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Comments · 7

  1. Re:This makes sense by loosenut · · Score: 1 · on Giant Sucking Noise

    While I agree with your sentiment, I think that to suggest that corporations are doing this to fuck with us is a little off the mark. When it comes down to it, corporations are thinking with one thing: their wallets. It's just cheaper.

    What we need is a ecomony based on community values. (Argh! Did he just say values?! Go back to Church and leave the legislating to the lawyers!) Check out Corporations are Gonna Get Your Mama (and don't buy it from Amazon). Or, even BETTER, read these articles in Yes! Magazine. They offer some truly viable solutions.

  2. Re:This is worse how? by gimpboy · · Score: 1 · on Walmart Ships PCs with Lindows OS

    you're right also. you'll hear bad hacker stories when referring to people breaking into microsoft computers. if the tide turns i predict you will hear linux is insecure stories. it's the price we pay for having a corporate controlled media. i've been reading a book about this very topic:

    Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media


    while i dont agree with all of chomskey's opionions, i do find little to disagree with so far in this book.

    the book actually talks about think tanks funded by corporations used to lend credence to corporate opionions. a good example of this can be found in the recent paper released by the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution.

    the paper seems to have disappeared, but i seem to have a copy here:

    http://sage.che.pitt.edu/~harrold/tmp/old_opensour ce_whitepaper.pdf

  3. Nobel Laureate Speaks Out, and other thoughts... by _Ender · · Score: 2, Informative · on Globalization
    Interesting to see this kind of debate on Slashdot, but I recently read an article dealing with the FTAA (Free Trade Area of the Americas) - ostensibly the embodiment of globalization to a large degree. Joseph Stiglitz is the man to speak out against it, this year's Nobel Prize winner in Economics. What does he know about globalization, you might ask? Well, he also served as the chief economist for the World Bank, that is, until he resigned due to his advice being largely ignored. What's the significance of the World Bank? The World Bank was setup to help aid countries in need of financial assistance. The problem, however, is that as a condition for giving loans to countries, the World Bank forces countries to accept Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) which essentially restructure the countries economy to be very free-market oriented (ala globalization). So, in a sense, it gives us some first-hand evidence of how these free market tactics help out countries. The results? By the World Bank's very own studies, more than half of their projects fail: many countries being put into more debt and poverty than they were in before accepting the free market illness of the Structural Adjustment Programs. We're not just talking about wages dropping as a result, either, but with the privatization of education and health care in these countries people can no longer afford to get medical assistance or an education. If that's your idea of democracy, I pity you if you should lose your fortune (which for the truly rich of the world is mostly inherited and not really earned) and thus have no hope of life afterwards.

    But what does Stiglitz have to say? Well, feel free to read the whole article (linked below), but here's a quote from it:

    More than ever, given the current context, the United States should focus on fiscal policies and aim government spending at combating the effects of the terrorist attacks. The recovery of the economy, which could take a long time, depends on effective stimuli from the government, he said.

    Globalization, in its fully implemented form, would take government out of having any role whatsoever in controlling such things. Thus, the money-bearing entities would truly control the world. In essense, we would also be dissolving ourselves of an active role in our own government, as well, as we would be placing power in corporations (which are not democratically controlled by us) rather than the government we purport to democratically elect. Erazim Kohak has some interesting words to think over, as well (from Voices of Democracy, see below):

    "The demands of the privileged on the finite resources of individual societies as well as of the globe as a whole have accelerated the pauperization of the underprivileged... In the days when populations appeared finite and resources infinite, the affluent north and west of the globe dismissed the problem with the consolation that increasing prosperity of the prosperous would marginally generate prosperity for the deprived. Popularly this came to be known as the 'trickle-down' theory which John Kenneth Galbraith is said to have described as feeding the bird by giving oats to the horse. Unfortunately, that theory has worked only to assuage the consciences of the privileged, not to alleviate the lot of the deprived. In the past fifty years, the gap between the haves and the have-nots has increased precipitously. The global south today is desparately poor and getting poorer, the affluent north is opulently affluent and becoming more so... We can't run a world polarized between incredible wealth and desperate poverty."

    I would encourage people to look at the other criticisms that have been proposed, both of globalization raping the already destitute nations to further enrich the rich and of its effects on a true sense of democracy for any nation, including the United States. Some recommended reading:

  4. Nobel Laureate Speaks Out, and other thoughts... by _Ender · · Score: 2, Informative · on Globalization
    Interesting to see this kind of debate on Slashdot, but I recently read an article dealing with the FTAA (Free Trade Area of the Americas) - ostensibly the embodiment of globalization to a large degree. Joseph Stiglitz is the man to speak out against it, this year's Nobel Prize winner in Economics. What does he know about globalization, you might ask? Well, he also served as the chief economist for the World Bank, that is, until he resigned due to his advice being largely ignored. What's the significance of the World Bank? The World Bank was setup to help aid countries in need of financial assistance. The problem, however, is that as a condition for giving loans to countries, the World Bank forces countries to accept Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) which essentially restructure the countries economy to be very free-market oriented (ala globalization). So, in a sense, it gives us some first-hand evidence of how these free market tactics help out countries. The results? By the World Bank's very own studies, more than half of their projects fail: many countries being put into more debt and poverty than they were in before accepting the free market illness of the Structural Adjustment Programs. We're not just talking about wages dropping as a result, either, but with the privatization of education and health care in these countries people can no longer afford to get medical assistance or an education. If that's your idea of democracy, I pity you if you should lose your fortune (which for the truly rich of the world is mostly inherited and not really earned) and thus have no hope of life afterwards.

    But what does Stiglitz have to say? Well, feel free to read the whole article (linked below), but here's a quote from it:

    More than ever, given the current context, the United States should focus on fiscal policies and aim government spending at combating the effects of the terrorist attacks. The recovery of the economy, which could take a long time, depends on effective stimuli from the government, he said.

    Globalization, in its fully implemented form, would take government out of having any role whatsoever in controlling such things. Thus, the money-bearing entities would truly control the world. In essense, we would also be dissolving ourselves of an active role in our own government, as well, as we would be placing power in corporations (which are not democratically controlled by us) rather than the government we purport to democratically elect. Erazim Kohak has some interesting words to think over, as well (from Voices of Democracy, see below):

    "The demands of the privileged on the finite resources of individual societies as well as of the globe as a whole have accelerated the pauperization of the underprivileged... In the days when populations appeared finite and resources infinite, the affluent north and west of the globe dismissed the problem with the consolation that increasing prosperity of the prosperous would marginally generate prosperity for the deprived. Popularly this came to be known as the 'trickle-down' theory which John Kenneth Galbraith is said to have described as feeding the bird by giving oats to the horse. Unfortunately, that theory has worked only to assuage the consciences of the privileged, not to alleviate the lot of the deprived. In the past fifty years, the gap between the haves and the have-nots has increased precipitously. The global south today is desparately poor and getting poorer, the affluent north is opulently affluent and becoming more so... We can't run a world polarized between incredible wealth and desperate poverty."

    I would encourage people to look at the other criticisms that have been proposed, both of globalization raping the already destitute nations to further enrich the rich and of its effects on a true sense of democracy for any nation, including the United States. Some recommended reading:

  5. Re:I used to work for Rupert Murdoch by Seenhere · · Score: 1 · on Copyright Ruling May Create Memory Hole
    i've heard many accusations of bias in large corperate media institutions, but never do i hear a theory for how this actually occurs.

    Spending too much time writing to actually do any reading, I guess? For a pretty well documented account of how this happens, start here.

    cluck his tounge
    the copy gets worked over by the same editors

    At least the editors know how to spell, I hope.

    --Seen

  6. Re:Indymedia by akb · · Score: 2 · on Clay Shirky Explains Internet Evolution

    The "incredible" 90%+ figure is in fact incredible. I've seen this particular piece of misdirection ove and over, where "media" is redefined as "mass media", and then "mass media" is redefined as "national TV".

    I'll have to dig out my copy of The Media Monopoly by Ben Bagdikian but I recall "the media" being defined rather broadly to include books, magazines, newspapers, a/v recordings as well as broadcast.

    Note, by the way, that my argument is not that there is *not* corporate news. Note that my argument is not even that the Bix 6 are a result of contraction. My argument is simply that expansion of media is outstripping the contraction.

    Interesting, thanks for clarifying that. Certainly it can be agreed that since the 70's technology has expanded the amount and range of media experiences available to the individual consumer. Your phrasing of this reminds me of a speech by Mark Cooper of the Consumer Federation of America at a conference (sorry doesn't have his speech), in which he talked about how at the same time that we are seeing technology expanding media potential (and thus the potential of civil society) we are seeing a retreat (or contraction) caused by coporatization of this media. This seems to be very similar to what you just stated, since you acknowledge that coporatization is a countervailing force. Dr. Cooper however saw a potential for the concentration of media in fewer and fewer hands to ultimately reverse the gains the technology has made.

    McChesney in particular is pessimistic about the Web's potential to correct the media's current defects. He believes that we're in a brief window of openess that will close once the major media oligopies get their act together and team up with the communications infrastructure providers to turn the Web into a hypercommercialized interactive TV system. From this interview I gather that you don't think consumers will accept that. Consumer spending power works well in competitive markets not so well otherwise. Given the concerns about media concentration I've raised do you think consumer power will ultimately be sufficient? What are your views on the potential for antitrust action in the media industry?

    Do you think that this is an accurate characterization of their arguements and your position? I would be very interested in hearing you respond at more length and detail to their arguements, as I found your interview to be quite insightful.

    Oh, I posted part of the interview to www.indymedia.org there was some discussion, not too insightful but I thought you might be interested.

  7. Re, The Harry Brown Article by Prof_Dagoski · · Score: 4 · on Politics With A Slice Of Lemon

    Its decent piece of rhetoric. I don't agree with the ultimate conclusio, but hey its free society aint't it? Well, it used to be. Anyway, the point about how the old people who vote in numbers are robbing the youth of this country is one worth noting. I'm reading a very good book right now called The Scapegoat Generation. One of the points in that book is that the over 40 crowd who have benefitted the most from social spending is consistently voting to deny younger people such benefits largely gain an opulent subsidized lifestyle. Now, I know I just touched a major hot button there, but hear me out a sec. The child as in under 18 poverty rate is twelve times the senior poverty rate. Where does social spending go? Not to the young. Anyway, I strongly encourage Slashdot readers to check this book out at your library. The points about the organized political war on youth are well worth noting, especially since it was published two years before the whole Columbine mess.