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God Help Us All...

October 10, 2008
16:28
Political Economy...(thanks T.L.)
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"Classical economists like Adam Smith and David Ricardo referred to their discipline as “political economy.” Smith’s great work, “The Wealth of Nations,” was written by the man who held the chair in moral philosophy at the University of Glasgow. This did not seem odd at the time and is not odd now. Economics is not a freestanding discipline, regardless of how it is regarded today. It is a discipline that can only be understood when linked to politics, since the wealth of a nation rests on both these foundations, and it can best be understood by someone who approaches it from a moral standpoint, since economics makes significant assumptions about both human nature and proper behavior.

The modern penchant to regard economics as a discrete science parallels the belief that economics is a distinct sphere of existence — at its best when it is divorced from political and even moral considerations. Our view has always been that the economy can only be understood and forecast in the context of politics, and that the desire to separate the two derives from a moral teaching that Smith would not embrace. Smith understood that the word “economy” without the adjective “political” did not describe reality. We need to bear Smith in mind when we try to understand the current crisis"
15:58
The Buddhist Intifada
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"What happened in Tibet and the neighboring provinces might best be called an intifada. I won’t attempt a comparison with the first and second Palestinian intifadas (the first is closer to the Tibetan uprising, though it lasted much longer and probably involved a larger proportion of the population). But I want to tell the Tibetan story with the Palestinian story in the back of my mind.

We don’t have much detailed information about the recent demonstrations or about the repression. Accounts from Tibetan sources tell of peaceful marches broken up by police and soldiers with clubs and then with guns. Journalists confirm these accounts but tell also of riots that involved the looting and burning of Chinese shops and attacks on individual Chinese settlers. Official sources in Beijing emphasize the attacks and insist that police and soldiers fired only in self-defense. Most commentators assume what I will also assume, that whatever the violence of the demonstrators, the violence of the repression has been greater. It has also been highly effective very quickly—a sign of its massiveness and probably of its brutality."
15:44
F**K the Police.
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"Crowds of Egyptians have attacked police with clubs and stones in a town south of Cairo after a pregnant woman died during a police raid on her home.

The woman was pushed to the ground by officers when she would not let them enter her home to look for her brother, a suspected thief, police said.

She was in the last stages of pregnancy and died of internal bleeding caused by the fall, police added. "
15:10
somalia's navy?
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somalia's navy?

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yazeez's feeds » God Help Us All... » October 10, 2008

Feeds

God Help Us All...

Political Economy...(thanks T.L.)

The Buddhist Intifada

F**K the Police.

somalia's navy?