This memo issue may not be quite what it seems:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summers_Memo
http://harvardmagazine.com/2001/05/toxic-memo.html
Naomi Scheman
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<FEAST-L@kookabur
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Re: Lawrence Summers
11/10/2008 12:14
AM
Please respond to
Naomi Scheman
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Thanks, Chaone, for bringing this to our attention. This issue seems the
best suited for an effort to flood Obama with a plea not to appoint
Summers--someone whose conception of economics leads to the embrace of
economic and environmental racism--surely this is not in line with the
message that Obama's election has sent to the world--he shouldn't squander
the amazing good will the rest of the world is showing us after so long.
The argument you lay out is so deeply horrible and such a telling reminder
of what's so wrong with the economic theories that have held this country
(and hence the rest of the world) in their grip, and of the fact that it's
not just Republicans who've championed them. (I agree, by the way, that the
interconnections aren't coincidental, but I think that this piece might be
the most persuasive....)
naomi scheman
Chaone Mallory wrote:
Summers is also infamous in the environmental justice world for
authoring what is called the "World Bank Memo" in 1991 in which he,
while head of the World Bank, advocated exporting first-world
produced toxic wastes to the "vastly underpolluted" (from an economic
standpoint) third world, particularly African nations, where the cost
of life is so much cheaper (wages and health care) that it makes
better economic sense for citizens of these areas to bear the brunt
of the negative health effects from the poisonous substances. In
gross economic terms, it costs less for an African citizen to get an
environmentally-caused cancer because her lost wages and the cost of
her health care (because she doesn't have it) is so much less. AND
when he was president of Harvard, besides suggesting that women have
a biologically-determined lower aptitude for math and science, he
also tried to have Cornell West fired for not doing "serious
scholarship." I wrote about these intercon
nections in Summ!
er's thinking--and the thinking of the privileged class he
represents--between racism, sexism, and environmental attitudes a bit
in my dissertation. Any one else find this if not intentional, then
not coincidental either?
Chaone
*******************************************
Chaone Mallory, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Philosophy
Villanova University
Villanova, PA 19085
610-519-3274
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Villanova Year of Sustainability
http://www.villanova.edu/sustainability/
Villanova Sustainability Conference:
http://www.villanova.edu/sustainability/yearofsustainabilty/conference/
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From: Feminist ethics and social theory [[log in to unmask]]
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Sent: Sunday, November 09, 2008 11:26 PM
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Subject: Lawrence Summers
Another element of concern in the Obama post-election is that he will
apparently appoint Lawrence Summers as Secretary of the Treasury.
Summers
was the recent president of Harvard who was sacked for making
derogatory
remarks about women's abilities to be scientists.
Is Obama less sensitive about gender issues than we'd like to think?
Or
does he regard the economic crisis as such an overwhelming priority
that
he will appoint anyone who he thinks can fix it, regardless of their
record on gender issues?
Marilyn Friedman
--
Naomi Scheman, Professor of Philosophy and of Gender, Women's, & Sexuality
Studies
Director of Graduate Studies in Feminist Studies
University of Minnesota
Philosophy Department, 801 Heller Hall, 271 19th Ave. S., Minneapolis MN
55455
612-625-3430, 612-626-8380 (fax), [log in to unmask]
http://www.philosophy.umn.edu/TrustworthyExpertise/home.html
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