From: Jon Gilbert (jjj@io.com)
Date: Wed 27 Nov 2002 - 04:23:56 GMT
>Well stated. I might not agree with you on everything, but that's
>the beauty of a secular democracy, that there's a spectrum of
>opinion and for the most part each has their say.
>
>I didn't vote for Dubya. My guy won the popular vote, yet I accept
>that Dubya's there til I can vote against him again. If Dubya wins
>again, good for him.
>
>Kenneth might not realize that we're supposed to have a separation
>of church and state over here. The religious right may not like that
>idea very much, but so be it. I have my own agnostic reservations
>about "one nation under God" or "in God we trust", but don't lose
>any sleep over it. If Pat Robertson or any of his ilk ever becomes
>president, that's when I start worrying.
Don't you love how Hotmail adds spam to the bottom of e-mails you send? Anyway.
Yeah, as much as people bitch about the USA's "cultural imperialism"
and how, y'know, what if Russians liked communism better, or how,
what if some of the Afghani women *liked* wearing veils, you don't
really hear too much complaining about Corporatization (aka
Westernization aka USAn cultural imperialism) in the media, do you? I
mean, how long would a major website continue to get sponsorship from
the big boys if they started publishing with a, y'know,
"Anti-American" "communist" "anti-corporate" slant?
And I see Americans as victims of Corporatization (Starbucks,
McDonald's) just as much as anywhere else. It's not just French
people that blow up McDonald's's. Here in Portland, OR, there is a
neighborhood called Hawthorne, whose residents by and large hate
McDonald's and so, when a McDonald's tried to move to Hawthorne BLVD,
there were these huge protests and angry tirades. Guess what?
McDonald's didn't build a store there, after all. There's some
memetic selection for ya.
But that's just one small victory. People like to say that the
corporate system is self-regulating because capitalism makes it
purely market-driven, but that does not allow for the factors of
greed and the abuse of power that major corporate leaders are often
guilty of. There are a few good examples of philanthropists like Bill
Gates, but even Microsoft is one of the worst offenders when it comes
to not playing fair. Anyway, you can just boycott the system by
buying from small businesses and "vote with your dollars," but it
still sucks that lobbyists have more sway than voters here.
JS Gilbert
PS--
Ken Silverstein has some good points about the corporatization of war:
http://www.leadertelegram.com/story.asp?id=18606
===============================================================
This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed 27 Nov 2002 - 04:26:23 GMT