Since someone took this off, I will repost it. I assume that it was just a mistake.

Can you people stir up some more controversy again. I was amused greatly during the r2k and d2k things, but you have started to go stale already. I'm getting bored at work sometimes, and I need a little novelty. Yell at me or something. It was fun to debate you guys because you contradict yourselves with every other statement. I am the public citizen. PLEASE entertain me!!!!

hy

I would assume that your message was deleted because it did not fit what this site was designed for - to get out the news of what REALLY went on in LA and what REALLY goes on in the world, without the filters of the corporate-controlled capitalist press. This site was not meant to argue with a**holes like you - it was meant to inform. Go put your head back in the sand.

I would assume that your message was deleted because it did not fit what this site was designed for - to get out the news of what REALLY went on in LA and what REALLY goes on in the world, without the filters of the corporate-controlled capitalist press. This site was not meant to argue with a**holes like you - it was meant to inform. Go put your head back in the sand.

You are. I'm an intellectual.

verity is apparently a smarty-pants as well as an a-hole.

umm, verity, do you have something to say, or are you just a critic?

Just because I'm an intellectual doesn't mean I no Latin.

C'mon. I'm just proving my superiorty.

Don't you love it when people take you name, then post for you. And then other people criticze it because they are too dumb to notice the blatant sarcasm that was mediocre at best. Anyway, yes i do have something to say. it's simply this. Your action has no foundation. You are amusing little puppets that think that you will change the world by simple actions. Yet you have no real clue how to go about making your changes. How many of you have sat down with a state representative over a cup of coffee to discuss things. How many of you have (without yelling now) discussed any of your issues and actual ways to resolve them. I tried to talk with protesters too many times. It never works. they are so caught up in protesting and complaining about this and that, that they never know what the hell they are doing. They are the proverbial chicken with their heads cut off.

Why not show alittle respect for people, then, if what you really want is to engage them in discussion. I'd love to discuss solutions to problems.

Wanna talk about locally issued, time-based currencies (LETS architectures)? Or non-hierarchical participatory economics structures (PARECON -http://www.parecon.org)? Or how about new economic measures like the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI- http://www.rprogress.org) or "ecological footprint measures" (also at http://www.rprogress.org)?

I'd be more than happy to engage you on the merits of any of these ideas. If you'll drop the name calling.

I would love to discuss them with you. But before we do, I'd ask that you come up with some ways to actually implement these plans without ruining our countries economy first. I have revieved them, and there are some mathematical flaws in them. As for the name calling. Please read into the sarcasm of the people trying to mock me by copying my name and posting some inane chatter.

Give me a day or two to put together a decent exposition.

I've done more than a bit of computer modelling work on alternate economies. Transitions from current economies to alternates are harder to model, but I'll see if anyone else has done the math there.

Life is so easy for the fence-watchers, for the lost souls who sit to the way-side of history, gazing through the dirty glass of their office buildings, brows raised, lips an inch from coffie. Life is so simple for the conformist, blowing with the tide of his or her superiors, and hiding a smerk at those who reject the subjigation of daily oppression. How pithy. How ill-willed. Easier is the shake of the head at those in action, for it is the only action of the apathetic. For it is easy to be the artist-as-critic, when one has no art of their own, nor the courage to ever be an inovator or a thinker outside of the box. And the final defeat of rationalization as their lives are past-by whilst others create, and love, and expirence passion, is they align themselves as more reasoned. Wiser through their sacrifices of spirit. But in the end, they are no intellecual, for they lack the courage to think, only the audacity to claim they do.



Oscer Wilde would chide you, sir, for being the blind dolt you are.





----

Ah yes fence watching. For it is always an intellectual who quotes an intellectual in a vain attempt to be an intellectual. Then fails to realize that this so called intellectual isn't all that he appears to be; for someone who copied and claimed an intellectual. But pointing this out to an obvious intellectual is redundant. For at least I represent my own ideas and don't claim to be anything that I am not.

As for others, ou have no idea what corporate america is, nor do you ever try to understand. Funny to think that you believe i follow my leader like an ass, but does not even an ass refuse to be led to his doom. Stubborn I believe is the term. You think I follow, but what am I following.

Solving the social problems of the world is so easy for the monday morning-quarterback. Cut down any one who thinks outside the party lines. Attack the messenger while paying no attention to the message. The fact that you think we could solve these issues "over coffiee with a senator" shows how little thought you've done on this. Wake up, turn off the TV and the PC, and DO something for eqality and justice. 'Till then stop wasting space...

I never said that you could solve everything over coffee with a senator, but maybe it would be a good starting point. the tactics that you are taking seem like a last resort, but I really doubt that you have takin other initiaives to get your idea out there. Right now, you are the one taking up space by screaming for a message that is blinded by your actions because those actions have no base. If anyone here is taking up space without any justification, Maybe you should look in the mirror.

Actually, letter writing, and the more efficient email version of the same thing are still done and have been done. I used to do this quite a bit myself. There is a great number of problems with this method, the most obvious of which is that the voice isn't visible. The senator, crongressperson, whoever could misunderstand the level of opposition to a certain action or could choose to ignore it over what fills his/her pockets and truly gaurantees their reelection (since the representatives are really so far removed from the people that all they need to worry about is selling themselves whenever elections come up which is done more with propaganda/"public relations" than deeds.)

But suppose it does have some effect on the representative. What would motivate someone to continually write letters? Would their desire for change overcome the alienation...the detachment? What if they've written letters, see no change, and figure no one else is doing it and give up? And perhaps there are hundreds of people doing this and feeliong the same way, but they don't know other people are doing the same thing.

On the otherhand, when large people congregrate they realize the yare not alone in these feelings. They can see their feelings beyond a letter. This also forces the representative to pay more attention because you and I and they can SEE the physical representation of the feelings expressed in those letters. It's also far more festive and fufilling than sitting isolated and signing, emailing, or writing letters.

And concerning leaders, not everyone supports things as they are. I personally do not want ANY representative making millions of decisions in my name, most of which are influenced by corporations who pay them, and not by the poorly informed and easily manipulated (or cornered) voter. Is this the voters fault? Such a "philosophy" would be a joke. Something is seriously wrong, and it has nothing to do with everyone being lazy and therefore deserving to be screwed over. Something about the structure of things...of this order of reality...is horribly incorrect.

Actually I wrote those prose, not oscer wilde. You inspired me, what can I say... the last comment was merely to add that Oscer would be on my side. But back to the issues.

No BASE? This statement is saved by the ignormaty of your ignorence. Perhaps we should start with the fact that the very duty of a corporation is to create a profit. I'm trying to make this easy for you rather then sending you off to read Gramsci, Marx, Bengamin, Chomsky, because it mighnt be beneath you as an "intellectual" to learn. A corporation's goal is to make money, nothing more nothing less. I'm sure you would agree with that. Even our "fore fathers" understood that one must put a check on corporations so that in completing this goal, they did not destroy the people and the land, or challenge the government. Many checks to corperation's power was implemented, the almost now diceased anit-tust laws were a few.

But in the last 80 years, we have seen a slow eating away at those checks by corps. most exemplified in america. In the 1980's corporations such as Exxon, and many others, lobbied and were heard in a case dubed "Bellotti vs. the First Bank of Boston". This ruling granted corporations humanity. It diclaired that corporations were, for all conciderations a human-bieng. A living entity endowed with all the constitutional rights of a living, breathing, person that you and I suposedly share.

Before this, corporations were restricted to using their vast advertising power and funds to only create messeges, or to lobby on subjects, that directly connected to their industry. So Exxon could only create public service announcements about oil. So too, could they only lobby for oil legislation and so on. But now that they are concidered a PERSON, who has FREE SPEECH a corporation can create ads, public service announcements, and lobby for ANYTHING. Like hate-crimes legislation, abortion, or... serious fundimental issues in the governmental structure. This was argued on the basis that a corporations was HUMAN, a complete irrationality, and one of the huge erosions of the checks and balences against corporate power. As the editor of the exxon's journal so apptly stated: "If you can inject enough facts into the minds of those who control public opinion, you can blunt criticism in advance". What in more honest days used to be called propaganda, as Chomsky states. And so a huge amount of control over this country fell into corporate hands. But that was just the begining.

Many corporations began merging, perchasing the media in huge amounts. Murdock's corp. own more media than any other, from fox five to the village vioce. With the media on your pay roll and under your control, you can "blunt critisim in advance" and no doubt this has worked.

But corporations still had a problem, which was that while they still existed in a country, such as America, they had to follow its laws, even if legislation over them was fading fast, some basic laws still applied that stood in the way of the one, true goal of a corp.: Making as much money as possible. Like, for example, it's illegal to use child labor in the U.S., you must pay your workers a minimum wage (however low), and have decient working conditions. But what if.. corporations had no country. And the MULTI-NATIONAL was born. This new legislation, argued through with glowing quotes about the future of the new world, marked a new, end of the checking of corporate power, and a complete openning up of the world to the un-checked power and influence of the corps.



Now, what an evil deed was here. Because now corporations, or multi-nationals, belong to no country, and no government, and therefore are governed by NOTHING. Now it's an easy trick to work kids's childhoods away for 12 hour days, work sweatshop empoyeys's lives away in el salvador, mexico, tiwan, and hundreds of other places without having to obay the laws of the united states, or any other country.

Of course getting other countries to give in wasn't so easy.. And that is why instituations like the WTO, the IMF and the World Bank exist. In the good ol' days of colonialization you would force a country to obey by moving in the British Navy to enforce the rule. Now colonization has gone out of style, but the kind of people who want simmilar market relations are still around. So that's why we need these international organizations with the power of state cohersion. A cohersion that would clear the way for corporations in developing countries, impoverish the people's funds to create the poverty nessesary to force people into sweat-shops out of desperation, and to sap and profit off of the environmentral resorces. To get them ready for the pillage in other words.

The IMF and the WORLD BANK were actually first dubded "The Brettonwoods Twins" because they were developed in a confence in Brettonwoods, New hampshere. The IMF's intital role was to act as an instituation that would fix international exchange rates to the U.S. dollor. The World Bank was initially contructed to help re-build germany and Japan after World War II. With this soon completed, the Bank needed a new mission. So they turned their lending to the heads of small countries. They would lend to create large-scale infostructure projects:-dams, roads, so forth. Well, it wasn't long before the IMF realized where this was going, and took over the reforming of certain countries, like Africa, whoose leaders, by this point, were so deeply in debt that they were practically owned by the bank.

Of course the argument then was, "well, these countries borrowed money, now they have to pay it back". But what they don't say is that the money was never borrowed by the people, but by the heads of these countries, often currupt. The money would never go into serveces that directly benifited the people through healthcare, schools, housing, ect, but was used to create bridges and monuments. Yet now, it is the PEOPLE's duty to PAY the debt.

But of course they couldn't even begin to pay back the bank, so the IMF kind of made a deal, in the form of what they called "structural adjustments". The deal was that if the country in question did what they said, they would forget the debt for now. Of course what they wanted was what they had wanted in the u.s., but more so. No legislation blocking corps. to use whatever labor they wanted. Laws against unionizing. cutting of all healthcare and housing, and schools, and food spending from the national budget. Complete freedom of patentng offices to take natural resorces used by the indiginous people, plants and resens and the like as their own, with a 100 year patent on it. And nothing standing in the way of raviging the land and environment.

No what's wrong with that?, you mighnt say. Pesky developing countries had it coming. Well, nothing's wrong with it, except that it's totalitarianism. There is direct violation of all constituational laws of these countries. The people of Mexico never voted on that. There was no decision by the government, it's just "do as we, the multi-nationals say, or we will destroy your people and your country." Not much of a choice, but hey, that's fascism for you.

But remember when I said: all corporations do is make money? Well, that's all they're doing, just trying to maximize profit. Because although our government was so quick to grant humanity to corporations, we all know they aren't human. They are entirly a-political, and have no compassion, and feel no remorse, or connection to other human beings. And that is why corporations are unreformable, because it's just not in their nature. I know the heads of Nike are scumbags who wrote to the Chinease government secretly commanding them to arrest all those members of a chinease sweatshop watch claiming that they were violent revolutionaries., threatening to cut of all trading if they didn't. I know too, that Chase Manhatten "suggested" to the Mexican government "the termination of the Zapatista People with extreme prejiduce" which has been enacted through government funded Para-military groups like "Peace and Justuce", slaughtering whole villagies in Chiapas; all because Chase share-holders got nervious of rebellion. But the bottom line is that it doesn't matter WHO runs corporations.

They are structures of hirarchy and they exist only to make money. And if forces like that go unchecked, they will, as history has proven of late, run wild and destroy the people and the earth. Corporations, I beleave, can never be reformed because of their structure and their goal. I, and many others in the movement are opposed the corporations because of what they are, and are becoming. The biggest and most frightening threat to democracy we have seen in a long time. Multi-nationals, are now like the Vatacin: countries unto themselves, run in a totalitarian way, and waging war on humanity.

I am fighting against them because I am a human-being. A real human-being of flesh and blood, not of legislation and paper. I know I am because I feel compassion. I feel horror, and fear and love. And I couldn't call myself a human-being if I didn't care about what is being silently done to my people, to the animals, and to this earth. I wouldn't be human, if I didn't stand up and scream for the people under the wheels. Some people know what time it is, others don't. But I refuse to stand by while children in Mexico are being abused and made old before their years. If you open your eyes, you can see that poverty and famine are not just some disease spontainiously sprouting, like the World Bank claims. Poverty is caused by systems of the distribution of wealth on the earth. Poverty is CAUSED by instituations taking away everything from others for the benifit of a few. Poverty is caused by immorality, and by an in-ability to see others as human. And ultimatelly by corporations that "just want to make money".

Now mabye you can lean back in your office chair and sip your coffie and say "hey, not my problem". And maybe you can rationalize your complience and all of our complience with easy, simplified answers generated by the media. But I can't. And further more I won't.

You have chosen the easy way out. A life of conformity and complience. But in the end, when you go back to you little piece of the plunder, and look at yourself reflected through the window.. do you want to do your part here on earth to held the oppressed and condemn the mighty, or are you too scared. It's easier to shake your head, put on a hollywood film, and forget. But that reflection is still drifting the mirror, like a ghostly halo, and you know it's still whispering.."Nothing..... go home... do your job... don't worry about it... that's right... go to sleep, you'll feel better in the morning..."

Books for you to read where much of these subjects are discussed and information gotten from:

CULTURE INC. The Corporate Takeover of Public Space

MANUFACTURING CONSENT Noam Chompsky

THE NEW MANDARINS

AFRICA's CHOICES: Thirty Years Of Control by the World Bank

LECTures and Litirature by Doug Henwood of the Left BUSINESS OBSERVER.

COMODIFYING DISSENT: The Business of Culture in the New Guilded Age.

I've just realised that my knowledge of American history was full of holes. I was unaware of all the great changes that were made during US history by people sitting down and having a cup of coffee with a state representative. Remind me, I'm just an ignorant Aussie. Was it the abolition of slavery, women's suffrage or the abolition of the Jim Crwo laws?

HOw mahy were not eradicated by our government? Really, how many? How many were not debated and disputed in a respectable fasion before there were any massive street protests, or even wars. Din't people at least try to discuss it first...Oh wait they did. Obviously there are holes. in your perspective. As for the guy before you, I will get back to you. But, btw, I have read many of the references that you list at the bottom of your post. The problem is that their solutions are all temporary.

Verity:

I'll begin by outlining one of my favorite "solutions" to problems engendered by the globalized and corporatized economies: the Tobin Tax. If you remember the asian financial crisis that existed from 1997-1999 (And from which several world economies are still recovering), you'll remember the hardships that rapid international currency flows into and out of national currency markets can cause. In a few hours, a country can find its currency to be worthless...a mere panic on the part of jittery investors can devastate an economy for years. Partly this is due to unsound policies on the parts of the governments at hand. But it is also due to the extreme mobility of currency in global financial markets. It is generally agreed that taxation on an exchange can introduce friction into that exchange, slowing it down. To this end, the Tobin Tax was developed as a method to slow down international currency flows, and hopefully abort the kind of economic devastation wrought by fluctuations in currency markets. It wouldn't be hard to implement, and wouldn't affect most people worth a dime, except that the world would be made a much safer place, economically speaking.



LETS schemes are a little more radical. LETS schemes involves communities being permitted to print their own currencies (in the face of external currencies that are "worthless" due to inflation) and that are lent by LETS banks in an interest free fashion, keeping in mind the connection between bank lending and monetary inflation. Even if only implemented in part (by communities issuing their own money), there would be a radical marginalization of "angel of death" organizations like the IMF and World Bank. Indeed, many communities have instituted "community currencies" simply by allowing merchants within their bounds to issue mutually redeemable gift certificates. If implemented too quickly, such a scheme would cause economic havok by disrupting sectors of the economy that employ sizable numbers of people (rant against the financial services industry if you must, people, but it still does employ human beings who need to eat). But implemented slowly, a LETS style system could gradually supplant that sector of the economy.

Finally, empowering communities to use writs of Quo Warranto against large corporations (still permitted by most state Constitutions...although usually a state attorney general must be the one to do it) to dissolve those corporations that have acted irresponsibly would provide a market based insentive for corporate good behavior. Say a community doesn't like the way its air smells because of company A...and company A steadfastly refuses to do anything about it. If that community is able to dissolve the right of a corporation to do business within their boundaries, Odds are company A will clean up its act. And if it won't, the dissolved companies assets can be sold off to another buyer who is more likely to act responsibly.

These are some very good ideas, but they do have some flaws. I don't know too much about the Tobin tax situation, but I will try to look into and get back to you. As for the private currency. Idea is wonderful, but the need still arises for a bank to distribute and hold this money. Interest free and the like, there is no way for this bank to stay around within the current market. Even if apporached slowly, the only reason that banks can be around today is that they give a low interest rate, and make high interest rates off of long term bonds. Bank bonds. Without these, any bank would crumble. If it can be set up where it is a generally accepted currency it still doesn't work because some people would still try to hoard this currency. What would be needed is for eveyone to share equally. Now the problem arises with a lack of resources. There are always people with bigger frams who will produce most of the food, and then may be upset that everyone is eating their food and they get little in return. I hope you see where I'm going with that. the idea could work, but a more concrete solution must be worked out that takes into account that the outside economy will still exist.

As for the company thing. Whatever it was called, I get the idea. Again though, you have to take into account the local economy. People who work in a factory in a small town, take N. Philly for example, will not be very likely to dissolve that factory. There are many towns in the US where there is one factory, and EVERYONE in that town works at that one factory. If that factory is doing dirty business and the people of the town (the workers) complain, they may lose their jobs. The factory has no reason to clean up its act because if it gets dissolved, everyone loses their jobs, and the people don't want that. Even if they decided to shut the plant down and a new business comes in, there is no guarantee that these people will get jobs there. Also, in many insatnces, like in N. Philly, no one may want the building because of environmental ordinances already in place. New owners have to spend lots of money to take over old factories just cleaning them up. there are lots of gov't rules about starting production in a new place.

Anyway, i'm glad that you posted some ideas. I wish that more people would. i'll try to get back to you on the Tobin tax thing.

If I remember rightly, up until the mid-to-late 19th century the issuing of currency and coinage by local communities and by banks was commonplace in the United States. In fact, some of these items are now very valuable collector's items (During the Gold Rush California issued some "coinage" that consisted of simple pieces of gold stamped with their value by the state assayer; these are now fabulously valuable, if you ever happen to find one).

So why did the power to coin money and issue currency wind up restricted to the Federal gummint? Was it some sort of evil masters-of-the-universe plot? Or a response to problems created by the circulation of millions of notes issued by institutions that could not back up their value? A note issued by a busted bank could turn out to be worth less than a Confederate shinplaster- and it was nobody's problem but the person's who accepted it.

My point here is that the idea of issuing local currencies isn't necessarily a new idea. An awful lot of things have been tried and ultimately rejected in the past. Just as with an invention, researching the "prior art" to find out if an idea is really new, and if not, how it has worked out in experience could be worthwhile...