of idealism in
foreign policy rather purely" (New Republic editors, their emphasis). 
The pretensions could hardly be taken seriously. If Washington had any
humanitarian concerns for the people of Somalia, it had ample
opportunity to act upon them from 1978 through 1990, when it was the
major supporter of Siad Barre, the Saddam Hussein clone who was then
destroying Somali society, killing 50-60,000 according the African
Watch and setting the stage for the horrors that followed-facts
regularly finessed in current media coverage. There is no evidence of
a sudden religious conversion since. Furthermore, there are numerous
"humanitarian missions" that could readily be undertaken if generosity
were even a marginal element in policy-making. To take a case close to
home, it is agreed on all sides that a few phone calls to the ruling
Generals -- not 30,000 troops -- would probably suffice to call off
the savage terror in Haiti and allow the return of the
democratically-elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, highly
popular in Haiti if not in Washington; this minimal intervention would
also save any number of infants from starvation and disease. Examples
abound. That aside, no one who even pretends to be serious will lend
credence to a "humanitarian act" carefully staged for the world's TV
cameras -- particularly, when it is undertaken by a great power with a
horrifying record of abuse of human rights, and a particular penchant
for imposing starvation and disease on civilian societies by economic
warfare (Vietnam, Cuba, Chile, Nicaragua, Iraq, ...). 
States are not moral agents. "Generosity" and "humanitarian missions"
are tools of the trade of the commissar class in every society.
Perhaps some historical examples can be found of "humanitarian
intervention," but transparently, this is not one of them. 
As is fully recognized, the troops were sent well after the civil
society had begun to recover and the crisis was clearly receding. "One
thing is certain," Jane Perlez emphasizes: "the worst of the Somali
famine of 1992 is past." "The Worst Was Over" (a sub-heading reads)
well before the U.S. forces arrived in December. By early November,
aid agencies in the distribution center in Baidoa, where the crisis
was unusually severe, reported that about 80 percent of aid was
reaching the most needy, and by the end of the month, the ICRC and
other experienced agencies were reporting still higher figures.
Recovery from Siad Barre's atrocities in the North had been
substantial well before, and even in the region of greatest suffering
in the South there was visible progress, thanks in part to the efforts
of the highly-regarded UN mediator Muhammad Sahnoun, who was removed
after his public criticism of the incompetence of the UN operations.
Serious reservations about the character of the U.S. intervention were
expressed by development and relief agencies and the few people really
knowledgeable about Somalia and the problems of famine, among them
Rakiya Omaar, the Somali head of Africa Watch who was dismissed when
she publicly opposed the intervention, and her co-worker Alex de Waal,
one of the leading specialists on African famines and East Africa, who
resigned in protest. The American Friends Service Committee, which has
carried out development programs and relief work in Somalia for over
ten years and is implementing emergency programs today, concluded "on
the basis of this direct experience and our knowledge of the country
and its people" that the massive military intervention is a "grave
mistake" that "may be counterproductive in the long if not the short
run," interrupting and disrupting the processes of reconstruction that
"have been undertaken among traditional leaders facilitated by
Ambassador Mohammed Sahnoun of the United Nations and others, to try
to build peace from below." Apparently reflecting similar perceptions,
the International Red Cross (ICRC), which played by far the greatest
part in responding to the terrible famine that peaked in summer 1992,
refused to accept U.S. military escorts for fear that this would
disrupt arrangements that hail been developing within Somali civil
society. The British government pressured Oxfam and Save the Children,
both dependent on government support, to call off their criticisms of
the intervention. 
Many expressed particular concern over U.S. dealings with the leading
"warlords," fearing that this may provide greater legitimacy and power
to the most dangerous and destructive elements in the society. They
seem to agree. Both General Mohammed Farrar Aideed the most powerful
of these killers, and his ally Col. Omar Jess, who massacred over 100
civilian leaders in Kismayu in preparation for the arrival of the
marines, "want to deal solely with the U.S.," Julian Onne comments in
the Financial Times, reporting on a protest by 500 demonstrators loyal
to Aideed that disrupted the visit of UN Secretary General Boutros
Ghali to Mogadishu, which Aideed controls. 
There is good reason to believe that a more modulated approach in
cooperation with Somali civil society could have been effective in
enhancing the recovery already underway, along lines that have been
presented by Omaar de Waal, and other close observers. The military
operation that was so "eagerly advertised" may prove beneficial or
harmful to Somalis in the long run, but that is incidental; they are
basically props for photo opportunities. 
In the UK, as here, it is commonly felt necessary to include ritual
phrases about the "humanitarian mission" in analyses of actual
motives. Economic correspondent Michael Prowse of the Financial Times
describes the Somali intervention in these terms: "in the absence of
the communist threat, the most reliable way to sustain public support
for large military expenditures may be to base foreign policy on
values the public holds dear. In today's changed world [the Soviet
threat having vanished], Mr. Clinton is thus being a realist, as much
as an idealist, in pledging to make the promotion of democracy and
human rights the guiding principles for overseas interventions" -- PR
devices that he did not invent, of course. Having exposed the
propaganda, Prowse goes on to laud "The heartwarming presence of U.S.
troops in Somalia," where, "For the first time in recent U.S. history
(perhaps ever), a sizable military intervention overseas was justified
on purely moral grounds." A high tolerance for self-contradiction is a
virtual necessity for intellectual respectability, given the need to
invest the actual workings of power with suitable majesty. 
The day after the intervention, in an article on the U.S. economy not
mentioning Somalia, Prowse cited U.S. economists in corporate and
financial institutions who attribute the sluggishness of recovery from
the recession to the decline in military spending, which eliminates a
traditional device for stimulating the economy. In brief, the stakes
in "sustaining public support for large military expenditures" are
high. 
According to the official version of the timing presented most fully
by Don Oberdorder of the Washington Post on the basis of official
leaks, the decision to intervene was taken on November 21 on the
grounds that "the need is crying" and "only the United States can do
something." That story lacks any credibility; "the need was crying"
months earlier, and was declining by late November thanks to the
efforts of others. 
It is possible that the intervention had been planned for the
post-election period. In early November, a marine colonel in civilian
clothes was seen by reporters in Baidoa, apparently scouting out the
area where a major base would be established; at the time, U.S.
military personnel were restricted to the cargo planes delivering
supplies. A "humanitarian intervention" just before election day would
have seemed too cynical a ploy, undermining the PR function. An
earlier intervention would have faced two problems. The first is that
the situation had not yet begun to settle. The operation would have
been far more risky, and it was not so obvious then that the
appearance of success could be quickly achieved; similar
considerations rule out "humanitarian intervention" in Bosnia, even
more strongly. Second, it is widely felt that things might go sour
after the initial PR bonanza, and the Administration surely did not
want to face such problems under the glare of election klieglights.
The post-election timing is preferable. Order was being restored so
the appearance of success is more likely. Bush's term can end in a
blaze of glory. If the "purely idealistic" effort turns into the usual
disaster, on the model of Grenada, Panama, and so on, attention will
have waned or someone else will have to pick up the pieces and suffer
the political consequences. 
As in earlier efforts to sustain the Pentagon system, the Somali
intervention may serve other purposes. The U.S. supported Siad Barre
through his worst atrocities because of its interest in Somali bases
for the intervention forces aimed at the Middle East and for possible
operations in Africa; such considerations might remain of some
importance (not much, I suspect, alternatives being readily
available). Furthermore, in large parts of Africa and the Middle East
the rise of Islamic fundamentalism (which may well be accelerated by
the intervention) is a matter of growing concern, for traditional
reasons: like secular nationalist tendencies, liberation theology,
labor and peasant organizing, democratic socialist political
initiatives, some military regimes, and other potentially independent
forces, Islamic fundamentalism falls under the rubric of
"ultranationalism," a term that covers any threat of deviation from
the subordinate role assigned to the service areas, whatever its
political coloration. Nevertheless, it seems likely that at the
current moment, the prevailing factor is the domestic one, the crisis
of state industrial policy, as the more serious commentary and
reporting often indicates obliquely. 
Industrial Policy for the 1990s
The decline of the traditional form of industrial strategy is a
serious matter. To convince the taxpayer to subsidize advanced
industry by the methods designed in the early postwar years is
becoming increasingly difficult. It is not surprising, then, that we
now hear open discussion of the need for "industrial policy" -- that
is, new forms, no longer masked by the Pentagon system. 
The old methods were running into difficulties for reasons beyond the
loss of the standard pretext and the erosion of tolerance on the part
of people suffering the effects of Reaganite spend-and-borrow abandon.
The Pentagon system of industrial subsidy and planning has obvious
inefficiencies. These were tolerable in the days of overwhelming U.S.
economic dominance, less so as U.S.-based corporations face serious
competitors who can design and produce directly for the commercial
market, not awaiting possible spin-offs from high tech weapons or
space shots. Furthermore, the cutting edge of industrial development
is shifting to biology-based technology. That is one reason why the
West, with the U.S. in the lead, is insisting that GATT agreements and
NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) provide enhanced
protection for patents ("intellectual property"), thus locking the
Third World into dependency on high-priced products of Western
agribusiness, biotechnology, the pharmaceutical industry, and so on.
It is important to ensure that TNCs control seeds, plant varieties,
drugs, and the means of life generally; by comparison, electronics
deals with frills. Public subsidy and state protection for
biology-based industries can not easily be hidden behind a Pentagon
cover. For such reasons alone, new forms of state intervention are
required (see Year 501, South End Press). 
In the 1992 electoral campaign, the Democrats showed more awareness of
these issues, gaining support from sectors of the corporate world that
recognized them to be more attuned to real world problems than
Reaganite ideologues. Not that Reaganites were reluctant to use state
power to protect the wealthy from market forces. The primary
mechanisms were the usual military Keynesian ones. To mention one
striking case, a 1985 OECD study found that the Pentagon and Japan's
state planning ministry MITI were distributing R&D funds much the same
way, making similar guesses about new technologies. A major Pentagon
funnel was SDI ("Star Wars"), which was openly advertised as a state
subsidy to the "private sector," and lauded by the business press for
that reason. The Reagan-Bush decade ended in fall 1992 with a
well-publicized improvement in the economy, attributed in the business
press to a sharp rise in military spending much of it for computer
purchases. While almost all industrial societies became more
protectionist in past years, at great cost to the Third World, the
Reaganites led the pack, introducing more import restrictions than all
postwar administrations combined. British MP Phillip Oppenheim,
ridiculing Anglo-American posturing about "liberal market capitalism,"
notes that "A World Bank survey of non-tariff barriers showed that
they covered 9 per cent of all goods in Japan -- compared with 34 per
cent in the U.S. -- figures reinforced by David Henderson of the OECD,
who stated that during the 1980s the U.S. had the worst record for
devising new non-tariff barriers" (basically, ways to strong-arm
competitors). He adds that OECD figures show U.S. state funding for
non-military R&D to be about one-third of all civil research spending,
as compared to 2 percent state funding in Japan. The Thatcher record
is similar. 
The Reaganites also conducted the biggest nationalization in U.S.
history (the Continental Illinois Bank bailout) and enabled the steel
industry to reconstruct by effectively barring imports and undermining
unions to reduce labor costs. They are leaving Washington with heavy
new restrictions on European Community steel exports that the EC
claims violate international trade rules; Washington's justification
is alleged EC dumping, but the EC responds that total EC steel exports
had fallen below the "voluntary quota" (the Reaganite non-tariff
barrier). The Reagan administration sharply increased export-promotion
by means of Export-Import bank credits in apparent "violation of the
GATT," Eximbank chair John Macomber concedes. They conducted "what was
effectively an `industrial policy'" (contrary to official rhetoric)
that rebuilt the U.S. computer chip industry by such means as an
agreement "essentially forced on Japan" to increase purchases of U.S.
chips and by establishment of the government-industry consortium
Sematech to improve manufacturing technology, the Washington Post
reported, quoting Charles White, vice president for strategic planning
at Motorola, the second-biggest U.S. chip maker, who said: "You can't
underestimate the government's role." 
Despite such achievements, the Reagan-Bush faction remains hampered by
ideological extremism, unable to face current problems of industrial
strategy as directly as their political opponents, some elements of
the corporate-financial world assume. Clintonite thinking on this
issue is reflected in the choice of Berkeley Professor Laura Tyson as
Chairperson of the Council of Economic Advisors. Tyson was a founder
and codirector of the Berkeley Roundtable on the International
Economy, a corporate-funded trade and technology research institute
that advocates unconcealed state industrial policy. She has
"longstanding relationships with Silicon Valley companies that stand
to benefit from the policies she advocates," Times business
correspondent Sylvia Nasar notes. In support of these policies,
Roundtable co-director Michael Borrus cites a 1988 Department of
Commerce study showing that "five of the top six fastest growing U.S.
industries from 1972 to 1988 were sponsored or sustained, directly or
indirectly, by federal investment," the only exception being
lithographic services. "The winners" in earlier years, he writes,
"computers, biotechnology, jet engines, and airframes were each the
by-product of public spending for national defense and public health."
The record goes back to the earliest days; "defense" and "public
health" are the familiar Newspeak disguises, perhaps a shade less
deceptive than "free market neoliberalism." 
Such familiar lessons of economic history can no longer be concealed,
as the Pentagon system and the Cold War ideology have eroded. The
interventionist measures of the Reaganites reflect these needs, as
does the increasingly open discussion of "industrial policy." A recent
study of the National Academy of Sciences and Engineering proposed a
$5 billion quasi-governmental company "to channel federal money into
private applied research"; that is, publicly-funded research that will
yield private profit. Another report, entitled The Government Role in
Civilian Technology: Building a New Alliance, calls for new efforts to
extend "the close and longstanding" government-industry relationship
that has "helped to establish the commercial biotechnology industry."
It recommends a government-funded "Civilian Technology Corporation" to
assist U.S. industry to commercialize technology by encouraging
"cooperative R&D ventures in pre-commercial areas"; "pre-commercial,"
to ensure that profit is restricted to private wealth and power. The
ventures will be "cooperative," with the public paying the costs up to
the point of product development. At that point costs change to gains,
and the public hands the enterprise over to private industry, the
traditional pattern. 
"America cannot continue to rely on trickle-down technology from the
military," Clinton stated in a document issued by his campaign
headquarters in September 1992 ("Technology: The Engine of Economic
Growth"). The old game is ending. In the "new era" planned by the
Clinton administration, Times science writer William Broad reports,
"the Government's focus on making armaments will shift to fostering a
host of new civilian technologies and industries" -- just as in the
"old era," but then behind the Pentagon mask. "President Clinton
proposes to redirect $76 billion or so in annual Federal research
spending so it spurs industrial innovation" in emerging technologies
-- which, in unmentionable fact, were largely funded through the
Pentagon system (and the National Institute of Health) in the "old
era." A minimum of $30 billion is to be taken from the Pentagon's
research budget as a "peace dividend" over four years for these
purposes, Broad writes, noting that: "Significantly, the initiative
would spend the same amount of money as Star Wars, $30 billion, in
half the time. " 
Also significantly, Clinton's advisers knew all along that Star Wars
was "only tangentially related to national defense" that its prime
function was to serve as "a path to competitiveness in advanced
technologies," as publicly explained in Congressional Hearings
(Clinton's close associate Robert Reich, now Secretary of Labor,
writing in 1985 in the New York Times under the heading "High Tech, a
Subsidiary of Pentagon Inc."). As noted earlier, the function of Star
Wars as part of the system of public subsidy, private profit, was made
clear to the business world from the start, though largely concealed
from the general public by the doctrinal managers. 
The Wall Street Journal reports a study by Battelle Memorial Institute
showing that research spending will remain sluggish because of "a
slowdown in weapons development." "Government spending over the past
five years has swung toward space and energy programs, and away from
weapons development" the principal author of the report said. That is
government spending (the public subsidy) shifted from one component of
the Pentagon system to the others. 
"We're now going to develop an economic strategy much in the way we
developed a national security strategy to fight the cold war," Kent
Hughes, president of Clinton s Council on Competitiveness, proclaimed.
It is necessary only to bring out the striking continuities as old
policies are adapted to new contingencies, and to reinterpret the
"cold war" as what it was. A related matter is the traditional
business demand that the public via government, pay the costs of the
infrastructure required for private power and profit, everything from
roads to education. By now, even such enthusiasts for Reagan's party
for the rich as the Wall Street Journal are concerned by the
consequences of the policies they advocated, such as the deterioration
of the state college systems that supplied the needs of the corporate
sector. "Public higher education -- one the few areas where America
still ranks supreme -- is being pounded by state spending cuts," the
Journal worriedly reports, echoing the concerns of businesses that
"rely heavily on a steady stream of graduates" for skilled personnel
and on applied research that they can exploit. This is one of the
long-predicted consequences of the cutback of federal services for all
but the wealthy and powerful, which devastated states and local
communities. Class war is not easy to fine tune. 
That Clinton will be able to address these problems is not at all
clear. Frivolous Reaganite policies left the country deeply in debt at
all levels, from the federal government to households. Interest on the
federal debt has skyrocketed, now reaching the scale of the days when
the costs of the World War had to be faced. Had the borrowing been
used for productive investment or R&D, it could have been justified.
But it was not. Rather, it was largely frittered away in luxury
consumption, financial manipulations and swindles, and other Yuppie
fun-and-games-much as in Thatcherite England, the other "revolution"
much admired by the privileged. A National Science Foundation study at
the peak of the mania estimated that R&D expenditures declined by 5
percent for companies involved in mergers and acquisitions compared to
a 5 percent rise for others. Meanwhile real wages declined, hunger and
deep poverty rose rapidly, the jail population zoomed, and the society
began to take on a distinct Third World aspect. Given the debt, even
the kinds of "moderate increase in infrastructure spending" and other
devices that Clinton advisers are willing to contemplate, reflecting
business concerns, may not be feasible. 
Who Decides? For Whom?
The standard rhetorical cloak for the new "economic strategy" is that
its goal is to provide jobs. That is not false, as long as we recall
the meaning of the term "jobs" in Politically Correct Newspeak.
Whether the strategy will provide jobs, and for whom, is debatable.
What is not debatable is that the driving concern remains the
unmentionable seven-letter word, and that the public is to be
excluded, completely, from any participation in formulating this
"economic strategy." The latter principle follows from the guiding
doctrine of elite democratic theory: the public are to be spectators,
not participants in managing public affairs, which are none of their
business. The urgency of preserving this principle is highlighted by
the curious confusions that the public manifests, reviewed earlier. 
The guiding doctrines, of course, have far more general application.
To mention one interesting case, in Poland "Public resistance to
privatization, especially among workers, has been evident since early
in the post-Communist period," the director of Russian and East
European studies at George Washington University, Sharon Wolchik,
observes: "A 1990 survey, for example, found that only 13 percent of
workers, but 37 percent of directors, favored private ownership of
their enterprise," with over one-third of both workers and directors
favoring state and employee ownership. But the attitudes of the
population are inconsequential in the "new democracies" -- one reason,
perhaps, why "the Communist era is looking better and better" to
Poles, as another academic specialist observes (Jane Leftwich Curry). 
Whether in Somalia, or Poland, or any other choice that one may make,
the concerns of the general population are as incidental to the
architects of policy as in the days of Adam Smith's England. And
crucially, the rabble must be kept from interfering with the plans
that will determine their fate. 
While state managers may attempt to adapt the traditional devices of
public subsidy and protection to new contingencies, they will surely
continue to support the main lines of policy: extending the
globalization of the economy and establishing more firmly the
decision-making apparatus that is taking shape to serve the interests
of the supranational industrial and financial institutions. These are
important features of the current era, discussed in earlier articles
here (see my Z articles in May, July/August, November, and Edward
Herman's "Doublespeak," November 1992). 
Nixon's dismantling of the international economic system was one of
several factors leading to a huge increase in unregulated capital,
beyond the power of governments to control. The rich societies are no
longer immune, as European central banks learned a few months ago.
Even the United States, still the world's largest economy and most
powerful state, is facing these problems. The U.S. can freely
disregard lMF "advice" as the Bush administration showed in October
when the IMF prescribed deficit-cutting measures including new taxes,
and "fundamental" health care reforms -- the kind of "advice" on
structural adjustment that amounts to orders for the Third World,
however harmful the consequences, Doug Henwood notes, reporting the
U.S. rejection. But it is not beyond the reach of international bond
investors, who "may now hold unprecedented power -- perhaps even a
veto-over U.S. economic policy," the Wall Street Journal reported
immediately after the election. This consequence of the huge
Reagan-Bush deficit will serve as brake on any odd ideas that Clinton
advisers might have about spending, the Journal noted reassuringly;
spending of the wrong kind, that is, not directed to the needs of "the
country," in the technical sense. 
Related developments of the past several decades have accelerated the
globalization of the economy, along with its immediate corollary: a
growing superfluous population at home as production shifts to high
repression, low wage areas (and, at the same time, productivity gains
reduce the need for industrial workers). The superfluous people are
becoming less significant as a market as well. Increasingly,
production can be shifted to poor and oppressed populations and
directed to the relatively wealthy, a small sector in the traditional
Third World, a far larger one in the advanced industrial societies.
The model pioneered by Henry Ford -- wages high enough for domestic
workers to provide a market -- may decline along with the national
economies on which it was based. Rhetoric aside, these are not likely
to be serious concerns of the "principal architects" of policy, any
more than they have been in the past. 
The reversion of much of East Europe to its traditional Third World
status offers new weapons against U.S. workers (and Western workers
generally). As widely reported, GM plans to close two dozen plants in
the U.S. and Canada. Meanwhile it bas opened a $690 million assembly
plant in East Germany with great expectations, heightened by the fact
that, thanks to 43 percent unofficial unemployment, workers are
willing to "work longer hours than their pampered colleagues in
western Germany" at 40 percent of the wage and with few benefits, the
Financial Times cheerily explains. Capital can readily move; people
cannot, or are not permitted to by those who applaud Adam Smith's
doctrines when it suits their needs. Jobs may disappear in the West;
"jobs" in the technical sense will do just fine. 
The U.S. (like other states) will continue to defend U.S.-based
corporate and financial interests while seeking to maintain a global
environment in which they can flourish. That requires, in particular,
that the Third World be kept in its service role. Meanwhile at home,
state power will continue to be employed to dissolve popular
structures (unions, etc.) that might serve the needs of the general
public and enable them to interfere illegitimately in the management
of public affairs It will also be necessary to find ways to control
the growing "Third World at home," no small problem. The Clinton
Mandate for Change promises no change in these respects. 
Much of world trade (close to half, by some estimates) consists of
intrafirm transfers -- centrally managed trade, internal to particular
TNCs and guided by a highly "visible hand," to borrow the phrase of
business historian Alfred Chandler. In an important critical analysis
of the GATT World Bank economists Herman Daly and Robert Goodland
point out that in prevailing economic theory, "firms are islands of
central planning in a sea of market relationships." "As the islands
get bigger" they add, "there is really no reason to claim victory for
the market principle" -- particularly as the islands approach the
scale of the sea, which departs radically from free market principles,
and always has, because the powerful will not submit to these
destructive rules. 
As in the past, political institutions are taking shape to reflect the
realities of private economic power: the IMF and World Bank, G-7,
NAFTA, and other elements of the "de facto world government" described
by the international financial press as the executive for the "new
imperial age." These processes allow major decisions to be insulated
from parliamentary institutions, which may be infected by public
influence This important development carries forward the long-term
project of safeguarding wealth and privilege from public interference
and overcoming the threat that democratic forms might have actual
substance. Increasingly, the general public are not even aware of
major decisions that will determine their fate, hence are in no
position to influence them. A good part of the popular concern in
Europe over instituting EC structures has to do with "the democratic
deficit," "the fact that policies escape parliamentary control at the
national level and do not come under equivalent control at the
Community level" (John Lambert). The same problems are arising here,
though they are less discussed in our more depoliticized society. 
Neither at home nor abroad does the real world bear much resemblance
to the dreamy fantasies now fashionable among intellectuals about
History converging to an ideal of liberal democracy that is the
ultimate realization of Freedom. Consider NAFTA. One may debate the
consequences, but no one doubts that they will be large in scale. The
NAFTA is an executive agreement reached on August 12, 1992, just in
time to become a major issue in the electoral campaign. It was
mentioned but barely. The Trade Act of 1974 established a Labor
Advisory Committee (IAC), based in the unions, which is required by
law to provide advice and information to the executive branch before
any trade agreement is reached. The LAC was advised that its report
was due on September 9, J992. A complete draft of the text of this
elaborate treaty was made available one day before, on September 8,
making it impossible for the LAC to formally meet, as directed by law.
One could hardly con conjure up a more striking example of utter
contempt for democracy. Furthermore, the LAC notes, "the
administration refused to permit any outside advice on the development
of this document and refused to make a draft available for comment." 
The situation in Canada was similar. The British Columbia Teachers
Federation wrote a sharply critical report on the treaty draft noting
the "impossible limitations on the operation of this committee, "with
absurd time constraints and exclusion of entire provinces from any
review of the lengthy and complex executive agreement. 
Despite the contemptuous dismissal of both the law and the public, LAC
did provide a review of NAFTA, concluding that while the treaty would
be a bonanza to investors (as all agree), it would severely harm
American workers (about 70 percent of them, even by the analysis of
the advocates). It will also very likely harm Mexican workers as well,
the LAC report notes, as do other studies. One predicted consequence
of the agreement is a rapid increase in rural migration to urban areas
as Mexican corn producers are wiped out by U.S. agribusiness exports,
depressing still further wages that have fallen some 60 percent during
the past decade and are likely to remain low, thanks to the harsh
repression of labor that is a crucial part of the highly-touted
Mexican "economic miracle." Property rights are well protected by the
agreement, LAC and other analysts note, while workers' rights are
ignored. 
The treaty is also likely to have harmful environmental consequences;
production can shift to regions where enforcement of laws is lax or
non-existent, and regulations imposed by parliamentary bodies can be
overridden as "unfair restraint of trade," processes already underway
in the Framework of the U.S.-Canada "Free trade" agreement. In
general, the LAC report concludes, "U.S. corporations, and the owners
and managers of these corporations, stand to reap enormous profits.
The United States as a whole, however, stands to lose an enormous
amount." The country will suffer, "the country" -- in the Newspeak
sense -- will, again, do just fine. 
On a wide range of issues, the LAC report observes, NAFTA "will have
the effect of prohibiting democratically elected bodies at [federal,
state, and local levels of government from enacting measures deemed
inconsistent with the provisions of the agreement," including measures
on the environment, workers' rights, health and safety, etc. The LAC
report calls for the treaty to be renegotiated, offering a series of
constructive proposals. 
Neither the contents of this important critical analysis, nor the
scorn for law and democracy shown by the Bush administration, were
reported. These matters are of no interest to the ideological
institutions, or more accurately, are of negative interest --
suppression is necessary, in the interests of "the country." Citizens
know next to nothing; indeed, subversion of democracy has reached such
remarkable heights that they do not even know that they know nothing.
Congress abdicated responsibility. The Clinton camp had little to say.
In such ways, we can approach the long-sought ideal: formal democratic
procedures that are utterly devoid of meaning, as citizens not only do
not intrude into the public arena, but have scarcely an idea of the
policies that will shape their lives. 
It is a striking fact that although these critical issues have been
kept almost entirely out of the public domain, 60 percent of the
public do have an opinion about NAFTA, opposing it by nearly 2-to-1 in
October 1992. As usual, that was irrelevant to the presidential
campaign, then in its final weeks. It was enough, however, to frighten
the Wall Street Journal, which ran a fevered front-page story warning
of the "diverse coalition of grass-roots foes" that is "fighting
`Nafta'," including the labor movement, populist farm groups, and
environmental and religious organizations. These dangerous elements
"hit pay dirt," the Journal reports ominously, receiving funds (a
magnificent $50,000) from a branch of the Unitarian Church. 
The corporate world is, naturally, shaking in its boots at the thought
that its monopoly might be challenged. The lesson for the rest of us
is obvious. 
More generally, people have little specific knowledge of what is
happening around them. An academic study that appeared right before
the presidential election reports that less than 30 percent of the
population was aware of the positions of the candidates on major
issues, though 86 percent knew the name of George Bush's dog. The
general thrust of propaganda gets through, however. When asked to
identify the largest element of the federal budget, less than 1/4 give
the correct answer, military spending. Almost half select foreign aid,
which barely exists; the second choice is welfare, chosen by 1/3 of
the population, who also far overestimate the proportion that goes to
blacks and to child support. And though the question was not asked,
virtually none are likely to be aware that "defense spending" is in
large measure welfare for the rich. Another result of the study is
that more educated sectors are more ignorant -- not surprising, since
they are the main targets of indoctrination. Bush supporters, who are
the best educated scored lowest overall. The study also shows that
Republican propaganda (however fraudulent) passed through the media
with greater effect than the Democrats counterpart, an inconvenience
for the charges of "liberal bias" that are particularly relished by
the liberal media, which -- as usual -- greatly appreciate such
condemnation as a tribute to their fiery independence of power. 
With regard to all of these issues, two distinct questions arise. What
will be the likely consequences of the policies under consideration?
Who decides? The answer to the second question is clear: the
"principal architects" of policy are the traditional ones. The public
has essentially no role, and with the recent advances in destruction
of democracy, no knowledge. 
As noted, the first question can be debated. Perhaps, as the scant
media coverage generally takes for granted reflexively, the NAFTA will
benefit all; the Clinton and the Reagan-Bush factions are earnestly
seeking to improve the lives and prospects of the general public,
differing only on how to achieve this result; all are committed to
free trade, which is obviously the greater good; etc. Maybe there
really is a tooth fairy. Perhaps. No matter what one believes, it
cannot be doubted that the policy questions require careful scrutiny
and analysis. And that they will not receive, certainly not on the
part of those whose lives and fate are at stake, unless they organize
to do something about it. 
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subscription information. Archive | New World Media | ZNet 
Caro Michele. Gia' altri prima di te sono venuti a donarci le tavole
della verita'. Dicevano: " Informati, lo sanno tutti, c'e' scritto
qua...ecc..."
Il problema e' che si parla di pareri. 
Grazie del contributo alla discussione, ma, per cortesia, non
sbandierare verita' assolute blaterando che chi non e' daccordo deve
INFORMARSI.
 Cazzo, qui siamo in parecchi ad informarci e, non ci crederai, lo
facciamo senza il tuo aiuto.
Maurice 

 wrote in message
news:3720991c...@news.tin.it...
Peraltro un mediocre regista.
Io mi auguro che tu abbia fatto dei cut & paste perche' altrimenti sei
davvero pericoloso. Visto che sei tanto preoccupato per la mia cultura da
farti un simile mazzo, ti ringrazio e ti prometto che replichero' per mail.
Sempre che la cosa ti faccia piacere. Percio' fammi sapere se ti interessa
la mia opinione anche quando non ci guarda nessuno.
Conosco Chomsky (ed anche Gore Vidal) solo a grandi linee e percio'
discuterne con te potrebbe anche essere occasione per conoscerli meglio.
Ma questa tua preoccupazione mi autorizza ad essere a mia volta preoccupato
per la *tua* conoscenza di come finziona un newsgroup, e ti prego di fare
assolutamente attenzione a quanto ti diro', poi fai come ti pare:
1) Hai mandato 182 kb di solo testo *in tre post*. QUESTO NON SI FA, percio'
CORRI a fare una visita a questo sito:
http://beatles.cselt.it/news-it/FAQ.html
  ci sono un sacco di cose
interessanti che si chiamano netiquette, e che servono principalmente ad
evitare di essere insultati senza saperne il perche'. Si tratta di
informazioni base sul funzionamento dei gruppi di discussione.
2) Parimenti corri a visitare quest'altro sito: 
http://www.iaciners.org/new
dove oltre alle bruttissime facce di quelli che frequentano questo NG
troverai delle FAQ che servono a non essere insultati *in particolare* qui
su IAC.
3) Il fatto che tu abbia sottoscritto un gruppo di discussione di cinema
fa supporre 2 cose:
3.a] che tu voglia *discutere* di qualcosa e non metterti in competizione
con gli altri (questo e' il senso della tronfiaggine, parola che altrove hai
frainteso).
3.b] che tu voglia discutere di *cinema*. Ora tu hai mandato 200 kb di post
in un giorno e non hai mai fatto cenno a nessun film.
La domanda sorge spontanea: sei sicuro che sia it.arti.cinema il NG che
cerchi? perche' si' che noi facciamo molti off topic, ma alla fine di cinema
si parla. Ora pero' non mi postare l'intero Mereghetti come reply...
Quanto detto sub 3.b] e' anche la ragione per cui - se vorrai - ti mandero'
la mia replica per via privata.
Ciao.
[IT] Minchia! 180 kb, dico 180 kb! 3 minuti per ogni post solo per
controllare le Hyperlinks!
--
ArA (ICQ 13983837)
STYLE MATTERS, INSHALLAH!

bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla
non credevo mai di dover essere io a scrivere una cosa cosi', ma
porcalamiseriatroia, 1034 righe di messaggio totalmente off topic su
questo gruppo per scrivere una cosa che e' diretta esplicitamente ad
Aramesh, che ci ha la sua bella mailbox funzionante, sul gruppo del
cinema, caro il mio Michele Rossi, e' veramente una gran cretinata.
Alla luce di comportamenti imbecillotti come questi, io non sono per
nientissimo d'accordo di fare un secondo IAC solo per le recensioni: di
pisquani cosi' ne troviamo ad ogni angolo di strada, e anche se noi ci
limitiamo e facciamo i bravi usenettisti eccolla', il rossi che ci spara
1039 righe e successivamente 1270, e poi 916 (e my compliments).
:-((((((
Caro Rossi!!!! Parlaci un po' di cinema, prima che ti metta nel
killfile, va'!
ffffffff
Cialtron's Progressive Identificative Number: 223142
-------------------------------------
"Lei e' un cretino! Si informi!!"

Aramesh, che ci ha la sua bella mailbox funzionante
Sei poco psicologa ffffff! Se mi avesse mandato la reply per mail come
avrebbe fatto a far vedere a tutti quanto e' colto?
[IT] Am I a scumbag or do I know my chickens?


 non credevo mai di dover essere io a scrivere una cosa cosi'
....infatti l'avevo già scritta io.
:-))
-- 
Pierangelo
-------------------------------
Il pericolo e' il mio mestiere
Farsi male no
(C.G.)