Sunday, November 21, 1999, 9:27:16 AM, you wrote re "corporations":
Roberto> I didn't say they've won. But they are certainly ahead...
Roberto> Even in the GMO issue, they're still ahead. After all,
Roberto> Americans (and Europeans) are still eating GMO without
Roberto> knowing it.
If things were perfect, there wouldn't be any reason for us to be
here, would there! If "they're" still ahead, they're also going
nowhere fast.
Roberto> And in the Philippines, the very first field-tests have just
Roberto> been approved.
That's where you come in Beto! Do your thing.
> >They are an abstraction of their own desires, with the same
> >underlying >needs as everyone else. (Next time you get one of
> >those things you're >talking about bearing down on you, look
> >for the driver behind the >wheel and project your message to
> >him - he'll get the picture, if you >really mean it. *I've*
> >been doing it all my life).
Roberto> That's exactly my point: you (and others) continue to make
Roberto> the fatal mistake of thinking that the corporate legal person
Roberto> is human, with the same underlying needs as everyone else.
If I and others have made a fatal mistake, I guess I (we) are just
condemned to whatever death that fatal error will lead to, assuming
you are right (which of course, I don't).
Roberto> Because these monsters hide behind a human face, we give them
Roberto> too much of the benefit of the doubt, and we are beset by
Roberto> moral qualms about slaying them, because we'd be slaying our
Roberto> own kind.
No qualms here, friend. I'd just rather control them as needed than
kid myself into thinking I'm going to kill something that has no life of
it's own. I consider that to be a fruitless and therefore bad use of
my effort.
Roberto> I repeat: the corporation is a legal (but not a
Roberto> natural) person -- distinct from its stockholders, directors
Roberto> or managers. It is not a HIM, but an IT. You may be thinking
Roberto> of talking to a person who has been domesticated by the
Roberto> corporation; if he gets the picture (as you said), and
Roberto> becomes more humane but threatens the firm's bottom line, he
Roberto> won't be with the corporation for long...
Golly. The way I see it, corps. are not humans, just human inventions
that owe their existence to humans desires (good or bad) and are
subject to human laws. And that is the framework in which they may
(and must) be addressed. In turn, human laws that deviate from natural
law will prove counterproductive themselves and *someone* must point
this out and deal with it, since they *are* unsustainable and
therefore this *will* be eventually reversed. (In fact, it's often
useful to do so from one's own corporate base). The facts are now
coming in re gmos's that show what many were able to determine at a
gut (intuitive) level - but it still has to be done.
> >Lastly, your messages come in with no indication that they
> >were posted >to sanet, except in the headers that are
> >normally hidden, and even >there, there's nothing that
> >indicates what mailer was used. Also, when
Roberto> Make sure your replies are addressed to sanet-mg, not my
Roberto> address, when you reply. I use a DOS-based locally-developed
Roberto> mailer (and of course a DOS machine).
Somehow, "replying to all" does *not* put sanet into the to: slot for
your posts. But never mind.
> >PS. You might feel better if you could check out a couple of Rambo
> >movies, even if those explicitly catered to people who would pay to
> >experience vicarious rebellion, thus keeping them on the job at the
Roberto> I feel good enough, and I'm involved in enough real fights,
Roberto> to need Rambo movies. You say you've been doing it all your
Roberto> life. I'm curious: how many corporations have you stopped on
Roberto> their tracks? This is getting out of topic; let's continue in
Roberto> private.
Well, I admit that my remark was a bit laconic, but:
I try to deal with principles in the abstract realm and real spaces in
the physical world. I feel *you* are the one infused with the idea of
"stopping corporations in their tracks" and I admit to having problems
taking that seriously.
As for continuing, I suggest you deal with appropriate corporations as
you deem necessary, and forget about telling your allies about their
"fatal mistakes". This thread is now dead as far as I'm concerned.
> >Those are rhetorical questions. Form your own corporation, draft
> >your own articles and follow the hell out of them. Fight fire with
> >fire. There's good ones and bad ones, like anything else.
Roberto> And get trapped into the system, perhaps? I did form a corp.
Roberto> I eventually concluded it is the wrong way the go.
It may be, in your context.
Roberto> First thing they ask you to do is give them P5,000 ($150).
Roberto> Then you have to open a checking account and deposit a
Roberto> minimum of P20,000 (at zero interest!). If the banking rules
Roberto> require 10% reserve deposits, this means the banking system
Roberto> ... Every step of the way was more of the same.
Where I am, none of this is true.
Roberto> By the way, if you didn't get how the banking system can earn
Roberto> up to P36,000 EVERY year from my single P20,000 deposit,
Roberto> you'll have to admit they've done well blinkering you as
Roberto> well...
There are other sources for financing. Banks *can come the closest I
know to behaving as you've indicated, but I've managed to develop
good, productive relationships with individuals within them when
needed. (I neither expect nor ask much from them).
Roberto> Don't worry, I've not given up. Someday, we'll know how to
Roberto> slay a corporation whenever we need to, as our ancestors
Roberto> learned how to slay woolly mammoths.
Roberto> Roberto
ÖK Roberto. Slay, hobble, defang, tame, convert, disable - whatever's
needed. And THAT must often be done at a "corporate" level itself,
although the human element is never-the-less always present, and I
consider what you have discussed to be a human failing that requires
*someone* human enough to be able to to introduce the human element
back into the picture; without which, none of it (the corporate
structure and it's milieu) makes any sense. And I'm happy to say I
*have* had good luck doing that (as stated, when needed).
If you decide to do something, and if your decision is well founded
and you don't desist, you *will* make progress - but obviously, the
quality of being "well founded" is relative to the decisions of
other's that you may have to deal with, whether they are or aren't
part of corporations.
Frankly, I see no conflict in our respective positions, and if you do,
that's the way it's going have to stay.
DH
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