Slashdot Mirror
Happy Independence Day, Jose
Now and then, even among the cowed, comfortable and generally unconscious citizens of the Corporate Republic, a hero arises. On this July Fourth, let's award the Slashdot Order of the Penguin to one Jose Bove, whose international crusade began last year in protest against U.S. duties on Roquefort cheese.
Bove, a French farmer and union leader, may seem like an unlikely figurehead for the emerging political struggle of the 21st Century. Even though he isn't an American citizen, he's got a pretty good grip on what used to be considered American values, and is thus an Independence Day icon for the increasingly-resented United States, the Corporate Republic's world headquarters. The United States is now a place where a robust economy, conformity and market research are national religions, and a nation where kids who dissent and act strangely are routinely tossed out of school or thrown in jail.
Bove spent a week in jail last year for his assaults on a McDonald's under construction in his hometown of Milau (he faces up to five years in prison). For obvious reasons, McDonald's has become an international symbol for the globalization, mass-marketing and homogenization that U.S.-bred corporatism is spreading like the measles. Now Bove is drawing an odd agglomeration of supporters worldwide as he stands trial. His day in court is drawing thousands of anti-globalization protesters, environmentalists, trade unionists, students and other campaigners cramming into Milau, a small market town in southern France.
"This is not just about food," Bove told the demonstrators. "It is about the struggle of small people, leading simple lives, to free themselves from the dictatorship of the multi-nationals."
Bove's particular issue is what he calls the industrialization of agriculture. He could just as easily be talking about the industrialization of education, technology, law, medicine or work. He's dubbed his town "Seattle-on-the-Tarn," a reference to the local river and to the protests he joined during the World Trade Organization's Seattle summit last year.
The struggle of small people to free themselves from the multi-nationals has a lot to do both with technology and independence. From market monopolies like Microsoft to giant entertainment conglomerates like AOL-Time/Warner that will seek to dominate information and its distribution to corporatist invaders of privacy, the struggles of small people will increasingly resonate around the world. And this is all before the rise of the gathering bio-tech conglomerates, soon to dominate genetic research and try to use the Human Genome Project to mass market the perfect human, all the while screening their work behind talk of cancer and aging cures.
Corporatism threatens to overwhelm individuals all over the world, from cheese farmers to outspoken employees to bright and idiosyncratic students -- its virtues are promoting conformity, corrupting the political system, suppressing dissent and creativity. Its primary target is individualism, its primary enemy individualists -- which means hackers, programming entrpeneurs, renegade teachers, small businessmen and farmers like Bove, odd-ball filmmakers. Bove has put the struggle as eloquently as anybody could.
So have his supporters, carrying signs through the streets announcing "The World Is Not For Sale." This message stings in the United States on Independence Day. What in this country isn't for sale?
It's strange to be watching this odd drama in another country, when the issue itself is so American. Perhaps Bove will sail over here when AOL/Time-Warner opens its first franchise office in the United States and give us all an example to live by.
Happy Independence Day, Jose.
What pillock moderated this one up? For your information, there really are millions of us who see US corporatism as a threat, and MacDonalds as pure poison. And stop kidding yourself that you somehow have a monopoly on freedom. And remember, those thrown out of work by corporate greed have no freedom.
Yeah! and while you're at it, go to Iraq and tell that to the people starving to death because of the embargo...
...
This kind of attitude has proved many times in the past that it was not the good one...
The situation in Kosovo is a shame for the UN.
I didn't say I agreed with what Milosevic did, but the bombing was just what he expected. The worse of what he did, he did it with the help of the US (NATO) bombings.
I'm not going to argue about what the swiss banks did, but I'll just add that while politicians and bankers were getting dirty with Germany, many swiss people helped jewish people getting out of Germany.
The problem with americans is that it's either white or black but rarely an opinion has a sense of objectivity
It's sad, because to solve problems you have to admit your faults and build on them
Not exactly the attitude of the USA...
The rich have two basic goals in life.: 1) Maintain wealth and power. 2) Increase the aformentioned quantities. Chiefly, they can accomplish these goals by lowering production costs, raising sale prices, and encouraging economic growth. The first can be accomplished by moving operations overseas - THEY are the real losers in the whole business, and the IMF and World Bank don't help in that regard either. The second can be accomplished by pricing conspiracies (see Napster's case, sneaker prices, ect), and of course there's the fashion industry's self-perpetuation complex. Lastly, as any captain of industry from the Industrial Revolution can tell you, boom/bust cycles are great for making money. While Greenspan seems to be fairly wise in this respect (not letting the economy boom out of control, which usually leads to a massive correction), there's no guarantee that the next Federal Reserve Chairman will be of that mind.
EvilSoloman
Who cares? As long as they're doing it consensually, and their actions are not infringing upon the rights of others, I see no problem. Let me make one thing perfectly clear: I don't need anyone, let alone some old, self-absorbed politician, telling me what I can and cannot do. The fundamental flaw with government as it is now is that it tries to legislate my beliefs and values, and I resent that. Why should anyone stop me, as a mentally stable and concenting adult, from doing something I want to do, if it does not harm anyone else? Hypothetically speaking, who gives a shit if I smoke a joint? I'm only harming myself, and i'm doing it of my own free will. Last time I checked there was no law against hitting yourself on the head with a tire-iron, so why should any other purely self-destructive act be illegal? For that matter, who gives a shit if I sell joints? I'm not forcing people to smoke them, just like, contrary to popular opinion, the evil tobbacco industry has not tied me up, tortured me, and forced me to smoke, Clockwork Orange-style. And, finally, if somebody has their heart set on becoming a heroin junkie, if you're not going to tackle the root of the problem which is not the widespread availiability of drugs but more often than not a family difficulty, let them do it. I realize that the drug issue is somewhat offtopic, but it is a prime example of a private matter being legislated by an enept politician trying to get reelected.
The Libertarian philosophy states that if you are not harming a nonconsensual person with your actions, then there is no reason to outlaw them. Air pollution is harmful to everyone, consensual or not. Two concenting adults killing each other is harmful, but they want to kill each other, so let them be. Not only should you be able to showcase it, you should be able to profit from it; it's called boxing.
EvilSoloman
Can you say "reflexivity"? Mister Bovine learned at Berkley that you can be kewl and impress chicks by branding yourself a revolutionary. If you make like you are standing up to some big bad establishment, thousands of groupies will flock to you and cheer you on. Apple simply says "think different," and scores of monkeys salivate, secure that they cannot be accused of failing to think independently. In today's world of sound bites and knee-jerk reflexivity, Mister Bovine will soon be forgotten for the next yound skywalker.
> small precious countries without internet access
Ahah. Funny troll. What's more, moderated up to 3, which suggests that the moderator is as ignorant and blind as you are... FYI, the communication infrastructure in this small precious country is excellent, and actually better than in most American states when you 're not in California ot in the big cities of the East Coast and Great Lakes. The www consortium is hosted in Grenoble, France. Everybody has been online and making purchases with the minitel terminal since the mid-80's. The lead over America in wireless phone and wireless devices in general is impressive. Etc, etc... not to mention smart credit cards which have been used by everyone for over 10 years now, or digital and interactive TV.
This kind of brainwashed ignorance really pisses me up.
I would like to retract my statement that Jose Bove is believed to have ordered the fatal Breton attack, and offer my personal thanks to those who corrected me on this point.
I did not set out to malign him. I simply found that Katz' article didn't tell me anything about the person he was applauding. Hence the title and initially biographical tone of my post. I simply wanted facts. After over an hour of reading French/US articles, and getting contradictory impressions, I stumbled into some shocking (seeming) facts, which seemed too noteworthy to ignore.
In the days after the April terrorist attack, Le Monde and several other media reported that "Jose Bove is being questioned by the authorities" -- but there were no corresponding headlines saying "Jose Bove seems to be cleared". Also search engines can lag 1-2 months behind content, so the few exculpatory 'minor articles' in May/June were not fully indexed
I feel paticularly embarrassed because I had a friend who was in a similar situation many years ago. I first saw it on a front page headline "Prominent Senate Intelligence [sic] aide caught with a kilo of heroine!" That was the afternoon edition, just hours after the arrest, but he was already cleared before the papers hit the street (the drugs were from a vengeful ex with whom he was 'planning a future' until he learned she was involved with drugs. They verified this with her supplier and ID'ed the anonymous tip) His arrest got headlines or was cited on the front page of many major national papers, but Follow-ups tended to get a few column-inches on page 36... eventually, if ever. That's how the media work -- and the ranking system of search engines (as well as the indexing delay) will only make this problem worse in the future -- A word to the wise.
After reading the facts presented by the other posters, I reviewed the source material for my post, and found that other statements that I relied upon may have been media sensationalism as well. Yhese had made me very skeptical of his claims of nonviolence, but after examining those incidents in some detail (which is why it's taken me so long to repond) I now have a great deal more respect for Mssr. Bove's methods, even if I do not necessasrily agree with his politics.
I apologize for my error, and especially for emphasizing it in my earlier post. I let my shock get the better of me, and in that I am no better than the media I criticize.
I realize that public retractions seem to be unpopular on Slashdot, but I think it's only right
If you can go to bed, knowing you did a valuable thing today, you're very lucky. If you can't... it's not bedtime
Anarchism is entirely valid. All is means is lack of hierarchical gov't. It is the state that humans come from and if we were to go BACK to it (this does not mean going back to living in caves and becoming luddites) then many of our problems would be solved. To clarify my point: if all large institutions (that are NOT the same as people) whether governmental or corporate were either abolished (voluntarily, this would have to be a popular revolution) or put in their place (that is, recognizing that these institutions do not have the same rights as people seeing as they are not in fact people) then society would flourish in general. Society is not built upon anarchy.
That is in fact a false statement. Society _originiated_ in a state of anarchy (ie people voluntarily cooperating as opposed to having a leader tell them what to do).
Also let me clarify the idea of violence not including the idea of property damage. There was once an anarchist named Pierre Joseph Proudhon who said "property is theft, property is freedom, property is impossible". Essentially this means that without _personnal_ property we cannot be individuals (hence the idea of forced communal property as practiced be supporters of governmental communism, but not voluntary communism). However, such ideas as corporate property (that property which is derived from the sweat and blood of the workers), property that is not in fact controlled by the workers, is theft. The corporate bosses (or government) did not produce this property hence it is not theirs to claim that it's destruction is violating their rights (hence the quote from tao.ca that you took out of context). This sort of property is "impossible" because the corporate "bosses" did not make it and their control over this property is illusury (because it is not theirs to control).
"plain old anti-Americanism"
Is "brainwashing" too strong a term here?
Why are so many foreigners "anti-American"? Answer - they're not - they actually have genuine three-dimensional motives with reasons, but rather than listen, acknowledge or or face up to these things, a lot of people find it far easier to dismiss them and pretend they don't exist. Just like the homeless "have only themselves to blame" - the belief allows one to feel morally sound in ignoring their situation.
Like the sane man committed to an asylum from which he will never escape because his pleas of sanity are met with unthinking "of course dear, now take your pills and settle down", the use of "anti-american" to deprive people of a voice for a legitimate grievance (which usually has little or nothing to do with nationalities) is a disgusting dismissal of intellect and justice.
During the cold war, people worried about "sleepers" - US citizens whom the Commies had brainwashed to turn into enemy agents upon hearing a code phrase (from an anonymous telephone caller for example). Ironically, this is not far from the truth. If someone campaigns to change a particular US policy after bearing the brunt of its shortfalls, all it takes is one presenter on CNN to say the magic code-word "anti-American" and the minds of the nation snap closed without question or reason.
That's an impressively engineered populace, albeit one prone to overlooking certain designated injustices.
Back to the case in point. By the largely capitalist ideals of the USA, the consumer should be free to know what they are buying and free to choose to whether to buy it. A European study linking growth hormone beef with cancer might be controversial, and might not be believed by those in the USA (though critics in turn would partly attribute this to the extensive marketing in the USA), but the consumer has to right choose to eat or choose not to eat growth hormone beef, be it out of health concerns, or ethical concern, or whatever. Yet beef exporters attempted to deny this right. They were curtly informed that they must fully disclose the information about their product if they were to sell it. The USA goverment responded with 100% tarrifs on unrelated French goods. When someone's livelyhood goes down the drain because of retribution/punitive measures (depending where you stand) for something entirely unrelated to that person, someone who has does nothing to deserve such discrimination except happen to be of French nationality, then regardless of where you stand on the issue of beef, I think you have to acknowledge that an innocent has been wronged. Even if you think the beef exporters are the primary victims, this does not lessen the further injustice.
To presume reasoning like "anti-Americanism" is as silly as discussing it in terms of "anti-Frenchism".
Do the world a favour - next time you hear of someone doing something because they are "anti-American", take the time to find out why they are _really_ doing it (and for that matter, what it is they are _actually_ doing and want, not what is claimed of them). Depending on the case, you might find this very difficult - like I said, the code-word "anti-Americanism" switches off a huge proportion of the minds of the nation, and might be the only "information" about the case that is easily acessible from within the USA.
Or you can just keep believing that people are strangly jealous of the USA for some reason, that they spontaniously resent it without reason (perhaps because it's big, wealthy or powerful?), or whatever the twisted reasoning it is that means "He doesn't like us, but we can disregard that because people are just like that and never have a reason worthy of contemplation".
"Anti-Americanism" is almost always a crock.
And it is self perpetuating, for when someone tries to voice their grievance, and an entire nation treats them like an enemy in response (once the "anti-American" card has been played), it is only natural for them to respond the same way, and thus produce someone who genuinely is "anti-american".
I'm no "free-market" type, but I think I can clear a few things up for you.
The World Trade Organization (WTO) was created and defined by the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) that was negotiated and ratified by 135 countries in 1994 (or thereabouts). It came into effect in 1995. The nations who signed the agreement thereby gave the WTO the right to arbitrate trade disputes among member countries. Under these rules the decisions of the WTO arbitration panels is final and binding.
The rules of the WTO (embodied in a number of trade agreements that it oversees) forbid countries to discriminate against foreign products and services by putting up tariffs (import taxes) as barriers to their entry. It also forbids Ònon-tariff barriers to tradeÓ. This could be almost anything that the WTO panels find was put in place to exclude foreign products or put them at a competitive disadvantage with domestic ones. For instance, if Canada were to ban the importation of wool from sheep raised by guys named ÒBruceÓ, this could be seen as a Ònon-tariff barrierÓ to Australian wool.
Due to pressure from their citizens, the nations of the European Union banned the use of synthetic growth hormones in cattle and the importation of any beef that had been raised using synthetic growth hormones. Europeans think, not without reason, that eating such beef could be unhealthy.
Well the US CattlemenÕs Association loves synthetic growth hormone. And use a lot of it (which may be why we see young girls in the US reaching puberty at ten). The European ban barred most of their product, so the US Cattlemen complained to the Clinton Administration. And the Clinton Administration dragged the European Union before an arbitration panel of the WTO and gave this argument (Well, they say they made this argument. Since the proceedings of WTO arbitration panels are secret, we donÕt know for sure):
ÒThe Euros have banned importing of synthetic hormone-treated beef. We in America all use synthetic hormones. Therefore, the European ban on hormone-treated beef discriminates against US Cattlemen.Ó
The WTO panel bought this argument and ruled against the EU. This shouldnÕt be surprising since, in ever single instance, when any nationÕs environmental, health, safety, or labor protection act has been challenged at the WTO, the protection has been ruled WTO-illegal and overturned. Using the powers granted to it when countries join, the WTO gave the Europeans three choices:
1. Remove your ban on synthetic hormone-treated beef.
2. Pay the US Cattlemen $200 million a year for lost market.
3. Face $200 million (give or take) worth of tariffs on European goods that we will authorize the US government in retaliation for your ban on synthetic hormone-treated beef.
The EU refused to comply by removing the ban or giving the US $200 million a year, so the WTO allowed the US to slap 100% tariffs on a number of European products. I donÕt know how they chose which products. They range from Scottish sweaters (Scots jumpers for you in the UK) to - thatÕs right - French Roquefort cheese. Without WTO authorization the US tariffs would have violated any number of trade treaties and agreements. But one of the WTO rules is, the WTO rules are supreme.
It may seem ironic that the WTO uses tariffs to enforce its market opening rulings. But irony abounds in the world of globalization. The World Bank and the IMF claim that they are fighting poverty by forcing indebted nations to raise interest rates, increase taxes, cut spending on health and education, and attack Labor Unions. All these things increase poverty and the misery of the poor (The IMF and World Bank also force these countries to join the WTO). The WTO forces on nations rules that favor multinational corporations in the developing countries, and calls this ÒFree TradeÓ.
In short, the WTO is an undemocratic body, staffed by international trade lawyers and bureaucrats that has the power to overturn laws made by governments in response to popular pressure. It gives to the countries with poor environmental, health, safety, labor, and economic policy laws tools weaken those protections in other countries.
The Financial Times of London quoted one international trade official as saying, The WTO "is the place where governments collude in private against their domestic pressure groups.Ó (Guy De Jonquieres, "Network Guerillas," Financial Times, April 30, 1998, p. 12). Business groups are in on the negotiations from the beginning, so in this context, by Òdomestic pressure groupsÓ he means the people.
Excellent article Jon Katz! Excellent suggestion. So hereÕs to Jose Bove on this Independence Day. I saw him on the streets of Seattle last November 30, smoking his pipe amidst the tear gas, crowds, and the broken glass of a Niketown store. HereÕs to the destruction of transnational capital that subordinates all human experience to the cash nexus. HereÕs to the Revolution.
Salud
Just thought I should clear that up.
That is to say the Americans were #3 this year... If we Canadians (which I thought was clear in my previous post) were to drop out of number one, there'd be alot of noise about it. Since this is now our 7th straight year at the top of this list, many Canadians are now fairly confident that we'll stay put...
Intolerant people should be shot.
Vandalism is still just common vandalism. In order for breaking the law to be CD, it helps for the law your breaking to be either the law you're protesting or directly related to it. Destroying a business that is neither in the buying or selling of roquefort cheese is simple vandalism, and for JonKatz to put this guy up as a hero shows an incredible lack of thought on his part. It's one thing to support people who agree with you, but it's another thing to encourage random acts of criminal behavior done under the name of a cause; do you see me defending the Southern Baptist Convention or the Spanish Inquisition because I believe in Christ too? No, and you won't find me doing so. Crimes done in the name of a cause, ANY cause, are still crimes.
JonKatz -- Shame on you for doing your own cause this disservice.
Wow. Talk about a lopsided presentation of "facts". I do hope mine will be more objective.
Who is Jose Bove? He's a Roquefort (a kind of cheese) producer and a union leader who emerged as quite a popular figure thanks to his fight against the dangers coming from the industrialization of food production and, more generally, against the economy-driven globalization.
What did he do? He and ten other unionists dismantled a Mac Donald's restaurant that was being built in his hometown of Millau. There was no damage done to anyone during this action.
And more importantly, why did they do it? After France refusing to import steroid containing beef from the USA, the USA answered by increasing taxes on some French products, including Roquefort cheese. Bove, as a Roquefort producer, suffered directly from this tax increase, but discovered that there wasn't anyone, politician or institution, he could appeal to as it all occurred within the frame of the GATT. Because of this, he resorted to vandalism against what is seen (in France) as the symbol of the american presence in: Mc Donald's.
So, the questions raised by Bove's actions are those of the lack of power of governments in front of global institutions as the WTO and the growing influence of transnational corporations on our societies. They have nothing to do with anti-americanism or mindless violence.
As a sidenote, I happen to live near the place where the Mc Donald's bombing you're mentionning took place. The terrorists who led this attack belong to a local movement, called Armee Revolutionnaire Bretonne, which has no ties whatsoever with Bove's union. Please check your information before posting such accusations.
Because you don't like their food. Why eat food you don't like?
The vast majority of civil and criminal law is about property. This is to be expected since most law is made by the rich for the rich. When their property is attacked it seriously upsets them. Thus I shed not a tear for McDonalds.
Why is it ok for the US to seek to destroy people's livelihoods with trade sanctions, or bomb the crap out of a third world country, or destroy the infrastructure of a European country, but not ok for a small farmer whose very livelihood is threatened by US 'interests' to disturb one brick of a hamburger bar?
And if you think we don't have anarchy, look again buddy. The free market is anarchy. Pure and naked. It rides roughshod over the rights of people world wide. The free market is destroying rain forests, polluting our seas and starving children. The free market kills thousands and thousands of people every day without blinking an eye, and you think that isn't anarchy? How touching.
The US propaganda machine has you convinced there would be no fresh-food without McDs. Give your head a shake. The planet managed to feed itself for a VERY long time before the US style Multi-Nationals.
But has it been able to feed itself well, effectively, or efficiently? Food that would be considered a public relations disaster in the industrialized world is standard in the countries where "natural" means of food production predominate. When was the last time someone died of famine in West Europe or North America?
<I>Moscovites(sp?), for the most part, eat just fine</I>
As someone who grew up in Moscow and lived there at the time that the first McDonald's opened, I will have to completely disagree with you. Before US-style multinationals came to Moscow and gave the locals some kind of competition, the local restaurant and caffeteria food (and just about every other kind of consumer good) was utterly substandard for everyone but the Pary higher-ups.
Jose is not an admirable man. As other posters have mentioned he is quite the opposite.
Some of us may not agree with the idea of big corporations trespassing on individual rights, but this man has gone too far. Has he not trespassed on the most basic right of the woman who was killed? Was her right to live not taken from her? She was not a solider in some war John, but was only an innocent bystander trying to make a buck. How would you like it if your kid or another other close family member or friend died because someone like Jose wanted to make a political statement? The man is a TERRORIST. He is a MURDERER. He is NOT ADMIRABLE. He sure as hell does not represent "american values" unless we've decided that what he did was ok. I'm not even going to mention how insulted I am over your linking this to independence day.
Get the facts straight next time.
-MS-
"Remember: No matter where you go, there you are."
Have you seen their ads? They've always targetted children. Children drag their parents to McD's. When they grow up, they take their kids there.
...[repeat]...")
Children don't care about all this corporate stuff. And neither do most parents who just want to shut their kids up ("Can we go McDonalds? Can we go to McDonalds?
The most cynical ones are the ones they don't advertise to.
I hope the throw the book at the snotty little git. If he doesn't want a big mac, he doesnt' have to buy one, but he doesn't have a divine right to destroy other people's property just because he's got his panties in a bunch.
Fuck him.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
From Merriam-Webster Online (my printed copy is away from the computer), on the vile democracy:
Main Entry: de-moc-ra-cy
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural -cies
Etymology: Middle French democratie, from Late Latin democratia, from Greek dEmokratia, from dEmos + -kratia -cracy
Date: 1576
1 a : government by the people; especially : rule of the majority b : a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections
2 : a political unit that has a democratic government
3 capitalized : the principles and policies of the Democratic party in the U.S.
4 : the common people especially when constituting the source of political authority
5 : the absence of hereditary or arbitrary class distinctions or privileges
And for your precious republic:
Main Entry: re-pub-lic
Function: noun
Etymology: French republique, from Middle French republique, from Latin respublica, from res thing, wealth + publica, feminine of publicus public -- more at REAL, PUBLIC
Date: 1604
1 a (1) : a government having a chief of state who is not a monarch and who in modern times is usually a president (2) : a political unit (as a nation) having such a form of government b (1) : a government in which supreme power resides in a body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by elected officers and representatives responsible to them and governing according to law
(2) : a political unit (as a nation) having such a form of government c : a usually specified republican government of a political unit "the French Fourth Republic"
2 : a body of persons freely engaged in a specified activity "the republic of letters"
3 : a constituent political and territorial unit of the former nations of Czechoslovakia, the U.S.S.R., or Yugoslavia
And if you look at the roots of the words, Republic means "Public thing", Democracy means "Rule by the people". The meanings of the two words as used to describe a political system overlap so strongly that in nearly any context they can be used interchangably.
Stephan
The Fed has NOT been raising interest rates for years now. Interest rates 10 years ago were higher than they are today. The Fed raises or lowers interest rates to keep the economy healthy. 100% employment will lead to the inevitable bursting of the bubble which will lead to poverty for all.
The Fed does what it does in order to prevent the occurence of and minimize the impact of a recession. Your allegation that the Fed is trying to engineer a recession is laughable at best.
You're a crackpot armchair economist who has no concept of all the economic research that has been undertaken over the past hundreds of years. It makes me angry to hear idiots like you rant and rave, seemingly making sense, when it's obvious to me that you have either not made any effort to think about the consequences of your suggestions or that you wilfully choose to ignore all the available evidence that your theories are bullshit.
Mmmm.. Donuts
The Zimmerman telegram helped bring US into WWI, not WWII.
Arun
---
This was sarcasm, in case you don't understood it. You sing the corpo's advertising like all well-reeducated mooing mass member.
---
What's funny is that in your zealotry you fail to notice that the post you reply to was intended as sarcasm as well. He's on your side.
"Moo", indeed.
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
- Jeff
In any case, US intelligence has made US corps aware of bribery and corruption that is so often rampant in the markets they are trying to enter. Do you have any evidence that they have received any information that would give them an unfair competitive advantage, like trade secrets or business plans? I have seen no such evidence.
"When I'm singing a ballad and a pair of underwear lands on my head, I hate that. It really kills the mood."
When I'm singing a ballad and a pair of underwear lands on my head, I hate that. It really kills the mood.
-Tom Jones
Sure, taxes were a major issue in our decision to overthrow our king. And what's wrong with that?
We had a few other grievances, which you might want to take a look at: they're in the Declaration of Independance. In particular, "he has erected a multitude of officers, and sent them fort to harass our people and eat out their substance."
I'd say we're overdue for doing it again.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
If they are indeed doing it consensually, and continue to consent, then yes, you should be able to do this. In fact, I believe that occasionally boxing tournaments end up this way. So? I feel no outrage at this. Perhaps at the circumstances that cause folk to feel compelled to consent to this, but that's another matter. (And, truthfully, I'm not convinced that they do usually feel compelled.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
You don't think that McD's ships beef and potatoes from the US over to France to turn into burgers and fries, do you?
Of course not, Mickey D's fries are mostly soya flour, which is why they are called "McDonald's Fries" in the UK - it is illegal for them to call them french fries as that would imply they are made from potato, which they're not.
During the hyped-up BSE scare, they were quite proud of the fact that they were importing beef from Argentina.
I don't care how the UN ranks Canada. The simple truth is that I don't want to live or work there because I will get paid lower, taxed more and it's freaking cold there!
Mmmm.. Donuts
g0 4~4rcHy! Fsck d4 sys+3m! Uh, yeah...
Civil disobedience is a morally acceptable method of protesting an immoral law. However, an important aspect of civil disobedience is that you perform the action with the full intention of taking responsibility and receiving the legal penalty for your crime.
In this case, there is a trial going on, and Mr. Bove is seeking aquittal, i.e. seeking to eschew his responsibility. He wants to be able to break the law and get away with it. This is not civil disobedience, this is mere criminality, regardless of the motivation.
It's a pity the crowds rallying for Bove at his trial couldn't be bothered to come out and peaceably protest McDonald's restaurants by picketing or, as with the case in Britain, handing out leaflets. But no, their intention is to use the power of mob rule to override the rule of law.
I am pretty pissed off about gasoline prices in this part of the US right now, and with the pollutive internal combustion engine in general. Does this mean I should be permitted to go to the gas station, turn on all the pumps and spill their gas all over, without repercussion? Or maybe go to the auto dealerships and take a sledgehammer to the vehicles? No, of course not, I would just be a vandal.
Also, please don't go comparing popular vandals with the leaders of the American revolution, unless it is actually your intent to disparage the Founding Fathers as mere criminals and traitors to the Crown.
I think I've finally figured it out — John Katz is secretly just a troll, relishing the controversies created by his "who needs support when you can write provocative assertions" articles. He seems to be following the guidlines of the Slashdot Troll HOWTO. (Which I can't seem to find anymore.)
Why don't you move to America then? Thought so.
"When I'm singing a ballad and a pair of underwear lands on my head, I hate that. It really kills the mood."
When I'm singing a ballad and a pair of underwear lands on my head, I hate that. It really kills the mood.
-Tom Jones
Katz, I grew up in Europe, surrounded by the "activists" like Jose Bove. Please get yourself a clue and see through their socialist-hero-glamour.
The guy represents pampered French (and European in general) farmers who are mad because they are likely to have to face reality: Given a choice, most people probably don't want to pay what they charge for their products. It's by no means certain that that *is* going to happen, but that's what they're afraid of.
I've got no more understanding left for thugs like him. He can take his cheese and shove it up his righteous behind. He stands for people who have denied a whole generation (myself included) economic freedom, so why is he whining now? No sympathy here.
... as long as it fits into their recipe? British MacDonalds use British beef (at least until it was widely known that this was a mad idea...), French MacDonalds use French potatoes for their fries etc. However, French cheese is the "wrong" variant (did you ever see a Roquefort Burger?), and so they have to import it from the US (or more likely from the Netherlands, as it is closer, and as they have some rather insipid cheese variants there as well...).
Say no to software patents.
I am sorry that you imagined some sort of slight against the French (or against goat farmers for that matter). I called Jose a "cranky French goat farmer" because that is what he apparently is. This is not a slight against the French. Heck, Americans have more than their share of crackpots as well. If you want to feel slighted because you agree with Jose's attack on McDonald's then go ahead and feel insulted. As far as I am concerned anyone who thinks that Jose is some sort of freedom fighter is clearly an idiot.
Seriously, how cracked do you have to be to vandalize a McDonald's because the U.S. has closed its borders to your cheese. This is especially true if you happen to oppose globalization. It's wrong for Americans to try and sell hamburgers in France, but it is perfectly all right for the French to try and sell their Roquefort cheese here in the U.S. After all, French cheese is anti-globalist, pure, natural, healthy cheese.
Are you starting to see the reason why I have a hard time accepting Jose as something besides a crackpot? He isn't against globalization any more than I am. He wants to be free to sell his cheese for the highest prices possible, even if it means he has to ship his cheese clear to America to obtain those high prices. He doesn't want McDonald's, however, to have the same right to sell their hamburgers in France. Despite the fact that apparently McDonald's is fairly popular in France.
Don Quixote tilted windmills that he thought were giants. That did not make him a hero. Jose is a glory seeking cheese maker seeking to make his inane point through vandalism. He likewise is no hero.
It's not a democracy. It is, at best, a republic. Your own [army's handbook] used to confirm this, with a detailed definition of the terms.
As for "never have the people in this country been more free," I must insist that you read McWilliam's book. The truth is that never have your people been LESS free. You just don't see it, because you've been sucked in by the myth.
Read the book. It'll make you discontented. And then maybe you'll get off your complacent duff and make some changes.
--
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
It's disconcerting when crap like this is glorified. That guy is a criminal nothing more nothing less. What has any of this got to do with freedom? What about the freedom of the local owner of that MacDonalds to do business? And where do the anti-global morons get that this is their fight? The reason this whole thing started has to do with trade restrictions. This guy is mad that his GLOBAL market place is being restricted. He's a criminal, the anti-corp/global people are worse... they're stupid.
Is something wrong, Jon?
That said, I think it's time I changed my
regards, treefrog
what - does he plough it up or something?
{shhhhh... the froggies are asleep.}
spam-proofing?
.................................................
Why was Mr. Small-time farmer objecting to a McDonalds being built? Simply because it was a franchise of a multi-national corporation? What were the destroying? What were they harming? Is there any substance to this story other than flag-waving?
"Without big corporations we wouldn't have cool things like cars and computers"
;)
I know where i stand - Underpants gnomes rock
If I were you, I'd read some of the comments and find out the real truth (unless that whole message was sarcasm, in which case... carry on). However, it sickens me that it got moderated up to 2 for basically saying "Yeah d00d, c00l art1cle"
Yeah, my sentiments exactly dude... but it's generally better I would think to at least try to post a well thought out response (see all of mine, though I also found the need for the F word). Still, you are right on
You've been watching "Saving Private Ryan" again, haven't you? How many times do I have to tell you, if you want to learn something about history, don't try to do it from a Hollywood movie .....
The problem wasn't that a statue of Winston Churchill was defaced, it was a memorial to the dead of two world wars that was defaced. No matter which way you look at it, that is despicable. Ronald going head first through a window pales in comparison.
Actually...it's not surprising that the US is friendly to megacorps. In fact, it could be argued the entire US started as a megacorp...
The Virginia Company (of which many of the "patriots" of the American Revolution were stockholders, including Benjamin Franklin) wanted to do surveys of the land west of the Appalachians for land claims and settlement. The British, who had signed treaties with most of the Native American nations along the Appalachians (including the Cherokee, Creek and Delaware nations) to the effect that everything west of the Appalachian Mountains was "Indian Country" (a minor note--much of what was then Virginia (including Kentucke County, which eventually became Kentucky), was west of the mountains and about the only white folks living there at the time were refugees from the failed uprising of Bonnie Prince Charlie--bet you didn't know there were Scottish and Irish settlers in the early 1700's, eh?) said no because in large part they didn't want to piss off the Native American nations OR the French (many of the Nations had alliances with France).
In 1776, the Colonies declared independence. Literally almost one of the first acts the United States did as a nation was to sign a treaty with the Cherokee Nation ceding the biggest part of non-Jackson-Purchase Kentucky to the state of Virginia. Shortly thereafter Dan'l Boone and others came to take the lands and survey them (and ran promptly into the Shawano, who had not signed a treaty giving THEIR chunk of Kentucky over, but that's another story).
The treaty in question also ceded a fair chunk of the state of Tennessee; in fact, eastern Tennessee set itself up as the short-lived "State of Franklin" (not uncoincidentially named after one of the big stockholders in the Virginia Company--kinda like how Hudson Bay got named) for about a year and a half until the Articles of Confederation were superceded by the Constitution. (There are articles on this on the 'net, and on historical markers all through eastern Tennesseee--outside of Bristol there is actually a "historical community" set up as a reenactment of lifestyles around the time the State of Franklin existed.)
For that matter, literally until the Constitution was ratified, darn near all land west of the Appalachians was effectively owned by the Virginia Company. (After this, the US tended to take big chunks of land by buying them from other countries who never owned the land in the first place and setting them up as "territories". :)
Needless to say, at least some of us have been screwed by US-based megacorps since day 1 :P
-Windigo The Feral (NYAR!)
Many of you are proclaimed communists and socialists who continually complain about the so-called shortcomings of capitalism and individual freedom in America.
"America's bad." "Founding Fathers were all slaveowners and nothin's changed." "Capitalism makes everybody poor except for corporations." But then I realized that there's an elegant solution to your problems: China!
I have to admit that I'm somewhat envious. If there existed today a fully capitalist country anywhere in the world I would relocate there without hesitation. But alas, there are none, and here I remain.
But you, the socialists and communists who comprise the bulk of the Slashdot community, your Nirvana exists! I have read your posts and I hear you. I understand your desires and motivations. Utopia is within your reach, and it is: China!
Don't take my word for it. Read it straight from the PRC Constitution itself:
Preamble
After founding the People's Republic, China gradually achieved its transition from a New-Democratic to a socialist society. The socialist transformation of the private ownership of the means of production has been completed, the system of exploitation of man by man abolished and the socialist system established.
socialism, yeah!
Article 1
The People's Republic of China is a socialist state under the people's democratic dictatorship led by the working class and based on the alliance of workers and peasants.
The socialist system is the basic system of the People's Republic of China. Disruption of the socialist state by any organization or individual is prohibited.
wow!
Article 2
All power in the People's Republic of China belongs to the people.
the people, not the corporations!
Article 6
The basis of the socialist economic system of the People's Republic of China is socialist public ownership of the means of production, namely, ownership by the whole people and collective ownership by the working people.
oh my God yeah!
You see, it's there, waiting for you. Think about it. No more posting messages about all the rich people who make you feel bad 'cause they own all that stuff. In China, nobody's rich! (Except for the bureaucrats, but no country's perfect.)
So to you, my Red Readers of Slashdot, I present my July 4th gift: China.
And in return, my only request is: PLEASE LEAVE
it is so strange that what "evil" corporations are accused of doing,(with what power i can't imagine) is the same stuff that governments have been doing forever! the game plays correctly into the cards of socialists who see this time of transition to be a opportunity. by scapegoating the capitalists, they can make an offer no one can refuse. instant totalitarianism. just add media conditioning, which the poor slashdot fellows have shown works wonderfully.
to conclude, do not simply parrot a belief that you heard that sounds cool. think, analyze, research. politics, so neglected and ridiculed, is the only way the individual can assert his or her power(save by revolution).
Read Toffler's Powershift, and the Wall Street Journal.
---
when mcdo will open a "restaurant" on the artic continent? or on the moon?
---
When there are enough people in those places who want their product.
And when/if that happens, who are you or I to say to those people that our wishes override theirs?
If you don't like it, don't buy it. If the opening of McDonalds in a certain place isn't wanted by enough people, they'll close up shop. If not, you'll just have to live. The few cannot and should not override the many.
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
- Jeff
If I don't like it, I am going to read it, and I am going to make my voice known. Of course that has the unfortunate side effect of actually helping Katz's career because after all, he basically gets paid to write sensationalist crap so that everyone can bootstomp his ass in the comments system and Slashdot gets more advertising revenue from everyone continuing to post comments
I agree with lots of it, but this guy argues for free trade of *everything*, which for instance would include selling nuclear weapons to Iraq.
Some information about terminator technology 1) Many modern hybrid seeds are already sterile and those that aren't have to be replaced after every few generations to retain the desired traits. 2) No one is forced to purchase Monsanto seeds if they do not feel that the cost/yield difference is beneficial 3) The Monsanto seeds were to be marketed to farmers in developed countries that could afford the higher cost 4) Terminator technology was originally developed out of concerns that genetically modified seeds would spead their modified genes to other organisms. Making them sterile effectivly kills this possibility. 5) Monsanto ceased developement of terminator technology due to the horrible press they were getting from activists who were more interested in attacking big corporations rather than becoming knowledgable of the science involved. Danmed if you do, danmed if you don't.
This is an issue of democracy not tyranny, Bove's community doesn't want McD opening shop in their town. Who do you think the city fathers (or whatever their equivilant are in france) are going to listen to a bunch of broke artistic types and community activists or a large american corporation making promises od tax revenue, jobs, etc. Even if McD's presence is benign, not driving everyone out of business and not destroying the traditional agriculture economy, the community still has the right to protest over who's opening shop.
I've seen the fast food chains drive smaller restaurants out of business and replace originality with corporate uniformity. Corporate restuarants can afford to go with low profits and even huge losses as long as the shareholders and executive officers are willing to pour their huge amounts of capital into these restaurants. Smaller independants can't keep up, they don't have a rich uncle they can always hit up for cash.
Does this touch upon the 'let me eat crap and die painfully' argument, yes. Is this about local nationalistic pride, yes. Is this about laizze fair capitalism, yes. Are these things controversial? You bet, that's why we have a democratic ethic, the people who will be most affected by McD should be the one's rallying and making policy. Not the profit driven corporations and a handful of local beaurucrats.
Bove is an extremist, if he wasn't you'd never hear of him. Him and his pals did dismantle half of a McDonald's because they were pissed. I see this as a healthy display of civil-disobedience, its going to open a lot of eyes on both sides of the pond.
Here's an idea: Why not stop bitching and go make some money. It sickens me that people think they have a god-given right for everyone to be equal. I believe the phrase was supposed to be "are created equal" and not "are equal". If you don't like your situation, then get off your ass and do something about it other than complaining that you are being treated unfairly and thus deserve yet another dumb law to be passed to help your situation
I'd say this is more towards civil-disobedience for the purpose of raising awareness of the larger issue of business and government collusion that goes against the democratic ethic, not some PR press packet trying to stop controversy not encourage it.
A few points.
:)
1) You are free. See Cuba as a reference.
2) The freedoms that U.S. people don't have are the freedoms they gave conrol to under whichever representatives they vote for. It's not irreperable damage though. Note Al Gore's progress in the polls.
3) If you really want to see the Constitution and the Bill of Rights prevail, then quit attacking corporations, power mongers, and religious fanatics already and start voting for representatives who want a weaker central government, one that isn't so corruptible
Quites simply, on point #3, the governemnt shouldn't have anything to do with McDonalds or any other corporation. Who friggin cares if McD's are really really big. They also employ tons of people, virtually created fast food (which has saved my ass numerous times), and make good french fries. Are they evil? No. Hitler was evil. Stalin was Evil. Mr. McDonald just found a good way to make a profit in exchange for feeding tons of people who don't care to spend time in the kitchen. They are not breaking any laws, and will only show intrest in the government if the government suggests something stupid, like shutting them down or crippling their buisness, which seems fine to people like you.
Can anybody explain to me why liberals see the corporations as evil and big government as inherently good?
(Last time I asked that question here, people replied that the governemnt should be socially responsible for it's people, to which I replied that social responsibility shouldn't make up for personal irresponsibility. If anyone could go beyond this, please....)
The freedoms that we don't have are freedoms that the people of the United States gave up by electing the wrong people into office.
If you really want a real democracy, then I say vote for Republicans like I do. They support a small central government, which do not regulate your "evil" corporations as strongly as Democrats do on a federal level. They support local government power and control more than federal control. Not only does this mean a more well-balanced governement than the top-heavy one that's been growing in the last 8 years, but it also means that your vote means more. If you live in a state or county that is more liberal or more conserative than average, then they should live under their own set of rules (and see what results) instead of attempting to impose those ideas on the entire frikkin country.
If you don't want McDonalds, then see what your local government can do against it before forcing the federal government to do something.
Agreed, while vandalism isn't probably my first choice on how to displace civil disobedience, where would we be w/o the acts of Thoreau?
Want to know more about civil disobedience? I would recommend reading "The Justification of Civil Disobedience" by John Rawls (sorry, couldn't find it on the net). He clearly outlines when he believes that civil disobedience is justified.
Bolverk dun said:
Considering the multinational who owned, spun off, and just recently rebought Nestle, you're honestly shocked at this?
(For those who don't know--Nestle was for some time, and is again now thanks to a reaquisition, a subsidiary of Phillip-Morris. Yup, the big cigarette company. One of those that laughably tried to claim that they didn't dope cigarettes with nicotine, even though literally anyone who works or has worked in a Phillip-Morris tobacco plant can tell you that there are certain tanks you Do Not Touch lest you be rushed straightaway to the hospital because aforementioned tanks sweat nicotine. (Yes, I've had family members who worked at Phillip-Morris, and one that had to sue for worker's comp due to their chopper damn near cleaving her hand into Marlboro additives. Let's just say I've a fair amount of knowledge on the subject.) They aren't exactly the most ethical of companies to begin with--getting people hooked on cigs, on formula, it's all money to them :P)
-Windigo The Feral (NYAR!)
The LA Times quoted Bove calling the McDonald's bombing "pointless and imbecilic". I can't find it on the Times site, but the Detroit News has it here
Paul Boutin | writer for Slate, Wired, etc
THE IMPORT TAX IS ON BEEF - i.fucking.e. beef from France to the US
THE EXPORT TAX IS ON FRENCH DELICACIES - like Roquefort from the us to France.
anybody remember the banananas? the US wasn't happy that the UK put a tax on their bananas, so they put a prohibative tax on woolen jumpers, whisky etc from the UK.
The US bananas were from corporate owned farms, the ones before were from small farms.
Now: you want a banana, it's a Chiquita Banana.
The UK backed down, I'm glad someone didn't
Titus-G, celebrating the 4th of July, I don't want that guilt.
~ppppppppö
Be that as it may, you offer no evidence at all that these multinational economic and trade organizations will impose devastating economic sanctions on non-member (let alone member) countries. Has it ever happened? Is there any reason to believe it will? The fact is, no country is forced to join those groups, and no country that joins is forced to stay. But they do join, and in droves, because the benefits of lowering trade barriers overwhelmingly outweigh the costs. Particularly for the small countries you seem to be championing.
"When I'm singing a ballad and a pair of underwear lands on my head, I hate that. It really kills the mood."
When I'm singing a ballad and a pair of underwear lands on my head, I hate that. It really kills the mood.
-Tom Jones
Actually, I had a "Blue Burger" just the other night - with red onions, blue cheese, and bacon. Delicious!
Everyone will start to cheer when you put on your sailin' shoes.
Sorry for the blunt subject, but it had to be said. I am so sick of hearing this bullshit that you spew out on Slashdot on a regular basis. However, you have a fucking right to spew it out, and I am not about to challenge that in any way. I am extremely thankfull that Slashdot has a comments system where everyone can see both sides of the issue and not just what your opinion is. Thank god that you did find the perfect medium for your work.
Trashing a McDonalds and being possibly responsible for the murder of a 28-year-old woman is not civil disobedience. It is fucking murder plain and simple. Yes, I do live in a country founded because of a revolutionary war. Yes, war is hell, it's never pretty. Comparing this to the start of the revolutionary war is ludicrous. If one wants to start a war, he should fucking start a war and not do this petty trash a McDonalds shit.
Comparing it to the boston tea party is a big maybe. The ship had a military escort, and the fighting was not only against trashing the icon of the tea company, but was a big fuck you to the british military as well. Also, IIRC, wasn't the tea company a government handed monopoly as well? In contrast, McDonald's is just a corporation. Yes, they are big-- they make a lot of money, but you know what, they do it fair and square. They don't have a monopoly on hamburgers or any shit like that; if you want to you can go to Burger King or Wendy's or a bunch of other smaller chains, or even a local burger joint. Honestly, the US government could really give a flying fuck about some dude trashing a McDonald's in another country. That is the French governments responsibility, and I hope they hit this motherfucker with everything they possibly can.
pronoblem
That probably won't help in this case. That McDonald's will be able to survive on tourist and motorist traffic alone.
In return, the local community gains a handful of part-time jobs for its teenagers, an eyesore building, and the stink of hamburgers and french fries.
Jose did the right thing. Sometimes, the only way to communicate is by disobedience. Not every place should look like a godforsaken Northern Virginia suburb.
> People still have free will, and free choice. Don't like McDonalds? Don't go there.
I don't know where you live, but this simply isn't true where I live. Shops that stock unique products have been pretty much absent for a decade now. To my knowledge, _every_ mall in the _entire_ city is populated solely by chainstores (if not, then at least 95-99% are chain stores). Not only do all the stores in each chain carry exactly the same products, but the chains have spent the last decade buying each other out and so further reducing in number and diversity, thus for example there is only _one_ consumer electronics chain in the city - that's right - just one. Lots of stores, but they all sell exactly the same thing.
I've been to other places in the world that are little behind in this trend, and absolutely loved the shopping there.
One important truth that you seem to be overlooking is that varied and specialised markets by definition are small markets, thus stores that sell "the spice of life" can rarely afford to sell only specialised stuff - not because it's unprofitable (the opposite is usually true), but because sales are slow and rent bills are not.
these conglomorates are not just good at fulfilling some needs, they use their existing position to put small stores out of business
Meanwhile conglomerates specialise in deliberately running these stores out of business - because so many people _do_ prefer to spend money there while such stores exist. But the marginal profits of specialised markets make such stores sitting ducks for an agressor with already-paid-for infrastructure and vast revenue streams to dip into.
Make no mistake - these chain stores _do_ destroy choice, and they frequently _don't_ do it by providing better options. Cynical profit-driven abuse is quicker and more effective.
You say the rest of us like our Nikes, Levi's etc. Where I live, it would be far more accurate to say that rest of us have either never lived in a time when there was anything else, or have long forgotten what choice was. It took a trip overseas to remind me of what this place used to be like.
Unwitting ignorance of alternatives is not quite the same as preference for what you are given and told to accept.
I never used to notice how many empty storefronts line the streets here, or remember the variety from the days when they were used. This is one consumer who wouldn't mind a higher cost of living as the price of choice.
But I doubt there will be a return - the current generation have never known anything else.
Peter McWilliams died on June 14th. Many believe he would have been able to hang on a little longer if he had had access to medical marijuana, which he used to prevent the nausea his AIDS and cancer medicines caused.
He was awaiting sentencing for growing marijuana, which would have probably ended up at one of the medical marijuana clubs in California (it's illegal to sell it, but the state and the localities are happy to look the other way). The federal judge ordered weekly urine tests to make sure he wasn't using it, and a few days after a fire destroyed the computer that contained the only copy of his next book, he was found dead in his bathtub, having choked on his own vomit.
See www.forahero.com for more info.
I find this appalling that people are defending this guy. McDonalds does not grow as a corporation through force, they must persuade consumers to eat there. Bove on the other hand, did use force agaist McDonalds private property. Without respect for property rights, Bove is no safer to work as a small farmer than McDonalds is to act as a giant global corporation.
Through his actions Jose has limited not only McDonalds ability to profit from their new franchise, but all its workers cannot work. I'll be the first to admit these aren't the highest paying or most skillful jobs, but they give a lot of young people an opportunity to get started. Yet Jose denied them this opportunity (temporarily) through the use of force against McDonalds. That's simply wrong.
The fact is that farming is best done on a VERY large scale. Prices drop, and output grows significantly when the farmer is able to invest in new high tech equiptment. The small farm is no better deserving of government protection than any other business.
If consumers want to hold onto these small farms, they must be willing to pay a lot more. In fact, some people have decided to do just that. Throughout Phoenix at least, we have two major chains which specialize in organically grown foods and other "natural" foods and meats. Of course the prices reflect that.
Would living for two and a half years in Germany count?
If using Linux is about choice, how come people complain when I choose to use Windows?
Of course, the reason it is unsafe is because, some people said so. From what I understand, every time this "unsafe" meat is studied they can't find anything unsafe about it. Including the European Union own scientists. It really makes you wonder if the problem really is about the beef?
Didn't they also invent french fries, one of the four food groups at McDonalds?
Come to think of it, do they serve "american fries" in France?
Do you have ESP?
Oh, no, I can't get enough people to agree with my political crusade to have any effect.
Should I resort to violence and vandalism, or should I just force people to agree with my political agenda by convincing the government that "something must be done" (preferably, "for the children", "for the environment", or "for the poor").
Or maybe you should just go sit in your corner and pout, because freedom includes the freedom to open a restaurant, and the freedom to buy a right to use someone else's name for advertising, and the freedom to buy from people at a mutually agreeable price, and the freedom to hire people at a mutually agreeable wage, and the right to sell to people at a mutually agreeable price.
Or we could just have the government run everything, and those who were popular could have things their way, and everyone else would just be SOL. If you live in a democracy, the choice is (at least partially) yours.
--Kevin
Then quit. Duh.
Corporations need to answer to employees and customers just as much as anyone else. If not, they loose customers, market share, and stock value, then they go broke.
America needs more moronic pro-communism liberals like I need a hole in the head.
Go back and look at the changes made in American government made during the Reagan administration. A number of useless government programs were cut, phased out, or incorporated into better-managed programs.
;).
My earlier post, btw, was to point out the irony of complaining about the death of personal freedoms and democracy while attacking corporations and promoting regualtion. However, I must point out (just cuz I feel like it), that the federal government needs to fscking give up on enforcing anti-drug laws and simply pull all social responsibilty for individuals who partake in the use of illegal drugs. (BTW, they need to add drug testing to social welfare programs anyway.) If they want to fsck up thier lives, then the government shouldn't gaurantee a damn saftey net. That alone will reduce the number of welfare-mother crackwhores tenfold, and save millions of dollars put to use in trying to crack-down on drug activity and put it to more usefull causes, like teacher salaries
(Score:3) by orpheus (burnedrectifier@hotmail.com) on 17:26 Tuesday 04 July 2000 PDT (User Info)
"I would like to retract my statement that Jose Bove is believed to have ordered the fatal Breton attack, and offer my personal thanks to those who corrected me on this point."
"I did not set out to malign him. I simply found that Katz' article didn't tell me anything about the person he was applauding. Hence the title and initially biographical tone of my post. I simply wanted facts. After over an hour of reading French/US articles, and getting contradictory impressions, I stumbled into some shocking (seeming) facts, which seemed too noteworthy to ignore."
"In the days after the April terrorist attack, Le Monde and several other media reported that "Jose Bove is being questioned by the authorities" -- but there were no corresponding headlines saying "Jose Bove seems to be cleared". Also search engines can lag 1-2 months behind content, so the few exculpatory 'minor articles' in May/June were not fully indexed "
"I feel paticularly embarrassed because I had a friend who was in a similar situation many years ago..."
All those who have been so quick to jump on the "Bove killed somebody inside that McDonalds!!!!" bandwagon would do well to read this, from the horse's mouth, in the thread under the oft-quoted post that started all this crap.
And a bunch of people apparently need to unwind and try reading Katz' post without freaking out: he's really addressing American corporatism, not *just* Bove..
Of course, it's more fun to freak out over Katz than think about what he says, isn't it?
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't
I'm on PJ's "enemies" list! Are you?
Actually the argument is about the collusion between government AND business. His beef is with both parties, if a established government respected local wishes would there be as many McD's? I doubt it.
The Amercian Revolution certainly wasn't just political, it was also economic. Corporations like Hudson Bay and East Indies had exculsive contracts with the Brit government and did their best, along with the Brits, to bleed the colonies dry. That was "legal" business. It was also crap. He isn't a hero he's just trying to raise awareness through civil-disobedience. I wouldn't praise legal business so much if I was you, once legal business was owning slaves and putting kids to work in factories.
Religious fanatics eh? What about you damn knee-jerk left-wingers that want the government to make laws to take away our CONSTITUTIONAL rights and control everything because you think we individuals aren't responsible enough to do things properly ourselves?
It seems kind of ironic to me how JonKatz and a bunch of the rest of you get up on your pulpit and rail against large corporations (no I don't have any love for them either), yet turn around and look to the federal government to solve all your problems.
P.S. Since I'm talking politics: I'm a native of the Pacific Northwest (born in Seattle), and I just want to ask all of you environmentalists who immigrated from California why the heck you're polluting my (ok, "our") air with your SUVs and pickup trucks >:( I don't even drive!
Arguing about vi versus Emacs is like arguing whether it's better to make fire by rubbing sticks or banging rocks.
Yeah you're right, Rosa Parks should be ashamed of herself. What your missing is that there are unjust laws and when government doesn't listen to the needs of the community people take illegal methods to change their society. You can pick a decent law and make a strawman argument out of it, but I don't know who you're trying to convince.
BTW, its pretty childish to call people names like Doofus.
I think you missunderstood this event, we think in France that the religion is personnal and that you should not force other people in your religion when you're in school (it's public school where 90% of the students are). So you're not allowed to show distintive sign of your religion when you're in school it includes headscarf, kipa, cross... In the same way you're not allowed to critic in public any religion when you're in school.
Really? Tell me something then. Do you have to go to school on Christmas Day in France? Do schools force Catholic children to eat meat on Fridays during Lent? If not, what you have in France is pure religious discrimination, not tolerance.
Telling a Muslim girl she is not allowed to wear a headscarf in school is equivalent to telling a non-Muslim teenager she may not wear a shirt to school. It is an issue of modesty, and forcing someone from a culture that requires a very modest dress code to break it is like telling someone from your culture or mine that they are not allowed to wear clothes.
Similarly, making Jewish boys remove their yarmulkes is *forcing* them to disobey the laws of their religion. But since no one is forcing any Christians to commit blasphemy, you can pretend you're being fair.
Slash has nothing to do with Slashdot.
Most societies do have problems, but few are as good as overlooking them as the US American.
--
The Speedy Viking
The Speedy Viking
I thought all the french are cheese farmers.
The current Slashdot moderation system is made by gay communists!
The current issue of German news magazine Der Spiegel (27/2000) has an article on Bove on page 166: 'Kaese statt Hamburger'.
Aren't you confusing banned British beef (because of "mad-cow" disease) with hormone meat? There is plenty of proof that hormone-filled meat has an effect on humans.
But that isn't even the matter. Do you really think that the US government should force other countries or even their own citizens to "eat" their propaganda or do you think that they should really convince people and show how convinced their are by giving people the choice to eat the contaminated food they call safe or the food that has been safe for decades?
"France has the right to live out of the rule of the corporate america."
No one's taken that right away. They still have it. Of course, if they engage in predatory behavior, they will lose the right to sell Roquefort in the US. Pretty nifty, huh.
Predatory behaviour? excuse me? The europeans only asked for what activists in the united states had been asking for for years, something which was the original purpose of the fda. They only wanted food to be accurately labelled, especially given fears that the hormone-injected beef created severe health risks. (BTW, there has also been some push to mark irradiated food with a radiation symbol, and genetically engineered foods. If we had to do that, most current us food would have interesting little labels on it.) US farming conglomerates (run by the bankers which had foreclosed on the original american farmers) lobbied hard against this. The request was refused.
So the americans wanted to force potentially harmful foods down the throat of the French, and the French are acting in a predatory manner because they dared to say "No more Tea?" I think not!
McDonald's isn't going door-to-door confiscating guns, nor are they placing people in prison for refusing to pay taxes.
Neither was the poor merchant whose tea was thrown in the harbor.
Would that I had some mod points to moderate this post up. Please, someone else, do :)
--
I tend to ignore mainstream press on the subject, but I recently saw an article trying to defend GM technology by pointing to all the good things under developement - golden rice, things that would help third world farmers, and so on.
It sort of backfired because they indicated who was doing what research. The big money (Monsanto etc) was going toward developing new ways to make the third world pay through the nose to grow their own crops. The beneficial stuff was struggling along in underfunded public and goverment research institutes.
I'm a supporter of genetic technology, but how it is being used is another matter, and much of what is going on is simply indefensible. The screw-everything-for-money attitude that the big players in the biotech industry have earned is part of the image problem - health scares about GM foods might not have a very sound basis in science, but they are certainly re-inforced by the actions of the big players in the industry. When Monstanto, in claiming their crop tests are safe, boasts a flawless compliance record, when three of their violations of that law are on public record for the last year alone, you can understand that the image of the entire industry suffers,
if Wal-Mart does a 'bait and switch' and raises their prices back up again, there is an ample opportunity for a new competitor to move into town and for Wal-Mart to get its ass kicked.
No. Wal-Mart can crush any competition that comes near. All Wal-Mart has to do is bait until they drive their competition out of business, then they can charge what the market will bear and make a shiteload of money. If any competitors come and start the laborious and capital-intensive process of opening a new store, Wal-Mart can just call on its corporate resources, drop their prices again, and drive the upstart competitor into bankruptcy. The manager of the local Wal-Mart isn't going to sit on his ass while the little guy moves in, he/she's not dumb.
Wah!
I agree: this article is the last straw!! I am X ing out JonKatz for good! I have kept Katz on for a long time because I didn't want to censor myself; I wanted the total Slashdot experience. No more! Katz' trend has been to use less and less reason. His articles just don't even make sense anymore. Katz is starting to make Jesse Berst look respectable. It's not worth my time or bandwidth to put up with this crap anymore.
Also, he uses the word "corporatism" the way Eddie Murphy uses the word "f*ck". His writing is so predictable I could almost write it for him.
As for Katz' views... Slashdot needs to make a logo for Katz articles -- it should have a red background and have a hammer and a sickle as seen here.
Ok, let me preface this statement: OUR society is not built upon anarchy.
What I'm trying to say is that there are rules that most of us abide by because it makes social interaction possible. Redefining these rules to suit your own world-view is frowned upon.
Anarchists will say destruction of corporate property is acceptable, because they stole it from the workers in the first place.
If this is the case, then what's to stop me from forming my own philosophy "Paulism", which advocates the elimination of the religious texts? I claim that reproducing the words of God is blasphemy. I claim that no human can claim to understand the infinite wisdom of God and that any attempt to capture this wisdom is folly. Not only folly, but a distortion.
Therefore, Paulism contends that marching into bookstores, motel rooms and private residences to destroy any religious writing is acceptable.
Would I get away with this? If you can, why can't I? Because "the man" is holding me down? No, I don't think you'd even need a any government laws or even any moderately religious individual for people to decide this is wrong.
It's just not done. Respect for the belongings of others is a fundamental tenet in modern society.
Summarily declaring that corporations are not entitled to "own" property is ridiculous. You're right, corporations are legal entities not people. However, there are people who voluntarily contribute their property to the corporation. One of the main reasons they do this is to protect against litigation - not to steal from workers. Are they no longer entitled to their work once it is "owned" by the corporation? Workers, too, are compensated for their work and a large number don't complain.
If you don't like corporations, don't work for one. There are many, many sole proprietorships or partnerships that offer employment. Equating these with corporations is not only wrong, but ignorant. The risk in running your own business is substantial. And I doubt very much if the anarchist protestors that frequent WTO meetings take the time to distinguish between a private business or a corporation.
You claim that I take a whole paragraph out of context and at the same time rationalize violent criminal activity with the writings of a pacifist 19th century French printer-(unwittingly)-turned-revolutionary.
--
I definitely agree with the idea that religion is a very personal question. However, a girl wearing a scarf or a boy wearing a yarmulke is not forcing anything on anyone. They are not attempting to convert you to their religion - they are merely following the dictates of their own, which requires them (according to their interpratation of it) to wear certain types of clothing. Catholicism and Protestantism generally make no such requirements on its followers. A clothing restriction is therefore prejudicial against people following minority religions who _do_ have such requirements in their religion.
Again, I accept that most French people who support the rules about non-religious clothing in school are genuninely interested in protecting the secular nature of school (l'ecole laic). Generally speaking this is a good thing, but the French approach is to ban religion, whereas in the United States the principle is that the school should be neutral to it. I found it disturbing that people who were definitely defenders of the right to religious freedom were in favor of restricting certain innocuous religious expression.
For me, freedom is about preserving choice, not about limiting it.
Sigh. My id isn't prime. 2 2 2 2 2 3 5 313
Uh, regarding atomic energy. The reason the first use was by the military was the timing. Seems we were in a global war with this madman when the technology was developed. We reasoned we would rather have it first. Also, Japan's goverment during the war never wanted to surrender. They were overulled by their Emperor. Some of them even tried to overthrow their Emperor. The best estimates of casulties for the invasion of Japan were around 2 million for the allies (read mostly Americans). Just imagine how high they would have been for the Japanese. After the hot war (World War II) ended, a Cold War among the former allies started. Two competing ideologies managed to keep their hawks in check and just fought mainly through subsidiaries till the late 1980's. Again many more people lived than would have died.
;).
The reason atomic energy never reached it potential here on earth had nothing to do with the technology or the science, it had more to do with bureacrats and politics. In the US in particular the paperwork costs and politics demanding no risk had more to do with atomic energy dying than the science or the technology. Oh and by the way we can't get rid of all nuclear reactors. We don't know how. Besides, I'm a little to fond of the sun and the stars to do that.
So it seems the problem isn't in the science it's in the people. Maybe the Biotech people can fix that
...They were protesting against US duties on French cheeses. The proceedings began in a carnival atmosphere as thousands of anti-globalisation protesters... :-)
Correct me if I am wrong, but don't high tariffs tend to reduce globalisation by making imported goods more expensive? Why are the "anti-globalisation protesters" protesting against US Duties instead of encouraging a US-French trade war.
The 4th amendment (search and seizure) has been under attack for YEARS (because primarily of the draconian "war against drugs") and with one amendment down, it will be easier for this one to go as well (actually they will probably continue what they have been doing for a long time anyway, writing loopholes to the amendment such as ability to search on "suspicion of guilt").
How about the Methamphetamine Anti-Proliferation Act (already passed by the Senate), which violates both the First and the Fourth Amendments in one swoop?
It would give police the authority to search your home in your absence and copy your computer files without EVER notifying you or producing a search warrant. It also creates a felony called 'illegal distribution of information', which makes it a crime to publish or link to certain drug-related information.
The War on Drugs is failing miserably, and costing us our freedoms in the process. How can anyone argue that this bill is not totalitarian?
More information is available here.
>The future I see has the large multinationals providing the basics - fast food, groceries, etc.
>Regional cuisines and delicacies will move upstream, differentiating based on preparation times, quality, or presentation.
One problem - the multinationals deliberately adopt tactics to put the "upstream" specialised stores out of business - if no one can buy "upstream", they all have to buy "downstream".
You might think that if there is a demand it will be filled, but in reality what happens is that when an independant shop attempts to cater such demand, to offer alternatives, then the multinationals fill the demand at a cost a smaller business cannot meet (even running at a loss if that is what it takes) until that smaller business is shut down, whereapon the corp ceases catering to that (less profitable) demand, and everyone has to shop at the lowest common denominator again.
Sure, it doesn't happen in every market, and it's still taking place in many parts of the world, but where I live, independant stores are a thing of the past. With that threat of diversity well and truly dead, the chains turned their attention to each other, and a series of buyouts resulted in even fewer chains (but with more stores) operating. Thus even less choice, but greater profits.
Capitalism is great in theory...
Now we know that this attack that resulted in the death of a waitress is not linked to Bove's movement. It was due to independantist people -- that's something completely different.
I don't care whether food production is a craft or not - I only care about quality, availability and other issues. This is not always something that multi-nationals care about, but that's because the customers don't stop buying! Medieval crafts still do exist, and will always exist - but they are costly, perhaps the same will occur with food ? I mean, I love good resturants and great food, but of course, it costs! Just as much as a I love fine swiss watches, but they cost as well! Farms and farmers may survive, but not in competition with the 'mass market' - in the same way that custom jewellery cannot compete with the 'mass market'.
-- Matthew - matthew.gream@pobox.com, http://matthewgream.net
McDonald's was attacked because it is a symbol of the american beef industry and globalization, not because they would not use roquefort cheese on a burger (what an outrage! if they did that, I would expect Jose to protest).
Besides I am sure mcdonald's will continue to use south american beef from the ranches it has helped create, encouraging slash-and-burn agriculture in rain forest areas.
Jose Rulez, Ok.
"Geez, why don't third parties have a voice? Lemme see, Pat Buchanan, Ross Perot, or Ralph Nader. . .they're all whackjobs."
I wish you would elaborate on why Ralph Nader is a 'whackjob' as you so eloquently put it. He has selflessly done more for the public than any random sample of 1,000 other Americans combined. Legally required seat belts in automobiles? A result of his tireless determination. He is a true blue American. Read up on him, and then vote for him in November my fellow Americans! See this article: "Citizen Nader" on Salon.com:
http://www.salon.com/bc/1999/01/26bc.html
Ah, I see.
But I'm not an American.
http://www.gimbo.org.uk/
The only reason McDonalds set up RMH's all over the place is for the PR!
Which is obviously doing the trick, because they sucked you in, hook, line and sinker!
PoC
McDonalds only makes me vomit if I choose to buy it and eat it. MS Frontpage only drives me insane if I choose to buy it and use it. The gov't fucks me whether I ask them to or not.
Actually, a number of companies will mess with you whether you want them to or not. I'm a bit of an environmentalist and have seen records of a good bit of misbehavior by companies. Just check out the records on Superfund sites, particularly in Silicon Valley. There's a lot of things a company will do to screw with customers just to save a buck or two. Love Canal, the Ford Pinto, and the price squeezing behaviors of various monopolies like Standard Oil are all good historical examples of this.
I don't buy products from the paper mill in my hometown as far as I know, but the stench still comes to me whether I ask for it or not. Your argument is void.
And tell me who holds the gov't accountable for it's actions? More gov't. Isn't that convient...
The people affected by them, of course. Also, checks and balances come into play. Ultimately, in our society, the government is under much closer scrutiny than our businesses. Plus, if there are people abusing their position, they usually can't be in power for more than a few years and can be thrown out beforehand by a vote of the people.
Corporations only answer to their shareholders. It's easier to brush aside qualms about the company's questionable actions when it profits you or when you're kept ignorant of it. Government starts out with the goal of serving the people. Companies are just responsible for making money -- that's a lot less lofty height to fall from.
Sure, governments can do more to you and do it more directly, but there is more you can do in response. Try voting. It's an opportunity you don't get to take in the business world. "Voting with your dollars" is a misnomer. It implies your money is just as pure, free, and powerful as your vote at a poll booth. In reality, there'd be less people using Windows right now if that meant anything. I don't recall being forced to vote for someone I didn't like to get to vote for someone I did.
Anyway, why should you care if there is a McD's down the street anyway.
Oh, I don't... but I already said that if you were paying attention. I'm just pointing out that the original poster was foolish to think that not one guy not patroning their establishment made one whit of difference.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Good point, but his original argument was that him just not buying from them was sufficient. I'm not saying there's no point in resisting. He was saying that there was no need for the actions of the farmers because they could've just not eaten there. That's the "Real Protest." While I don't support the form of action they took, just not eating there would've gotten the message across to no one.
Advocacy is what is needed if you want to stop someone who you feel is oppressing you. IMO, though, their choice of a McDonalds was a bit screwy.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
And now organizations like the WTO take American sovernity. Check out this link from a conservative legistlator complaining about the WTO for those reasons.
That's my man Ron Paul. He was in USA Today, um, today. He was the Libertarian Party candidate for president in 1988, but is now back in Congress as a Republican. He was recently ranked as being by far the most libertarian member of Congress. I definitely wouldn't call him conservative. I mean, how many conservatives do you know that want to legalize drugs?
Regarding your assertion that there are fewer and larger corporations... That may be in part because the barriers to entry are getting higher, in the form of taxation and regulation. With high barriers, only the biggest and most capitalized can survive.
Sure. Corporations are as capable -- on a theoretical standpoint -- of murder and enslavement as governments. In actuality, in the past century corporations have waged war (through proxy) and circumvented the constitutional amendments prohibiting slavery (the "company town").
In the US, corporations were one of the main catalysts behind the abolition of slavery. When the industrial revolution was spawned, the new industries in the north realized that they did not have enough free market labor to support their business. Slaves were not considered potential workers because they were in agriculture, had no experience in industry, and no potential for mobility to learn new skills. By freeing slaves, the industrialists in the north knew that they could increase their work pool with ex-slaves who wanted to advance.
What makes corporations more scary than governments (to liberals) is the idea that a democracy or republic gives you or I at least some input.
The fact that you wrote this proves that you are a moron. In the US, nothing drives business EXCEPT customer input. In literally EVERY purchasing decision you have a choice. Don't like McDonalds? Go to Burger King. Don't like the prices of oil? Don't drive. Don't like Windows? Use Linux. Don't like the RIAA? Don't buy recorded music. Etc. Etc. Etc. In fact the very definition of business is that it has no physical power. The government has a monopoly on that. Just to begin with, if corporations don't rely on public input, then why do they spend so much money on advertising in order to attempt to sway customer input? When you answer this satisfactorily, we'll continue from there.
No corporation need answer to anyone but those who can buy stock, and few are constituted to guarantee any kinds of liberties to their employees or clients.
Oh, man. You really clinched it here. WHY should a corporation be required to guarantee liberties to its customers? That is THE stupidest thing I have ever heard in my entire life.
I thought you were going to say even better...
"french people piss me off!" ahahhahahahahah
-jim
-Xen
Since when is McDonalds a monopoly? Do I need to draw you a picture to understand this? Maybe I should just take one of a typical city with a McDonalds. There are plenty of other places I can go for a burger.
On the other hand, Microsoft is a monopoly. They use their business practices to drive out other companies. There is no question whatsoever that Microsoft is a monopoly.
I am a firm support of anti-trust laws. If you can't play nice with the other children, then you deserve to be punished. However, running a legitimate business of selling burgers and coexisting with several other places that sell burgers does not even come close to a monopoly. Yes, it is corporatism. Yes, corporations can be bad. Yes, I am extremely glad that there are people care about the effects corporations are having on the rest of the world. However, terrorism is not the solution.
Shit, Katz. I usually don't read your stuff, but this one is actually pretty damned good. Keep it up!
Just be sure to wear the gold uniform when you beam down -- you know what happens when you wear the red one.
So why are the anti-globalization people supporting him? He's actually trying to globalize his business further. And he's too lazy to travel to the real source of his problem to protest properly -- he instead trashes an unrelated business which happens to be more convenient.
`ø,,ø`ø,,ø`ø,,ø`ø
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
Some portion (I've heard different amounts) of the increase comes from regulation changes that require reformulation of gasoline. While I don't expect that accounts for all of it, it's always quite amazing how the government-good types always forget this.
There are several problems, it wasn't the new regulations themselves, but the need to destroy all the gas that wasn't up to spec. There were also problems with the pipes that lead into the central US. (as well as SUV driving fucks, and OPEC cutting supply) Basicaly, it was a convergence of many factors. Blaming the new Regs themselves would be moronic.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
People bring this up a lot to show how "biggoted" early America was, but this was actually done to help bring about an end to slavery.
When the number of slaves was used in calculations of the population, the South looked extremely populous, which meant more Congressmen in the house of representatives. Since no slave was free to vote against the choices of his plantation owner, it basically meant that the slave-owning vote counted for more.
To put a stop to this, the census was changed so that only 3/5 of the slave population would count towards representation in Washington, which reduced southern influence in federal politics and eventually lead to more abolitionists in Congress and the success of Lincoln's bid for the Presidency.
WFIW, free black men who voted were counted as one vote, not 3/5 of a vote.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
So the oil companies make less than a penny per barrel. and how many barrels per day do they deal with? 500,000 is a pretty low estimate I think, since a barrel is only 55 gallons of oil if i remember. and if we guess that your "less than a penny" profit is .5 cent, thats $250,000 a day. Damn, those oil companies have it so rough. only making a 7 figures a week. Im not saying Ive got a lot of sympathy for American consumers who do have it good, but oil companies are heartless corporate bastards who manipulate the political system through campaign financing and they are lining their pockets. is your father the oil exec struggling to pay the bills like the millions of Americans who live at or near the poverty level? ok i could rant on for a while longer, but i think i made my point. oil companies hardly the over taxed, struggling companies you make them out to be.
Ctimes2
My cube. My friend. My solace. My prison.
I knew about Roundup Ready, but not about the terminator gene. Thrills the hell out of me.
Some insight into Monsantos tactics to deal with everything remotely threatening their balance sheet is described in this report by the Environmental News Service.
I'm sure that that's no news to you, but maybe some of you other corporate drones cares for a click ?
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
I tell you sometimes it makes me wonder why Americans bother to travel at all.
Stay at home everything will be just as you like it there!
PoC
Hehe, problem is there is probably as much dietry nutrition in the cheese sandwich as there is in a Royale with Cheese, a large fries and a coke!
Please read this comment of mine which contains a section explaining that McDonalds is not a monopoly.
The Boston Tea Party was a different situation with people fighting directly against a government handed tea monopoly and the military of that British government. This is an act of terrorism against a U.S. company, but it is the French government that will have to deal with this sorry bastard and his so-called trade union members.
Lock him up for good!
Well they always do things a couple of years after the Americans, but always do it better. Look at their revolution, constitution, and their patriotic music. Now they are protesting even better than the average American. They are also innovative. They knew before the American civil war that the Napoleonic method of fighting was outdated. They knew in 1939 that the Maginot line and trench warfare were useless. I'd say that they are pretty dynamic a people.
Romanes eunt domus? People called Romanes, they go the 'ouse? It says Romans go home. No it doesn't. What's Latin fo
Its funny how American media has deluded the public into thinking the US was the deciding factor in WWII.
Like how they found Enigma? Or how they escaped from Colditz? =)
Blog
Just checking...
Somehow seems Ironic that the taxes that they were complaining about were duties on the contents of merchant ships, and what is this guy complaining about
Import duties!!!!
Makes you think (hopefully)
Next thing you know, Jose will get a major book deal from Giant Worldwide Books Inc, for 7 million dollars, detailing how he battled megacorp.
This is my sig.
Signs that have bigger writing in English than French (in Quebec). Though as someone who is fully bilingual, it doesn't bother me any.
Conversely, America censors nudity like there's no tomorrow. We have a somewhat more European attitude towards it.
------
If a tree falls on an anonymous coward yelling 'first post' in the forest, does anybody hear?
Gee, let me hazard a guess.... French?
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
- Even though he lives in France, cheese farmer Jose Bove, on trial for trashing a McDonald's franchise...
- Even though he lives in France, professional political agitator Jose Bove, on trial for trashing a McDonald's franchise...
Now, tell me which one makes Bové sound like a hero. The man has devoted his life to bending the world to fit his own opinions, and has done a fair amount of damage in doing so.Remember, kids, it's only premarital if you plan on getting married.
Check out the definition of violence according to these groups. Pay close attention to the 2nd point:
We are against violence. We acknowledge the need for self-defense when confronted with the incredible amounts of violence carried out against us by the institutions that oppress. By violence we do not include property damage or swearing, but do include comments or behavior that is sexist, ageist, homophobic, racist, classist or otherwise oppressive. If engaging in property damage and/or self defense we will strive to take the necessary measures to avoid causing intentional harm to others.
These people believe the destruction of property belonging to others (IT DOESN'T MATTER WHO... since only greedy capitalists would own something anyways) is a perfectly acceptable means of furthering their own views.
What I think is interesting about this definition is that if McDonald's were to, for example, have the homes of all the members of this coalition bulldozed while they weren't home, that wouldn't count as oppression. I realize there's a distinction between a home and a business, but that definition doesn't give one.
according to a line in a file somewhere, was to convince us that he didn't exist.
This is worth repeating with regards to your belief that transnationals don't have any interest in the makeup and decisions of government. Because what? They said so?
hmm dude. get a grip.
that's exactly where you are wrong. individual programmers CAN compete with Microsoft. Maybe you hadn't noticed, but software like MySQL is largely the result of the work of one person.. which competes, on a smaller scale, with software from Microsoft, IBM, and Oracle.
You don't believe capitalism. You don't realize that every cent earned by these giant corporations is done without the use of force. They are forced to persuade customers that they are selling quality products. The only monopolies that last in the long run are government enforced.
You seem to completely ignore the benefits to society that are gained by cost cutting that large scale corporations can do. That is one of the miracles of capitalism, as corporations grow and gain in efficiency, society benefits.. and other people are now freed up to specialize in their own fields, or even compete in the marketplace if they can innovate and outpace the current market leader.
I don't want to live anywhere where my success can be limited by government action. As long as I don't use force to gain my wealth, I should be free to do so. I don't see Bill Gates out there with a gun forcing people to buy windows.
Your solution on the other hand.. requires the use of force. If it's legal, or a gun, it really doesn't matter. It is still limiting freedom.
"I think Microsoft should stay with its father." - Francis J. Beckwith, PhD, Trinity International University, 4/26/00
What the hell does that mean?
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
That's pretty funny, you assume i'm American, with the "speak for us" thing about Mickey Mouse. turns out I'm not, I'm actually from the EU, less than 500km (that's 300 miles for you USAians) from where Bové (peacefully if you want, but stupidly nonetheless) destroyed a McDo franchise. And I stand by the words "just some local closed-mindedness"; I said "local" rather than French because I don't want to imply that the rest of the French are close-minded -- just that this guy is. And btw I have no love of American Culture (although there are some great things in there too), and certainly not for fast junk food.
Who did you learn the definition of capitalism from?
Ronald Reagan?
The Original Celebrated Curiously Strong GHOST (mentha lemures)
Can't you see the violence inherent in the system?
Mass, if you're asking those questions of MacDonalds and not Bove, here's a list:
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
I dunno, the Thai government doesn't seem to be terribly interested in stamping out child prostitution. I mean, tourists are forcing nothing, at worst the Thai government is loving the tourism dollars.
Nitwit.
.02
My
Quux26
My
Quux26
www.crashspace.net
Interesting discussion, and many great e-mails, as always. Thanks. I find it odd that on this site of all places, and among people who grew up with a particular conscious of monopolies and corporatists like Bill Gates, that one would really have to explain what this farmer's grievance is. He and the people he represents can't compete with McD's anymore than an individual programmer can compete with MS Word...If you broaden the anology to include Wal-Mart, agricultural combines, McD's and the scores of others (AOL/Time Warner) that are forming around the world, it should be clear: no small individual or entrepeneur can compete. MCD's didn't do anythign to Jose, except it's a symbol in much of the world of a noxious kind of American culture that destroys local culture, small businesses and the opportunity to do business outside the context of a giant corporation.
It's strange to me that on this site, of all places, people have no real political consciousness of how big a threat to individualism corporatism is..and this on a website stuffed to the gills with individuals!
jonkatz@slashdot.org
It seems you didn't bother to think about how many employees are involved in this process (ever lived in southeast texas? It feels like 1 in 20 people around there work for the oil industry - and this is a huge region). The energy costs, the shipping costs, the equiptment maintience costs (have you ever been inside a refinery? Go sometimes, if you like chemical engineering its pretty impressive). All of these costs are amazingly huge. I'll reiterate: Gasoline is cheaper than bottled water, and has gone through some of the most complicated chemical processes done in industry. Don't complain. I'll also reiterate that my father is a general manager in an oil company (Equiva Services), and has worked in many areas of the industry (dealing with operations research (maximizing profits, for those of you who don't know), various purchasing and selling roles, and various refinery management roles). And, despite his position, my family never was wealthy when growing up. Just upper-middle class; many of our friends made more money than he did. I'd doubt the CEOs of major oil companies make anywhere approaching what CEOs of modern tech companies make.
- Rei
PS: FYI, this increase in gas prices hurts the oil industry (it helps the oil producers, OPEC, of course, but we're not in saudi arabia, now are we?). The oil industry has had to soak the curve in prices so that there were no sharp jumps that would lead people to turn to another competitor. The oil industry does well when prices drop, as they can soak the curve in the other direction. I don't doubt many oil companies laid off a good number of employees in the past several months.
The yellowcake is a lie.
First:
Thanks for the great reference to this book and its availibility online -- I agree with most, if not all of it (I was only able to read the chapters you referenced and a few others). I didn't know about the book or about Peter McWilliams, but I'm glad you pointed it out here.
Second:
You are almost completely wrong in your conclusions from this book.
We Americans are free -- as free as we can be without infringing upon the freedom of others. I hate to use a hackneyed expression, but go to other countries to really see why so many people flock to America. Clue -- it's generally pretty bad out there.
America is not a *true* Democracy, it is a representative Republic -- if you didn't learn that in history or government classes in your high school, then I feel sorry about the education you received. In a true Democracy each and every citizen would vote on every THING, which obviously doesn't happen. In a representative Republic every citizen votes local representatives into office who, in turn, vote on every THING. To keep it short, I won't go into it any further than that.
And lastly, I agree with what was said in the book which is NOT that the government is slowly *destroying* our freedoms, but that many of the freedoms we were guaranteed over 220 years ago have been slowly fought for and won over those years. The book specifically quotes John Adams at one point as saying he laughs when people talk about freedom to speak, write, etc. and that hopefully we'll have them after several hundred years. Freedoms are not freely given (even in America), BUT our Constitution and Bill of Rights provide a nearly indestructible framework to GET the freedoms the government may try to deny.
I don't know about the accuracy of all the statistics given about hemp, but I started feeling like I was being preached to by a typical free-drug-use proponent. Reading other parts of the book balanced it out.
I personally believe that the war on drugs is a huge waste of money and that the legal drugs we regularly take could be thrown in with the illegal drugs -- caffeine, alcohol, tobacco, and other over-the-counter or prescription drugs are all drugs. Period. I've personally had only caffeine and alcohol drugs because I chose not to risk using other drugs without sufficient information. It's easy to see objectively when you have kids how they try to make things black and white and "simple" but the fact that they are all drugs is the only black and white fact.
As a kid I was intelligent or mature enough to know that the drug education I had was propaganda and it was made simple to make it easy for us to make a socially correct decision. It's up to us parents to make sure our kids have as much balanced information as we think they personally can handle. In the end we make our own decisions and no amount of government laws can stop that -- hence the uniquely American belief that the power of a government comes from the people.
GM Foods haven't been fully tested on humans, so it's just as harmful as drugs to sell them in the marketplace without knowing what kind of consequences they will produce.
Wow, coward, I didn't know that. I suppose you are (+1, insightful) or perhaps inciteful for that matter. My suggestion is perhaps it is time for /. to turn off Katz's posts, did you ever think of that?
Lowmag.net
And not a moment too soon.
Jerk.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Actually, the fact that Germany had lost so many planes in the Battle of Britain was only one factor in the indefinite postponement of "Operation Sea Lion," the planned invasion of Britain. The other was that Hitler had turned his attentions to an invasion of Russia, in part because he thought this would weaken Britain's position in the long run.[1] (Also, he was nuts enough to believe he could succeed at invading Russia where others had failed.)
And, while it's true that America did not intervene with direct military force until after the Pearl Harbor attack, America was supplying Britain with weapons and warships over a year earlier, through such expedients as the Lend-Lease program. Also, America was beginning to build up its military forces in the fall of 1940, and President Roosevelt had ordered investigations into the possibility of developing atomic weapons (preliminaries to the Manhattan Project) a year earlier than that.[2] It seems likely that somebody figured that the U.S. would be in the war at some point...
Eric
[1] See Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, p. 774, 798.
[2] Gerhard Weinberg, A World At Arms, pp. 157-159.
--
Be who you are...and be it in style!
I understand you can get 5 years for that!
AND you get to hold a number and say "cheese" at the start of your term.
On one hand, vandalism is not the answer. On the other, what else will "they" (MuckDonalds and the shire planning authorities) pay attention to? Remember those two Brits who were taken to court for handing out "propaganda" about MuckD's?
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Bove was protesting global corporatism? Read the article, brightboy...
"They were protesting against US duties on French cheeses."
Was McDonald's responsible for the US duties on French cheese? One might even argue yes, but it still begs the question of why the US government is permitted to impose duties on French cheeses in the first place.
You see, the problem was, is and will forever be that the US government takes actions threatening the relationships of US citizens around the world. Whether it's butting in to every border-dispute in the Mideast, imposing import restrictions on other nations' products (ever heard of the Law of Comparative Advantage?), or arbitrarily handing out taxpayer money through the World Bank -- as long as the US government continues playing favorites in foreign policy, American citizens will be at risk all over the globe.
Does Bove dislike McDonald's? Probably. Do the citizens of Millau not want a MickyD's in their town? Perhaps. If they don't, and there are enough of them, why don't they just buy out the owner? Clearly there are enough people who *want* a McDonald's to incent the franchise to come there in the first place. Have you considered their desires in this equation?
Katz, you have to be the single worst political analyst I've ever read. Worst, because not only do you have no understanding of the issues involved -- you insist on putting up an air of sophistication that any high schooler could undermine. If you think the purpose of the Founding Fathers was to establish a nation where a company could have its private capital destroyed by the whim of a vandal, without protection of law, I suggest you read the initial draft of the Declaration, which refered to Life, Liberty and *Property*.
And for those who refer to the Boston Tea Party as a protest against big business, get the facts right. The East India Company was a royal charter company -- which means they were essentially an extension of British government interests, owned by the Royal family, granted military-backed monopolies who used captured prisoners as slave labor. They made Microsoft look like the FSF.
Neither was the poor merchant whose tea was thrown in the harbor.
The "poor merchant" was the East India Tea Company, which was a monopoly guaranteed by force of arms.
So, you're wrong; people were indeed being placed in prison for refusing to pay tea taxes, and the East India Tea Company lobbied to get their monopoly status emplaced. They were the only company legally allowed to import tea to the colonies, and they deliberately sold at a loss to drive out the domestic tea production.
McDonald's, on the other hand, does not have a monopoly on bad food in France, and nobody is just going there to eat because it's the only food available. McDonald's is not bribing French officials to outlaw Burger King, and they are selling their food at a profit.
French people are eating at McDonald's by choice. That says something about "community wishes".
--
José Bové is a anarco-popularlist POLITITIAN, a long time wannabe of France's extreme left. Bové is using a groundswell of anti-americanism being fueled by those in France who are fondly reminiscing about how "nice" and "equal" conditions were behind the former iron curtain.
If he was "protecting" the french farmers then why did he attack a franchise that relies almost entirely on french/european farm products? Over 85% of Macdo's (as they are called here in France) products are bought from french farmers. Over 10% of the rest is from other european sources.
This POLITITIAN (pronounced in french I know no viler epithet) uses attacks upon others to further his agenda, then wraps himself in the french flag saying he is "defending" us.
Two weeks ago in britanny another group left a bomb in another Macdo that killed a 22 year old employee. Bové once again blamed the forces of globalisation instead of taking any blame for his examples.
Bové's actions do not speak of freedom, they are more akin to the burning of the Riechstag.
Those who forget history are condemned to repeat it.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
the m[a]jority want their McDonalds and their C+M and their cheap clothes and planned obscelence.
Codswallop! The majority don't want anything in particular and are only too happy to have others make their decisions for them. IMHO, this is the result of much careful training, e.g. during bulk education and child warehousing, in growing dole queues and an increasingly inaccurate/irrelevant media circus.
We cannot change that, and can only try and teach those willing to learn,
The best method so far is doing something direct and startling, instead of pontificating about possibilities and mourning the might have beens. Vandalism and violence are generally not viable answers, and in fact many a good cause is scuppered either by being used as an excuse for violence or through its proponents getting carried away. Even little direct actions like including "wire the bomb to the president's car" in your tagline to tickle 3(|-|3L0|\|'s fancy are a help, but the ones that count are the ones (as other posters have pointed out) which cost us "our lives, our fortunes, our sacred honour".
Perhaps the sentiments contained in the following pages, are not yet sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favor; a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defence of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. -- Thomas Paine, in his 225-year-old bestseller Common Sense
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Well, in Morgantown, WV where I live, there's been a local controversy over a new Wal-Mart. Basically, what happened/is happening is this:
Wal-Mart came into town and decided that the existing Wal-Mart here was making enough money to justify building a Super Wal-Mart. They bought a largeish patch of land and declared their intentions.
The problems are that in order to build there, it requires the deaprtment of highways to specially build an access road at a particularly bad spot, and which the people living near there don't want.
The land, by the way, contains an Indian burial ground. The university, which sold them the land, is coming under heavy fire for doing so.
In addition to these concerns are the normal anti-Wal-Mart problems. Namely, that it sucks business away from local stores by undercutting tactics, that it engages in censorship, and that it doesn't produce enough jobs to offset the ones that are lost. This, may I also remind you, would be the -second- Wal-Mart in town, and is likely to put the old one out of business.
There have been protests both public and in various meetings. Clearly, they are -not- wanted, and there is little if any demand.
Wal-Mart's response has been aggravating, if anything. They produced poll results saying that people do want it (The polls are widely considered to have been faked), and they've fought hard for the access road without addressing the concerns of their would-be neighbors.
Chances are that the Wal-Mart will be built, along with the access road. The result of that will be no matter what, economic problems (whether the result of local businesses failing, or the wal-mart failing), possibly more car accidents, and for certain bad feelings all around.
All of this is under the assumption that once it's built, people will go there because it's convenient. A large enough corporation can butt in even under harsh criticism, because they know that they have the cash to weather the storm and just wait out the people who hate them.
That's the real thing about corporations. So long as they make money, they are immortal, no matter what they do. No matter how stupid or destructive they are, if they have reserves of cash, then they will outlive every one of us. Too bad there's no death penalty for corporations, eh?
Gandis lead eh? Lets quota gandi 'given the choice between violence and cowardess, i would choose violence' 'the worste thing the british ever did was take our guns', etc, etc, etc. Stop getting your history from the movies. Gandi was a VERY VERY voilent man. The only reason he has a reputation as a non-violent man is because the british took their guns from them and they didnt have a choice.
>afterall, McD's have prevented was from happening.
>Fact: No war has ever occured in which both countries had a McD's.
No longer true, another first for Clinton. He bombed Kosovo, who has a McDonalds.
Well, at least someone knows history better than I do. Good post.
I never have been totalitarian so that adjective is stupid and irrelevant. As to prick, it's just an opinion that the shareholders of a huge American corporation have more than enough money compared to South American farmers who have less than enough. Now why don't you just go and play with th traffic you braindead idiot.
*grins* MO
Instead of the person trashing the McDonalds or simply not buying things at the McDonalds the person should seek out other people who feel the way he does, both online and offline. Then the group of people can organize and decide on political candadates to support while still furthering their cause by recruiting more people. People would be amazed at how much influence they have over politics on the local scale. Your vote for city council members matters much more than your vote for president. The problem is the sophistication of the average american voter. Most people vote for who they see on TV, not bothering to actually learn about the candidates themselves.
Woefully, this sort of lie works on most people. I doubt if the poster even realized that they were lying, as the numbers are basically accurate as far as they go. The problem is that the standard "rich are getting richer" line only works if you compare the present day with an economically depressed time period. If you were to compare today to the time just before the stock market drop in 1987, you would find that the rich have gotten poorer. If you were to compare today to 1930, you would find that your numbers paint a comparitively rosy picture.
Wealth is a poor benchmark. It really doesn't matter how much money Bill Gates has, for example, as long as joe blow on the street can buy enough eggs and milk to feed his family. Thus, measures of cost of living vs. income per region and per neigborhood are usually the best way to determine just how people are doing. Looked at in this way, the situation has only started to get bad where I am (Boston area) recently, due to housing prices mostly.
Of course, it's always easier to say "McDonalds is ruining our world." In reality, population is our single largest problem, and has been for about a century. Just about every activist issue (from polution to deforestation to energy-production to impersonal global corps.) has its roots in population growth. If you want to work for something that will better the human condition, work for population control. There are basically three ways to do this:
- Teach birth control early and often, and create incentives for single-child homes
- Have more wars / kill people in some other way
You may feel that either one is a bad idea for various reasons, but that really is about the only way you can do it. Of course either method can be coupled with a strong dictatorship (or other totalitarian state) for more sure results, but I don't recommend it.Have you heard about Russia, lemming ?
Tigers respect lions, elephants and hippos. Maggots respect no one. (C) S. Dovlatov
Good work, Dr Katz.
Lydia sez: "Their buns suck, their hamburgers are too thin, the services sucks, and Ronald McDonald's ugly face is disturbing to look at while eating... and those little tiny onions they put on the burger without asking, the ones you can't scape off ... that is so annoying! -_-"
This message brought to you from the voices in my head.
"The Internet is made of cats."
Actually, Asterix was a Gaul, not French....
Come ON man.. in the words of my man Biafra.. 'If you want a bananna republic so bad why dont you go move to one?"
America.. yeah.. were SO repressive of anyone who looks different. Sure.. I spent six years with a three foot Mohawk of varying colors and shapes and I was SOOO repressed.. guess what? During that time I got a job at.. (guess where?) McDonalds. And, truth be told, so did about half the workforce in the US.. come on.. if you want to rail at american industry, take on a company that actually has some of the views you claim they have. Fast Food in particular will hire any warm body that can listen for a beeper on a fry vat, and they dont particularly care what they look, sound, or think like.
Keep in mind.. those who think a job at McDonalds should support a family of five on a forty hour paycheck are a bit confused. That job, like a lot of others, is *entry level*.. that means "here you learn to work, you dont learn to get rich"*
Please.. dont tell me America throws people who think differently in prison.. we actually REWARD those who think differently.. its called affirmative action and making laws that actually hurt the "normal" people in favor of those who are fringe elements and just happen to have a lobbying body.
Sorry jon.. but this idiot doesnt deserve the "penguin" award.. this guy deserves the "herring" award.. I dont think it is a good idea to reward someone for destroying something that isnt his to destroy. Lets hope he gets the five years he could, and learns his lesson.
Maeryk
Feminine Protection? What is that? A chartreuse flame thrower?
Re: SlashDot's style of issue presentation & debate, he said he was quite aware of SlashDot (having visited it on occasion), but felt that the powers-that-be in unions (including his) would -not- want open debates to happen... I think he used the word "devisive" at that point (but it was a while ago, and memory fades...).
Needless to say, I was not impressed.
Although we hear of unions winning computers and Internet access for their members (e.g. I recall him saying that the UK's Telecomm Workers union had won ONE DAY OFF PER (5-day) WORK WEEK for Internet access), we also heard that some of the home-situated computer setups forced the browser's home page to be the union's own...
That's not my idea of freedom, folks!
Oh... a (belated) Happy Independence Day 2K to all of you!
Read Robert Heinlen's SciFi book "Friday" for some interesting insight into corporation vs country wars.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
You are correct, we are technically a republic and not a democracy. Good, I learned something today.
... ... We know we are not free!
Second, our government is doing fine.
everyone knows the government is corrupt
Yes, I see the contradiction. I should have said, on paper our government is doing fine. Well, that's my opinion anyway.
I still stand by my statement that we are more free today, than we were initially under the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. I never said we were completely free. Have we had freedoms taken away from us since then? Yes, but I still feel that many more have been given in return. Does that make it any better? No, and I never said it did.
I do not think any reasonable person would disagree with your definition of liberty and the fact that our government does restrict it. But, by and large, the majority of this country is/was not necessarily resonable, and the majority is what got us into this situation, for better and for worse. But that's the way this government was intended to work, more or less.
So, it's been suggested that I get off my complacent duff and make a difference. Correct, I suppose I should, I suppose everyone should. But that does not happen because most people simply do not have the time or knowledge to do so. Does that make me selfish? Lazy? I guess it would have to, right? Damn logic. Fine, now I have to force myself to become more politically active, because I cannot think of a respectable excuse not to. I knew I should not have read this thread.
BTW, I am serious about becoming more politically active and it's because of this thread. I'm going to read McWilliams' book also. I know, I know, good for me...
Stupider like a fox! - H.S.
ummmm.....last time i checked, america wasn't a straight democracy. it's a republic, mostly, with bits of democracy thrown in for shits and giggle.
-Andy Martin
-Andy Martin
If y'all don't like me, blow me.
I hear you on housing prices. As Joe Blow on the street, I can tell you that rent is extremely high, and I feel like I am being exploited every day. Having just moved away from home, I am really feeling the effects of the class gap, which is odd -- because I make significantly more than minimum wage, and I only have to pay 1/2 the rent! I don't know what the economic reason for all of this is, but it's not fun, and it's times like these that I think communism would be a Good Thing. =)
While the US economy is at it's strongest point ever, with 4% unemployment, France and most of europe continue to hover around 10%? Can you imagine 1 in 10 people collecting unemployment? Why? Here's my guess, their socialist governments and extremely high taxes.
And I've heard that their welfare pays over $10 and hour (after exchange rates). And remember the US dollar is much stronger than foriegn currencies. If it ever weakens that number will be much higher.
Why is there a tariff on cheese? Unfortunately that is not a economic decision (all tariffs are bad to the global economy, they normally hurt the poor while protecting the rich) that is a political desicion, with the cheese farmer being caught in the middle.
Armies are irrelevant - what we are allowing to happen renders State Armies useless. There is a fundamental shift in the governance of the planet occurring. One that no longer requires physical force to assure its survival. We are allowing multi-national corporations (with teams of lawyers and accountants) to RE-WRITE the laws of the planet. Those laws will only serve the interests of those same org's who built them.
You can forget about personal liberty, social programs, justice - they will be a thing of the past. The highest order of 'right' will be one that protects the economic interests of self serving, soulless corporations.
There will be no defense. They will have altered the way the people organized themselves into governments, the powers those elected officials hold, the right to economic self-determination will be lost (if my country enacts a law that violates XYZ 'treaty', the whole of the International Intergovernmental Economic organizations will immediately rule against it and crush my people/government with economic sanctions)
Corporatist America has realized this power and has defeated Russia in the Cold War. This Corporate Mafia controls the USA and they are gaining ground.
Look at the injustice done to Cuba. Americans propose to be the model of freedom and democracy and yet they actively and openly endeavor to crush any country that wont 'play by their rules'. It disturbs me, try and think about what the USA is doing to Cuba - MINUS all the Mass Media communist propaganda - and you will see the US Corporate Mafia at work. Why wont they allow people to rule themselves and not be enslaved by XYZ Mega-Corp? That idea must not survive, and that is the reason the US Government is at war with Cuba. Because its people are free of the corporate interests that they intend to rule the world by.
This rant may sound like anti-corporate paranoia, but think about it. When was the last time you saw a 'corporation' do a completely selfless, righteous, and giving act? Never. Would you want these types of organizations as your GOVERNMENT?
afterall, McD's have prevented was from happening.
Fact: No war has ever occured in which both countries had a McD's.
maybe corporatism is better than nationalism, fundamentalism, fascism, rascism, communism, libertarianism, etc.
afterall, all of the above have had wars occur because of them.
In any case, US intelligence has made US corps aware of bribery and corruption that is so often rampant in the markets they are trying to enter. Do you have any evidence that they have received any information that would give them an unfair competitive advantage, like trade secrets or business plans?
*cough*
Knowing what bribes are taking place are trade secrets and business plans. And there are reports of actions like this, google a bit. How do you think we paid for Echelon?
--
+&x
Look moron, The McDonalds was under construction. It hadn't opened yet, so it didn't have any managers to kill. And it didn't burn. Get your shit strait. You're on the internet, how hard can it be to look this stuff up before you write?
I agree, this is definately not a bad thing. But, in my view, if the French people so overwhelmingly abhored something as distateful as MacDonalds, wouldn't it be a safe assumption, that a MacDonalds 'restaraunt' in France, would be an utter flop. If there is no demand, there is no profit.
You mean like the amazing success of EuroDisney^H^H^H^H^H^H DisneyLand Paris? The emptiest^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hhappiest place on earth? The great sucking void that the Disney Corporation blew into the French countryside, only to have it become a sucking money vaccuum and void, where the designers didn't even have the blasted imagination necessary to change the park around to fit European taste? (I mean, come on: Main Street U.S.A., in France?!?!?!?)
In some places in the world, Micky D's will flourish. In France, I suspect they'll wither.
>And this is all before the rise of the gathering >bio-tech conglomerates, soon to dominate genetic >research and try to use the Human Genome Project >to mass market the perfect human, all the while >screening their work behind talk of cancer and >aging cures. You would suck as a screenwriter. Everyone know evil bio-tech firms would never create a perfect human being. This would put them out of business. This type of conspiracy is best left to evil governments creating the perfect soldier.
As for the murder, I think it remains to be seen who is guilty of that particular death.
It is a demonstrable fact, however, that McD is guilty of massive environmental and economic abuses that can and will casue many thousands, if not millions, of deaths. This has been demonstrated repeatedly.... I seriously doubt that Bove is himself capable of destruction on the scale of a corp the size of McD. Certainly, to McD, the death of a single emlployee is nothing. They get that all the time. Robberies, etc. Usually they don't even pay a death benefit. They just file an insurance claim and keep on burning rainforest...
It is the sentiment that Bove is expressing that they are trying to squelch, and they would certiainly sacrifice a few wage slaves to accomplish that, imo. Thus my believe that McD is behind the bombing.
As I said, I don't know if it qualifies as civil disobedience, but hey, all that tea at Boston was somebody's private property, now wasn't it? So you deplore the Amerikan War for Independence? The Amerikans were traitorous, murdering bastards, after all. If you don't believe it, just ask the Brits who issued the death warrents against them...."The Internet is made of cats."
...like for example, tipping a shipload of tea into the harbour?
But why is that a bad thing? If they are dying, then perhaps they really DO need to die? I'm sure many the carpenter in days of old resented the fact that these new fangled machines could produce hundreds of chairs a day, while they could produce a mere one.
Things don't just die. They die for a reason. Places like McDonalds haven't killed the local Diner in the US. They haven't killed the Chinese restraunt on the corner. Heck, they haven't killed the ice cream stand on the other corner.
And as far as everone looking the same, it may have been bad english, but it was a generally racist statement.
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
uuse a spel cheker ...
.
See this comment for more info. It contains a link to an article you might want to read. Essentially he condemned the terrorist action, but it was done by a member of his so-called trade union. It sounds to me like there have been several incidents between his group and McDonalds.
The article basically says that he totally denies the fact that he had anything to do with the incident in which the woman was killed. It sounds to me like there is just a little bit of bullshit in that.
I would love to know why people are defending this person despite the fact that he at least had something to do with the murder of a person.
Also, trashing someone's private property for a political cause is most definitely not civil disobedience. Please do not tarnish that term.
Now, take it further, and imagine that all of the things being advertised are *SELLING LIKE HOTCAKES* in these countries. They are pushing where it makes buisness sense to do so. Carefull what you wish for I say, you *JUST* might get it..
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
How hard is it to check your goddamn facts? It took me one minute to retreive this AP article and get the basic story.
There is no mention in it of anyone dying. And if someone had died he sure would have been on trial for worse than vandalism and the AP sure would have mentioned it.
Bove tore the roof off of a McDonalds that was still under construction. It had no 28-year-old-women managers. It didn't have ANY managers yet. It wasn't even open.
Knife 31 has no business telling anyone to check their facts. He's got to be an idiot. And now for your enlightenment:
France Big Mac Vandal Trial Begins
The Associated Press
Saturday, July 1, 2000; 1:36 p.m. EDT
MILLAU, France ÐÐ A public prosecutor on Saturday recommended that a sheep farmer who has waged a high-profile battle against globalization receive a 10-month suspended sentence for vandalizing a McDonald's restaurant in this southern French town.
Jose Bove was on trial with nine other defendants who attacked the Millau fast food restaurant last August during a wave of protests targeting the fast-food chain as a symbol of American trade "hegemony" and economic globalization.
Prosecutor Alain Durand also recommended that Bove spend 18 months on probation. Bove said he would appeal any sentence and vowed to continue his battle internationally.
"The combat will not stop at France's borders," said Bove, spokesman of the radical Farmers' Confederation union, who made headlines in December when he brought his anti-globalization message to the World Trade Organization summit in Seattle.
Prosecutor Alain Durand requested that the nine other defendants receive suspended sentences of no longer than three months, saying they merely carried out Bove's plans.
After the hearing, about 11,000 supporters gathered to greet the 10 defendants as they left the courtroom.
The Millau court began hearing arguments on Friday as about 15,000 demonstrators gathered to support the defendants. Later that night, a concert to mark the trial drew about 45,000 anti-globalization supporters.
The court is expected to deliver its decision Sept. 13.
Bove's battle began last year when the United States slapped sanctions on food products ranging from Roquefort cheese to foie gras in retaliation for the European Union's decision to ban imports of U.S. hormone-treated beef.
The mustachioed sheep farmer has said his main targets are the World Trade Organization, multinationals and governments that push scientifically engineered food. He says the organizations crush the small-time producers who insist on quality and taste.
© Copyright 2000 The Associated Press
The subject says it all cocklick. There seem to be several instances of vandalism. The one with the 28-year old manager is true, but was a different incident. See comment #311 for a link to the story at libres.org(in french, use bablefish if you need to).
Yeah, McDo in Paris is great. In fact, good old McDonald's probably saved me from starvation when I was studying in that fine city. Problem was I lived in a dorm with no kitchen and my stipend only paid enough for 14 meals a week. Fourteen meals sound like a lot, but you should've seen how small the portions were at cafes and in the student cafeteria. I'm sorry, but a cheese sandwich is _not_ a meal. And no, I'm not fat, but at 6' 4" and 180 lbs I'm a bit larger than the average Frenchman. Anyway, the only cheap, high-volume food I could find was McDonald's and other American chains. The French love McDo too, despite their ceaseless complaining about it. There are plenty of McDos and KFCs in the non-tourist arrondisments. What's more, the French have their very own McDonald's knockoff: Quick. It's not as good as McDo in terms of taste or price, but for those who care, it's not an evil American multinational. This brings me to another point. If Jose was so upset about multinationals, why didn't he go after a French one? Airbus Industrie? Vivendi? Pugeot? And if he hated foul-tasting food so much, why not knock down a Quick or two?
sig semper tyrannis!
Right on dude.. lemme guess, it took about 2 seconds to search for the facts on the Boston Tea Party if you didn't already know them. For christ's sake, we have a whole fucking World Wide Web at our fingertips (just open another browser window while writing your comment) and most people on here don't seem to know how to fucking use it.
Some people tear stuff down. Some people create new stuff. It is always harder to build than to destroy.
I know that Americans worship terrorists that broke into (ships? Warehouses?) and dumped valuable goods (tea) into Boston Harbour. Trashing stuff you don't like is part of the USA mythology.
Excuse us if we don't share your value system.
WWII/Cryptography Timeline -------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ 1912 June 23 - Birth of Alan Turing, Paddington, London 1918 Nov 11 - World War One ends with German defeat. 1921 July 29 - Adolf Hitler becomes leader of National Socialist 'Nazi' Party. 1923 - Arthur Scherbius incorporated "Chiffriermaschinen Aktiengesellschaft" to make and sell his Enigma machine. 1928 - Polish intelligence steals and copies an Enigma machine from Germans 1929 - Lester S. Hill published "Cryptography in an Algebraic Alphabet" in which a block of plaintext is enciphered by a matrix operation. 1930 Sept 14 - Germans elect Nazis making them second largest political party in Germany. early 1930's - Marian Rejewski and two other polish mathematicians work to break the Enigma code. (For more information, click here.) early 1930's - Polish intelligence was able to read most German military traffic, with the exception of the Kriegsmarine (navy), which always used an additional rotor in their machines. 1930's - the British TYPEX machine was an offshoot of the commercial Enigma purchased by the British for study in the 1920's. It was a 5-rotor machine with the two initial rotors being stators, serving the purpose of the German Enigma's plugboard. 1932 Nov 8 - Roosevelt elected President of the United States. 1933 Jan 30 - Adolf Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany. March 12 - First concentration camp opened at Oranienburg outside Berlin. March 23 - Enabling Act gives Hitler dictatorial power. July 14 - Nazi party declared only party in Germany. 1934 Aug 19 - Adolf Hitler becomes Führer of Germany. 1936 - The Turing machine: On Computable Numbers... submitted for publication. 1937 - The Japanese Purple machine was invented in response to revelations by Herbert O. Yardley and broken by a team headed by William Frederick Friedman. The Purple machine used telephone stepping relays instead of rotors and thus had a totally different permutation at each step rather than the related permutations of one rotor in different positions. 1938 March 12/13 - Germany announces 'Anschluss' (union) with Austria. Sept 30 - British Prime Minister Chamberlain appeases Hitler at Munich. 1938-39 - In 1938 the Germans added an additional rotor to all their machines and changed settings. The exception to this was the SD, the military police. Up to September 1939 the Poles could read about 10 percent of German traffic, which was enough (along with more mundane forms of intelligence) to identify and locate all major German units committed to the attack as of August 26, 1939. 1938-39 - Turing returns to Cambridge. Introduced to German Enigma cipher problem 1939-40 - Devises the Bombe, machine for Enigma decryption 1939-42 - Breaking of U-boat Enigma cipher by cryptographers in Bletchly Park, saving battle of the Atlantic. 1939 - Polish intelligence passes their work on the Enigma to the French and British March 15/16 - Nazis take Czechoslovakia. Aug 23 - Nazis and Soviets sign Pact. Aug 25 - Britain and Poland sign Mutual Assistance Treaty. Sept 1 - Nazis invade Poland. Sept 3 - Britain, France, Australia and New Zealand declare war on Germany. Sept 5 - United States proclaims neutrality; German troops cross Vistula river in Poland. Sept 10 - Canada declares war on Germany; Battle of the Atlantic begins. Sept 17 - Soviets invade Poland. Sept 27 - Warsaw surrenders to Nazis; Reinhard Heydrich becomes leader of new Reich Main Security Office (RSHA). Sept 29 - Nazis and Soviets divide up Poland. 1940 Jan - Enigma code broken by British.
No - Charlton Heston did not invade and steal the Enigma in 122 minutes.
There is an alternative to the Republicrats. Question is are there enough Amerikan voters who remain un-brainwashed by the Amerikan Corpratist State.
Judging by what I'm seeing here, I doubt it...
"The Internet is made of cats."
'Our corperate masters'. How cute. Tell me, what country do these masters come from? Iran? Oh wait, I know, it MUST be China.
;-P
And creating demand where it does not exist? Where'd that come from? *NO* buisness 'creates' demand. Well, Ok, microsoft does, becouse they can. But how can a company create demand for a hamburger?? Subliminal messages I suppose?
I'll have you know, I work for a US company (As do many other Americans, I've been told. Damned those corperate slavemasters are good). When you talk of the corperate masters, you insult every single US citizen. Lemme get you in on a secret. *WE ARE THE CORPERATE MASTERS* you elequently refer to. Here, we don't refer to them as the 'corperate masters'. We call them Joe and Larry over there in the Marketing department. They're not coopting the sucess of the US people. They're using that success to grow markets. The *SAME WAY THEY DID HERE*. And if you buy it, they will come. And they're buying it..
Be carefull what you wish for, you just might get it. You want those antibiotics? Then hell yes you need the computer components. You gonna rely on someone else making it for the rest of your lives?? And as far as the nuclear waste, that's BS, and you know it. I can say I've NEVER heard of a contract to exchange antibiotics for nuclear waste..
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
Ok, how much is a gallon of gas? 1.50$? Ok, now how much is a gallon of bottled water? Notably more. What do they do to get you bottled water? They pump it from a lake or river, filter it through simple processes, it is taxed once or twice, bottled and sold. And as for oil? They travel halfway around the world, guess that in the rocks several miles below, often below a mile deep ocean, there will be oil; set up pumps, drill it out, hope they hit something, generally have to suck it from rock it doesn't want to leave, ship it halfway around the world, refine it through some of the most complicated chemical processes in the industry today (you think its easy to maintain the pressure and concentrations to run a cat cracker?), often ship it to another refinery around the world, ship it to where you want to sell it, and then fanned out through a complex distribution network - taxed every step of the way. The major oil companies make less than a penny per barrel - that is *per barrel* - and incur huge costs. They are not "lining their pockets" - I would know, my father is an oil exec, a manager of trading of crude and feedstocks. The majority of the cost in the US comes "at the pump", where the station owner makes a fairly large percentage profit, and it gets taxed more highly than at any other step along the way. Do you know how much gas costs in europe? In US$, its near 10$ per gallon in some places - its all tax. Don't complain about gas. We have it good. And there's not some big evil out there controlling it, just extremely efficient, highly competitive corporations (gas stations just buy what is cheapest, generally... its a comodity product, little variation between brands).
Ok, that's just my rant. Cyas.
- Rei
The yellowcake is a lie.
I have seen massage parlors, bathtub clubs, and XXX bookstores brought down by small groups united in protest. The assembly must be peaceable and trespassing will bring the police. Destruction of property is not peaceable assembly. Talking to business owners, carrying signs, holding press conferences, photographing customers, all have been effective. Be aware that this behavior outside the United States can lead to jail without trial, beatings, or death. If in a foreign country, you are a guest of the local government, and expected to behave politely. Protest may be a capital offense, and all the US Consul can do is see that you are treated no worse than the local citizens. In many cases, the US Consul will not even do that.
DUH? your fed up with America, so you want to move to a city with over 200 McDondalds outlets, where Budwieser is a bestselling beer and the average suburban steet is almost indistinguishable from the same in Boston.
If it wasn't for the Nazi skinheads and football thugs you wouldn't know you had left the Evil Empire. :-)
Old COBOL programmers never die. They just code in C.
Funny, I just watched the Green party convention yesterday and there was Nader speaking out against unethical, power-mongering corporations. He mentioned those that go overseas and displace native foods with their "fat and sugar pumps" *cough* McDonalds *cough*.
After Bradley was thrown off a cliff in favor of Al really-I'm-not-a-piece-of-wood Gore, leaving me with a choice between the lesser of two evils (isn't it always?), I was looking around at other parties. To my surprise, the Green party really encompasses a lot of what Slashdot and the net is about with respect to law and policy. The Green party, it seems to me, is really against rampant unethical corporate greed, and the awful wake it leaves, especially in government corruption, and putting power back in the people's hands (*really*...not just saying "I feel your pain").
Whether he knows it or not (he said he doesn't use computers), Nader's speech and the Green party's philosophy is in *lockstep* with net issues: corporatization, privacy invasion, incrementally stripping freedoms from people. It was very refreshing to find someone who has a record of fighting and winning on these issues was running for president, as opposed to the conventional black hole mind drain of "guns or babies" politics ("Hey, my opponent eats babies for breakfast. Vote for me!").
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Everyone keeps talking capitalism vs. socialism/marxism/whatever as those terms still meant the same thing they did in the 19th century, as if the "tenets" were some kind of Ten Commandments that "smart" or "responsible" capitalists would always follow without any outside intervention. or that the system itself doesn't encourage foolishness.
Fact is not only does the system encourage "foolishness" as you would describe it, it's MANDATORY. The people who set corporate policy answer to shareholders and the current stock prices, not to the longterm. If "dragfishing" (a term invented for the sake of this post) were going to wipe out the Maine stocks in 5 years, dragfishing it's going to be if the results push up the stock and dividends for the next few quarters.
Capitalism as a system can't be trusted to "behave" itself as it were as those who do mean to act "responsibly" will always lose out to those who will cut any corner to make another buck.
Very true. I forgot about Mr. Buckley.
The current state of elections in this country is simply sad, I have very little reason to vote. I have a choice between a party who wants to take away all of my social, religious, and reproductive rights while overspending on military so that we can appear mighty (Republicans) and one who wants to spend all sorts of money on anyone who remotely needs help (Democrats).
I could vote for a third party (and since I'm not that bitterly cynical, I will) but such a large portion of the population either doesn't know they exsist or refuse to admit to themselves that the current state of governnment isn't working that it's pretty useless.
Btw, Republicans have never actually shrunk the size of the government, they've just slowed the growth a little bit.
I would think "Mayo on fries" was a big PLUS. So Canada wins 4 to 2.
Old COBOL programmers never die. They just code in C.
<paranoid rant mode>
Well, then you only caught the half of it. The 'War on Drugs' is the greatest smoke-screen ever created by the hand of man. First, it's a doomed cause that buckets of money can vanish into and never return. That's certainly easier than explaining away $4000 toilet seats and $2000 hammers. Secondly, it gives the masses something to rally against and bitch about, keeping their minds off real issues. For example, I live in Madison, WI. Yearly (since the 70's? 60's maybe?), there's a block party held on the quasi-famous Mifflin street. At one point in time, it was a foci for like-minded political activists. Good things came out of it.
Now, it's just pathetic. 50 stoners marching in a parade, down a street now mostly inhabited by jock and prep types, toting a banner reading 'MEDICAL MARIJUANA', followed by a guy with a megaphone spouting bad rhetoric. (none of which, btw, had anything to do with medicinal marijuana). The cops were laughing at them.
Anyway, like I was saying, the War On Drugs makes for a most glorious Straw Man. There's enough uptight conservatives and simple-minded liberals that really believe that the (il)legalization of drugs makes a goddamned difference. Furthermore, if and when they finally decide to legalize pot, they'll eliminate one of the benefits of the ceasation of a black market by simply taxing it up to it's black market price level. Hello, revenue. Also, by taxing it up to a comparable price level, they can continue to keep the War On Drugs going - or did you really think that they were going to let you grow pot in your backyard and sell it at the Farmer's Market? Claims of 'dangerous hybrids circulating in the black market' will be enough to roll over the protests of the newly legalized pot smokers (who will probably be too stoned to put some sort of plan together, anyway)
At this point, I've said too much. They've got bugging devices in my teeth.
</paranoid rant mode>
my karma ran over your dogma
Just thought you'd like to know. You can take that silly bumper sticker off your car now (Yes I live in Barrhaven too!).
Undemocratic? Did you ever think that we are in the "Thrall of third way socialist thugs" because the people of Canada vote for them? With an average 75% voter turnout, I'd say we are more democratic than the US.
..and as a matter of fact I DO vote for the NDP!
If you like the US so much, feel free to immagrate. I'm sure they will welcome you with open arms - After marrying an American and having 2 children by him, you should probably only have to wait 30 months to get your green card (as my sister did - she's still waiting for that green card).
Why haven't you moved tio your capitalist paradise yet?
Never by hatred has hatred been appeased, only by kindness - the Buddha
I'm not suffering one bit from all of this capitalism and supposed loss of my freedom. They say ignorance is bliss and perception is reality, so if I'm losing freedoms I never used, that's like Microsoft no longer selling Windows: what difference does it make to me?
Most of these people are ranting because the world is changing and they're afraid of what's to come. The sad truth is that change is S_L_O_W. I'm not going to wake up tomorrow in an Orwellian novel. It's going to take long enough time that I am going to adapt to my enviornment or that I am going to make my enviornment adapt to me.
It is rather sad that Jose is protesting corporatism affecting his life, when in fact, he has invited it to affect his life. If he wanted to be rid of corporatism he and a bunch of his buddies should buy some land, and set up a self-sufficient commune. Oh wait, that means that they'd have to do everything themselves. Hmm.
The real protest is that these people want to have their cake and eat it, too. They want to be able to go to market and buy their cheese and baguettes, but they don't want to have to go to SuperMarche to buy it. It's just reverse snobbery.
Like Marie-Antoinette said, "If they want something to eat, let them eat cake." If you're gonna eat the cake, don't complain about it.
Seems to me Jose is most upset about everyone else eating the cake. Sounds exactly like the corporatism he's protesting. "I want to have control over what other people do." If you don't want the cake, don't eat it. If you feel the need, tell other people you don't like the cake, and you don't think they should eat it either, but for heaven's sake, some people don't care if it's rotten, they're just happy to get cake!
The greatest freedom is freedom of choice, and protesting to remove that is worse than what he's protesting.
"I don't want more choice, I just want nicer things!"
"I don't want more choice, I just want nicer things!"
-Jennifer Saunders as Edina Monsoon
I fuckin hate Public Transporation! Having worked in Washington D.C and taking the Metro every day I hate it even more. I can't think of a more Orwellian experience than Public Tranporation --no talking--no eye contact--advertisements inflicted on a captive audience. And I always wind up next to the lady who has no idea how much coconut-strawberry perfume to use. Public Transportations is for Corporate Drones - Government Workers and College Educrats. In other words, the only people who *spend the whole freakin'day in one place* ! The rest of us actually have to move around during the day. The ability to move about freely as individuals is the probably most practical American freedom I can think of.
The founding fathers created a nation in which millions were enslaved and the right to vote was only for white males who were substantial land owners.
senators were not even voted for but were appointed by there states.
blacks were counted a 3/5 human
This country was not born a democracy, it was, however born on the road to democracy.
We are now, what I would consider a Democracy. Democracy, however is easily lost. Democracy cannot be played as a spectator sport.
Corporatism is a threat to democracy (not the first or the last) that must be met.
Question Reality
This is a test!
t
Go to the Toronto Star and do a Search...these stories were front page news up here for a few weeks.
As for massive gas taxes, the studies in fact do include them. They also include Health insurance premiums (average about $500 US per month for a family of 4) which we do not have to pay (social, UNIVERSAL, government-run health care - a thing of beauty). We also have very little or no user fees for many local and provincial government services. And I pay the same amount of tax whether I live in Downtown Toronto or in Wiarton, Ontario. Ask somebody form Philly about the 6% city tax just for living in the city. Add that onto a state sales tax and you pretty much have the equivilent of a "VAT" (we call it a GST - goods and services tax of 8% and PST - provincial sales tax of 7 % in Ontario - oh, and not everything, like food and diapers and such, is taxed). I've been to many US cities and grew up on the border with Michigan and I'm familiar with the quality of your infrastructure - roads, sewers, police etc.
My point is the same as my previous post - I may pay a little more tax but I get a hell of a lot of services.
You get what you pay for.
Never by hatred has hatred been appeased, only by kindness - the Buddha
Yep. I still disagree, but complain all you want. ;-)
Given one hour to live, the student replied: "I'd spend it with professor FP who can make an hour seem like a lifetime."
Sounds like meta-animal behavior to me
- coyo
--------------------------------------------------
William F. Buckley, for one. His picture could be placed next to "conservative" in the dictionary, but he has spoken up in favor of the decriminalization of drugs on many occasions.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
I'm glad you cited a source. It's nice for a change to have someone do that.
But, perhaps you need to review *your* history. This country was founded by *businessmen* and, in part, was founded on economic freedoms. Remember the whole "taxation without representation" theme in the Declaration of Independance? Most of the Founding Fathers wanted to see a free-market economy. (At least, from what I've read of Ben Franklin's writtings. Check out "Fart Proudly", truly a masterpiece.) This isn't a political issue at all. It's an *economic* issue. The reason the corporations "run" this country is because we *pay* them to do so! Everytime we buy their goods or services, we encourage them to continue doing business the same way. How else did Microsoft get so big? We happily sent them our money for their product. Those of us that aren't happy with that are starting to use other people's products. (For instance, these days I'm using Corel's Wordperfect Suite on GNU-Linux, instead of Windows and the MS Office Suite.)
The real question is, is it so bad? A lot of people seem to think it's okay, or they wouldn't spend their money the way they do. I happen to agree with you on what's wrong, but not what to do about it. Yes, our government does not serve us anymore, but that's our fault. We need to get out and vote for a change. Get people into office that do care about what *we the people* really want. More importantly, get the people who have not done what we want back *out* of office. Then, we need to follow that up by putting our money where our mouth is, so to speak, and not supporting companies that we don't believe in anymore. And, in that regard, we do all need to educate ourselves more.
However, the Constitution is working just as our Founding Fathers intended it to work. Otherwise some fascist data-filter would have killed both our posts!
Thanks for listening,
RyuMaou
Oh, the trials and tribulations of a network geek! Read about them at: http://www.ryumaou.com/hoffman/netgeek/
>for people making under 60k (read - the vast majority of folks in both countries)
read: the vast minority of slashdot readers.
just my blog and pix
Well however you judge culture, the French seem to have very little of it.
Apart from some isolated pockets in Brittany and Provence there is a uniform blandness about France which is to a large extent enforced by an over-centralised government. I mean every school in France is running the same timetable!
And as for "ridiculously low prices" Levis, Nikes, Budwiesser, Coke etc. sell at premium prices in Europe. Three times the US price is quite usual, but, people are prepared to pay more for "american" (made by children in asia) branded goods.
France has no Rock and Roll.
The French have no humor. (They like!! Jerry Lewis).
The only unique cultural expresion they have is an astonishing rudeness towards strangers.
The Italians have better food.
The Germans have a better life.
The Brits make better music.
The Californians make better wine.
Everyone makes better beer.
The Belgians have better everything!!! ('cept wine).
Old COBOL programmers never die. They just code in C.
Normally I only complain that your articles are the only place where the phrase "redundant redundancy" is not at all redundant when describing them. But making a french vandal, who a case could be made against as a terrorist, into the poster child for Independence day???? THis article is offensive trash. Just go to hell.
INFORMATIVE???? How about mostly false and grossly exaggerated!!! Obviously, you have no clue as to how roundup works. Its actually quite an elegant design. Fortunately, as a biochemist and future MD (2 more years left, woo hoo!), I do know how it works, and know that it is pretty harmless to mammals....especially compared to just about every other herbacide out there. Fortunately, I also know that in the enviroment, roundup has a short life before it is degraded to a form that has no bioactivity. I believe this time is about 10-14 days. After that, its harmless to plants...it was never harmful to mammals. I wish i could say the same about all the other herbicides we have sparyed on our crops every year that then proceed to flow down our rivers!
t m
About the seeds? Well what do you expect! They spent billions on developing them! You expect them to give them away for free? If they made no money on them, what incentive would any corporation have to develope new and better ways to feed the worlds population, or develop lifesaving drugs, or anything else. Plus, for most farmers, the seeds are so beneficial, that they make more money with them after the cost of buying them, than they would with the old seed. Besides, the company is not even going to proceed with "Terminator". Look here if you don't believe me:
http://www.monsanto.com/monsanto/gurt/default.h
One might also find this tid bit from the EPA interesting:
"The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has classified the active ingredient in Roundup as Category E (evidence of non-carcinogenicity for humans), based on a thorough review of toxicological studies. Categories are rated A through E, with E being the most favorable. This favorable rating has been given to only a limited number of pesticide active ingredients."
Sorry, i'd explain the mechansim of Glyphosate, the active ingredient of roundup, but i don't remember all the details off hand, and I'd hate to spread misinformation. I will say what I do remember for certain. It is an inhibitor of an enzyme found in all/most plants. The enzyme is part of an essential chemical pathway for plants to survive. Mammels do NOT have this particular enzyme, and glyphosate is very specific for the plant enzyme...thus no toxicity in mammals. So what monsanto did, they added a gene for an isozyme of this particular enzyme. An isozyme is a different enzyme (completely different structure and sequence, but the same function--it catalzes the same reaction as the original). Because of its structual differences, the isozyme is not inhibited like the original...as one would expect. Thus, plants that have had this added to their genome are complete unaffected by roundup while all other plants exposed to it will die. Kinda neat if you ask me!
Actually this is a good point. But by destroying a McDonald's they furthered there cause in no way.
Now center and center-right people view them as leftist radicals. Taking down the building was not only a symbolic, but a Pyrric victory, because McDonald's will get all the lost $$$ back from some french insurance company. All they lost was the three months it takes to make a POS McDonalds shack.
Burger King is a British-owned company. Where are you moving again?
Herbie J.
It goes something along the lines of 'Democracy is a deeply flawed system of government, but less so than all the alternatives'.
"What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist." Salman Rushdie
yep, it is. this guy is largely full of shit; he isn't "speaking for us", he would just like to replace Mickey Mouse with Asterix (French cartoon character, for those who don't know). unless you're a French patriot, there's nothing to celebrate here -- just some local closed-mindedness that happens to attack a couple of popular targets (globalization, and junk food). I don't like globalization (well, some effects of it) or junk food either, but I'd never support this guy.
Corporatism v. Individualism, Internet v. Society, and usually the causes for the conflict are much smaller and pettier than he realizes them to be.
He does occasionally offer insight, though.
Independent with an 85% tax rate. Not to mention being completely dependant on USian culture.
This form of direct action is actually quite common in France, it has not been long since French farmers stopped lorries carrying lamb entering France from the UK and burnt the (already slaughtered) contents.
At the moment it is not just french peasant farmers that are suffering. In the UK small upland farmers are going bankrupt at an amazing rate. One of the problems is increased new legislation, which I believe has been heavily lobbied for by the multinationals and large producers, which is forcing smaller abatoirs to close. Small farmers have to then take their produce a long way to get it slaughtered, and they cannot afford this.
There is also a problem with the buying power of the supermarkets and multinationals. You sell at our rates on our terms or you don't sell at all.
It is not all doom and gloom though. Organic produce is more popular than ever, and the rise of farmers markets in many towns is throwing a lifeline to the smaller producers.
I've already read many comments on this topic that seem to basically say "This guy is an anticapitalist nutter. Fuck him". This is a topic that many people in the EU (including myself) care passioately about. I visit the states regularly on business, and I have seen what unconstrained capitalism can do. Jose, I salute you and say "Vive le Roquefort".
And one more thing - beer guy, this is one thread where you will be so on-topic it will hurt!
regards,
treefrog
>France has no Rock and Roll.
Autour de Lucie, MC Solaar, Air -- all excellent, if not true Rock and Roll. And yes, they're all modern. Pity America only appreciates music sung in English, but such is life.
>The French have no humor. (They like!! Jerry Lewis).
Howabout Les Visiteurs (an absolutely hilarious movie)? I think the Jerry Lewis fascination has finally died.
>The only unique cultural expresion they have is an astonishing rudeness towards strangers.
If I were as misunderstood (not to mention *expected* to be rude), I would be that rude too.
Been to NYC lately? If tourists went anywhere but Paris in July when most French are on vacation and the only people left there are the ones raking tourist bucks, they'd find the French are far from rude, especially if you speak their language.
>The Italians have better food.
Italian food is wonderful, but you must be high if you try to diss the French on their food. They *invented* haute cuisine.
>The Germans have a better life.
The Germans are about as uptight a people as you ever met. They don't even Jaywalk, for christ's sake. The French may be tight assed, but they can at least enjoy a good meal and some wine.
>The Brits make better music.
Yes, that is the one thing (besides complain and overcook things) that British people do extremely well.
>The Californians make better wine.
This is flamebait, but that is because we took those vines from the French. Lucky for them too -- it ended up saving the French wine industry.
>Everyone makes better beer.
Have to agree with you there. Kronenbourg 1664 sucks major ass.
>The Belgians have better everything!!! ('cept wine).
When was the last time you were in Belgium? ALl I can say is, along with Portugal, what a pit! (although being half Dutch, I love to cap on the Belgians!).
Just providing a little reality check from an American who has lived there, as well as in other European countries, long enough to dispel some of the common myths about them, or so I hope.
just my blog and pix
You claim that your anecdote is more 'true' than any number of statistics. Anecdotes lie because people remember the one anecdote and forget the millions of contrary examples.
Hell! I gave references that debunked 3 stupid anecdotes in the parent to your post. If you look around the right places, you can find people who debunk more anecdotes.
How much are land prices? How big of a house could you buy/build out in the middle of nowhere? If you want to live in the city where everyone else lives, you have to pay the prices, or settle with a smaller living area. You have to compete with everyone else who wants to live there. And many of them are people who are also computer science and have fairly signifigant incomes.
How much is a farm in western Montana with lots of land and a big house? How much is a small house close to Silicon Valley? If having a big house is so important, why not move to Montana?
It's a choice that life gives you. Quit bitching that you don't like either option.
>If someone has money, they either do one of two things with it. They spend it, funding other people's salaries, or they invest it Yes, but how do they spend it? The wealthy have the money to spend on political donations, PACs, advertising/propoganda/brainwashing. The poor are buying food, and paying rent (because the wealthy invest in real estate). >That's what annoys me about all this inequitable distribution of wealth crap. Money is power. Inequitable distribution of wealth is inequitable distribution of power.
What's that crap? Seems that you also believe in that good values are always (north) American values. What a fantastic ego, a good (altough somehow crazy) french guy does something against american jibarisation of local culture and you say that a good, authentic (north) american value. My god...
Defend your homeless, get a social security for all your neighbors, help those black people sleeping in the wealthy San Francisco's streets, decrease you CO2 emmisions, help survive mexican people dying in the border... and stop saying everything good around is (north) american.
Crap, crap, crap.
--ricardo
From (north) americanised europe.
Wow, I thought this was news for nerds, stuff that matters. I now know why Katz no longer works at Wired, and why Suck constantly comments on him 1 2 3 4 5 (and about 40 other hits on their search). He is (-1 offtopic)!
Corporatism, "Hellmouth", while interesting, belong more an something like brill's or adbusters, but they would not accept them. These magazines have editorial control, they actually proof facts and check grammar before they post. Does /. do this? no. They allow katz to stray so far off focus it is ridiculous. Unless it is about tech issues or geek culture (which you ar not a part of katz) do not post it. What the hell's the point, this place is getting more innacurate, sucking more daily and I can get my news anywhere else.
bye.
moderate as necessary. I no longer care.
Lowmag.net
Talk about flamebait...
You're forgetting that you represent a culture which has enjoys Scrapple, head cheese (it's not really cheese), canned brains (US South), and salad bars (eating raw veggies is unusual in China).
Try this. Get out. Travel more. Spend a few weeks in Europe or Asia. Then complain all you want.
Given one hour to live, the student replied: "I'd spend it with professor FP who can make an hour seem like a lifetime."
Oh yeah, American values. A country founded by rich white lawyers and land owners so they wouldn't have to pay their government their taxes. This is what we (Americans) were from the beginning.
How does McDonalds sell billion s (USD) worth of hamburgers in non-US markets? If everyone hates America so much, why does everyone keep buying Big Macs? (or any other "Corporate Republic" product?)
I would gladly pay to send Jon Katz to one of those small precious countries without internet access that are so endangered by the "Corporate Republic", provided he promise to never come back. Go seek your "freedom" elsewhere, wannabe.
(Paid for by the Coalition to Point Out to Jon Katz that he is a Soft American.)
Jon, I like that you are talking about corporatism. In fact, Slashdot is the site that first hooked me up with that meme, and I appreciate it. However, I don't think that a cheese farmer, while a recent news item, is a great example of corporatism working against an individual, or why an individual should fight back.
If you were trying to sell someone on the idea of corporatism with your article, I don't think people would rally behind you. McDonalds encroaching on the rights of a cheese farmer in France? Hardly compelling. The story of the Film Festival ruining the delicate ecosystem of Mr. Hanky is far more grabbing.
I want to see real corporatism, Jon. Show it to me. Show me corporations stomping all over normal people. (For example, health care and corporatism. Coporations and their ability to change the law to work against individuals.)
Give us stuff that makes Scientology tactics look like amateurs.
... in the cartoon world, yep, he was a Gaul, not French. "France" hadn't been invented yet by the time the Roman Empire invaded the territory. In the actual world, however, Asterix is very much a *French* cartoon-hero. Btw, you'd be surprised at how much present-day French people identify with the Gauls; way more than they'd ever identify with the ancient Romans, at any rate.
Hi!
I don't think you understand who the patient is we're talking about. Let me elaborate.
Children who get sick go to the pediatrics wing of your local hospital. Children who get banged up in car accidents go to the pediatric intensive-care ward of your local hospital.
Children who are long-term inpatients at children's hospitals are not "normal" kids with boo-boos. They have cancer. They are waiting for transplants. They are hoping to improve enough to be considered as candidates for open-heart surgery. In short, their parents are on their knees every morning and every night, praying desperately to God that these kids live long enough to be able to worry about eating too much fat in their diet.
My youngest daughter has Down syndrome. 54% of Downs kids need open-heart surgery before they're two. Annie was spared that by a merciful God--but more than a third of her preschool classmates are now dead. A beautiful, clever, sparkling little boy who terrorized the world with his motorized wheelchair at age 5 died of lung problems when he was 8--he literally outgrew his lungs. He loved McNuggets--and the medical staff at Children's Hospital thought that McNuggets were just what kids like him needed. I agree.
Toronto is hardly freezing, even in January.
And when you go for that MRI you'd better hope that the hospital recognizes your insurance, or that you have enough insurance, or that going to the hospital won't raise your premiums or that the MRI is even covered by your insurance...because you know they will take care of business before you get treated. I'd rather wait a little longer and be able to get medical procedures just by showing my little green and white card (OHIP). And get treatment because I need it not because I can afford it.
I once paid $1000(Can - about $600 US) for 5 stitches in Boston. In Toronto I may have had to wait an extra hour but it would have cost $0(Can - about $0 US).
BTW MRI patients in Toronto are being sent to Buffalo on OHIP and are getting treament.
If you don't like Canada, move...no one will miss you.
Never by hatred has hatred been appeased, only by kindness - the Buddha
Or it could be that there are actually a few "nice guys" up in the McDonalds hierarchy. Not EVERY nice thing that a company does is necessarily a selfish move. Geez.
McDonald's coexisting?!? they won't.. they recently forced a name-change on a small cafetaria, and even tried to order the guy to change the colours of his store-front cause it had red and yellow on it. He had named his joint after his daughter, and used to be called MEK burger. (yes, that's also how it was capitalized).
No way he was going to get any money for the lawsuit, so he caved and changed the name..
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
I think Nader would definitely be the least of all the evils we must choose. And TheCrap; are you an idiot!!?? Choosing not to choose certainly IS a choice; to let some 60 year old (who is guaranteed to voice his concerns and vote) negate your voice. "I refuse to vote" just smacks of indefference, apathy, and/or laziness. People DIED for this right you opine not to use!! Millions of people, RIGHT NOW, don't have it!! USE IT!!!
ME: If you want to prevent me from going to McD's, you've crossed the line
YOU: We seem to be in agreement on this point, so why do you assert a mere desire to prevent you from going is crossing a line?
You're reading too much into that. I intended my statement to be interpreted as "If you try to prevent me from going...". I agree that the wording less than perfect.
When will Windows be ready for the desktop?
McDonald's cares not if you "like" it.
It *only* cares to make money. It will do anything to add to the coffers.
Every single penny they spend on *good things* such as homes for battered women and such are *only* done to gain market share. (They declined a large donation to a childrens hospital to due to the fact that the hospital would not put up McDonald character pictures in the wards (which could help gain life long patrons.))
If McDonald's is putting in *any* site. It is only because they think they can make money. It is not because locals actually like the food, want the food, or desire the food. People will *choke it down* when pressed for quick meals, cheap meals or some junk food.
McDonald's cares not for anything but their coffers. They would sell their grandmother in a bun except that public outcry would cause a drop in the corporate wealth.
Democary relies on the idea that the people are in charge. Again, my personal prespective (others may disagree) says that the majority of people have no intrest in anything besides making themselves feel good for the moment, and it has and will always be that way. The "everyone" votes line is just so that no-one can complain or raise a fuss, and in case something really needs to get done, there is an way to get it done, and lastly for those who are bold enough to step up and go at it. Democary and Free Trade (not capitalism) are basically forms of natural selection. The strong are given a chance and way to move up without overthrowing the system, and those who simply want to sit on the porch or in frot of the TV can do so, knowing full well that if they all wanted to they could "change things".
What? - Einstein
a nation which started a bloody revolution over taxes.
Er, no. They started a war over a lack of representation in parliament, and a host of other inequities. And the revolution wasn't bloody until the English came and made it bloody.
History wasn't your best subject, was it?
--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
C'mon, give the man a break. I'm tired of everyone picking on Katz, he has some good things to stay. If you don't like it, don't read. On point, no, McDonald's is not Hitler or the Mongols. But your argument becomes: oppression today is not as bad as it used to be, so quit whining. WTF? Sausage King of Chicago
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
The point is that in 2000 Bill Gates is richer than he was in 1999, but that doesn't affect the quality of life of someone who last year had the spending power to buy 1 car, 15,000 eggs and a pet dog and has roughly the same spending power this year. I guarantee that guy isn't looking at Bill Gates saying "damn, he's worth 20% more this year, and I'm only worth 5% more!" He's looking at his life and saying "why didn't *I* become a trillionare? I could have dropped out of Harvard!" The difference is that if Bill were worth slightly less this year, it still wouldn't matter. The purchasing power of the rich will always be beyond the purchasing power of the non-rich, by definition. What really matters to the overall health of a nation is the QUALITY OF LIFE in the middle-class (because middle-class is what the poor can actually strive to become). That quality of life has been improving over the last few years. Thus statements like "the rich are getting richer" don't hold much meaning.
who are you ? one of the revolutionnary bretons member of the ARB ? THEY did put a bomb in a McDonald, and they KILLED an employee.
I did read, and I know exactly what it's about. It's about nationalism and demagoguery.
If someone kills your father, you don't find someone who looks a lot like the murderer and kill him for revenge.
This guy took it out on the wrong people - it's as simple as that.
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
- Jeff
"This is not just about food," Bove told the demonstrators. "It is about the struggle of small people, leading simple lives, to free themselves from the dictatorship of the multi-nationals."
Translation: This IS mostly about food (he is French after all). I'm just a simple peasant farmer and I think having a MacDonald's in our village really sux.
Sig pending!
I never said it would be easy. It wasn't easy for the founders of Wal-Mart to get where they are now. I'm just saying it's not impossible.
As I mentioned, certain chains eventually fall or are overtaken by smarter and faster competitors. Apple and Microsoft took IBM's place in the industry because IBM wasn't fast enough or smart enough to get in the right market. Eventually someone will replace them as well.
Upstarts have a strange habit of occasionally breaking through and becoming the big guys. Wal-Mart and its ilk weren't around forever you know... At one point they replaced someone else at the helm of their markets.
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
- Jeff
I ate plenty of French food when I was in Paris, just not enough to keep my stomach full.
Speaking of packets of crisps, I had the misfortune to enjoy British "cuisine" during the Mad Cow crisis and the tinned bean battle between Sainsbury's and Tesco. Before I went to Britain I used to complain about the low quality of American food, but not anymore. London, as far as I could tell, didn't contain a single decent glass of orange juice or even a morsel of fresh fruits or vegetables. Not surprisingly, the whole native population is pasty and perpetually constipated.
And here's a tip for you Brits: if you want to serve a decent "American-style" meal, include free refills on drinks. And "salad" isn't just lettuce...
sig semper tyrannis!
Hmmm, fancy having a go next Tuesday?
Wow. Mom would be proud!
What ticks me off about this particular Katz rant is that Jon Katz would equate the founding fathers of the United States with a French farmer who is upset because he can no longer sell his cheese in the U.S.
Give me a break, Washington could have been king, but he turned it down because he was more interested in the liberty of the common man than his own welfare. Napolean, on his deathbed was reported to have said that "they expected another Washington," and somehow a cranky French goat farmer is his moral equivalent in the 21st Century. That's like saying that I am the moral equivalent of Florence Nightingale because I gave blood last week.
You know, when the Americans came in Normandy in June 44 and destroyed the german buildings, they were also considered as vandals and terrorists by the Germans... Sometimes, you have to break the law to protest and resist. Jose Bove knew he was breaking the law, and didn't substract to justice. The goal, in fact was to provoke a trial and get the media attention.
Corporations are at least as democratic as any government. If you dislike their policies, their products, or what have you, simply don't spend your money there. Convince others to vote with their wallets. Corporations are amoral-- they'll do whatever their customers want. There's a reason the Montgomery bus boycott was among the first successful battles of the Civil Rights era-- the oppressor was a corporation. Enough customers stopped utilizing the company's service that the corporation had no choice but to give in. Despite the racism of those running the company, the customers proved that they held the real power. Governments can and do ignore the oppressed while retaining power, often ignoring the oppressed in order to retain that power). Corporations who ignore their customers will quickly find themselves bankrupt. Your last line says it all: "And if people weren't so desperate to have tasty burgers with 0 effort required, there wouldn't be giant companies walking all over us so much." People all over the world vote every day to buy from McDonalds, not because they are threatened with imprisonment and torture, but because they've made a rational decision for themselves. What could be more democratic? The fact that you disagree with the outcome does not imply that you are being oppressed.
No, he thinks corporations are a bad thing. Just as an aside, do you know why Jose's cheese, among other things, are subject to huge tariffs? It's because the EU insists on allowing poor South American farmers to have part of the import quota of bananas. Chiquita, that terribly impoverished corporation, protested this as a restriction on 'free' trade (i.e. Chiquita can undercut these poor farmers quite easily), to Clinton, Clinton, ever mindful of his corporate paycheck, threatened action, the EU promptly told him to go to hell and here we are in the middle of a trade war. So let's see now, poor South American farmers should starve because Chiquita wants to give more money to people who already have more than enough. American values eh? Gotta love em.
Since when did terrorism and vandalism become American values?
Since April 19, 1775.
Don't they teach American history in schools? What was the Boston Tea Party but an act of vanadalism??
In obedience to your Excellency's orders, I marched yesterday morning at 9 o'clock with the 1st brigade and two field pieces in order to cover the retreat of the grenadiers and light infantry in their return from their expedition to Concord.
As all the houses were shut up, and there was not the appearance of a single inhabitant, I could get no intelligence concerning them till I had passed Menotomy when I was informed that the rebels had attacked his Majesty's troops who were retiring, overpowered by numbers, greatly exhausted and fatigued, and having expended almost all their ammunition - and at about 2 o'clock I met them retiring rough the town of Lexington - I immediately ordered the 2 field pieces to fire at the rebels, and drew up the brigade on a height.
The shot from the cannon had the desired effect, and stopped the rebels for a little time, who immediately dispersed, and endeavored to surround us being very numerous. As it began now to grow pretty late and we had 15 miles to retire, and only 36 rounds, I ordered the grenadiers and light infantry to move of first; and covered them with my brigade sending out very strong flanking parties which were absolutely very necessary, as there was not a stone wall, or house, though before in appearance evacuated, from whence the rebels did not fire upon us. As soon as they saw us begin to retire, they pressed very much upon our rear guard, which for that reason, I relieved
every now and then.
In this manner we retired for 15 miles under incessant fire all round us, till we arrived at Charlestown, between 7 and 8 in the evening and having expended almost all our ammunition. We had the misfortune of losing a good many men in the retreat, though nothing like the number which from many circumstances I have reason to believe were killed of the rebels. His Majesty's troops during the whole of the affair behaved with their usual intrepidity and spirit nor were they a little exasperated at the cruelty and barbarity of the rebels, who scalped and cut off the ears of some of the wounded men who fell into their hands.
While I think that Mr. Katz's writings are crap, the fact of the matter is that the US was founded by a violent revolution, one of the few (if not only) British colonies to engage in such.
The problem with holding Mr. Bove up as a hero is that he is not the victim of 'corporatism' that Mr. Katz would have us believe. He is the victim of a government bureacracy acting to restrain free trade - some thing that multinationals hold abhorent, and the very thing that the anti-corporatists propose in order to protect their petty national self-interests.
Face it folks, globalization is the natural evolution of human society on it's way from tribe, village, city-state, nation towards a real world society. Anything or anyone that tries to fight this is simply a socio-luddite, and is in fact opposing the progress of the human spirit towards a world where the tragic consequences (holocausts, ethnic cleansings, nuclear proliferation) of adherance to petty social groups (i.e. nations)
are no longer tenable.
THINK, DAMMIT!
Get your history straight.
---------
With the WTO/OAS/World Bank building 'treaties' like GATT, FTAA, etc etc. You are about to have the same situation on a global scale. Corporate interests and economic treaties will supersede local/national authority because they will 'impede the economic solvency of ABC Inc'.
Things are going to get very bad unless people like Jose are willing to stand up and tell McDs to Fuck Off.
When people realize that the world is being governed in the Board Room instead of the Legislature it will already be too late.
Vote Green, Vote Independent, attend Protests, Burn your Local McDs to the ground. The time for revolution is near.
Yep. I can just see the headlines: "Jose chooses not to eat at McDonalds!"
In his archtypically provincial French fashion (all things French are good, all things not French aren't). This guy is out to trash the things that are not French. He is not against multi-nationals like Periere (who owns Poland Spring from Maine), or the sewarage company that just combined with Seagrams, or Yoplait who sells yogurt in the USA or... He is just against McD's (USA the crass idiots) and Nestle (Swiss, can't be any good) etc. I dare say that he would change his tune in those countries (like Cuba or Iraq) where he would have to buy locally stuff produced stuff and not any of that nasty multi-national medicine or....
"I'm sure all the anarchists would be much happier if we went back to subsistence farming and raiding our neighbor using clubs when our own crop failed. That is what these anarchists stand for! No rules, no laws, no personal responsibility, no socital responsibility."
Err.. no. Absolute personal responsibility, actually. Absolute responsibility to your society and other individuals in it. And rules that are communally agreed upon. That is what anarchists stand for.
The Anarchist FAQ
HTH.
Oh, and Jose Bove is a french-nationalist media-clown. I know many french anarchists are fairly critical of both his methods and his self-promotion.
Love & anarchy
Ewiz
You make it sound like vandalism and the destruction of private property is all right, if you have a reason.
It's not.
Especially if this was the protest of McDonalds where someone was killed. If it wasn't, its still not the way to go about doing things.
Violent demonstrations draw a lot of attention, but its the wrong kind of attention. People are watching to see what happens next, not because they're drawn to the cause.
You're glorifying vandalism.
If you destroy public or private property in the name of a cause-- its still vandalism and worse-- it keeps the real message from being accepted.
I don't know how many times I've been turned off by this tirade of "American yada yada yada."
America allows protests... but it allows "PEACEFUL" protests. Because of the radical anti world economy VANDALISM in Seattle-- when the organizations in question met in DC the reasonable voices couldn't be heard because idiots were using the conference as a reason to wreak havoc...
(why else would you carry molotov coctails in your backpack? These are not the tools of reason!)
It's grandstanding and it doesn't allow the real message to get through.
Take a page for American history... The Boston Tea party-- A rather destructive protest of the English Tea tax where tea was dumped in the harbor... It didn't stop the tax. You know what did? People switching to coffee.
If you want to see real, and lasting results, take a page from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Peaceful, civil disobedience. It takes more time but fewer people get hurt. He was a real hero.
To all you fundies out there (I suppose there aren't many on /.) The founders of our country were not "born again" Christians but most of them were not as shown here.
I now return you to your complacency.
Lowmag.net
Jon says: Bove's particular issue is what he calls the industrialization of agriculture.
CNN says: Bove is being portrayed, and is portraying himself, as the champion of traditional French values; a true patriot standing up to that most unacceptable face of multiculturalism -- bad food. http://www.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/europe/06/30/bigmac. attack/
Jon seems to be forgetting that France is the country which has outlawed use of non-French words in most circumstances. Jose comes across as more of a right-wing nationalist.
Jon says: ...whose international crusade began last year in protest against U.S. duties on Roquefort cheese.
CNN says: The food fight began when France refused to import hormone-laced U.S. beef unless it was labeled. Washington added a 100 percent tax to Roquefort, foie gras and other French delicacies. Bove's farm lobby group struck back. http://www.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/europe/06/29/bigmaca ttack.ap/index.html
Ah, wait, did I read "farm lobby group"? Let's be frank, Jose is worried about his group members, perhaps even himself, losing money because of a new tariff (one with which I don't agree, but that's beside the point) which will probably cost them money. Sounds like Jose does know a lot about America, specifically trying to use your influence with government to line your pocket, or to keep the lining there.
From CNN: Though Bove bills himself as a sheep farmer who produces milk for Roquefort...
I am so surprised.
Bove, a French farmer and union leader...
Wow, sounds like a simple guy. Does he live in a mud hut or something? Let's see...
Jon says: He's dubbed his town "Seattle-on-the-Tarn," a reference to the local river and to the protests he joined during the World Trade Organization's Seattle summit last year.
CNN says: Bove's book, "The World Is Not Merchandise," has sold 80,000 copies, and he jets from Seattle to the South Pacific to espouse his cause.
Nice to see he also comes over to the US to cause trouble now and then.
I don't particularly like McDonalds. But there is something that is far worse than McDonalds: the tyranny of an individual or small group of individuals who want to force their views on everybody else.
Rather than trashing a McDonalds or performing some other illegal act, I simply choose to not eat there. I won't deny anyone else the freedom to choose to do differently than I do. It's their right. If enough other people hold my view, then the offending restaurant will close due to lack of business. That's the correct way for change to occur.
Jose Bove is an attention seeking extremist who trashed a McDonalds simply as a publicity stunt. The sad part is, it worked. Rather than being hailed by Jon Katz as some sort of modern hero standing up against an international corporate bully, he should be ignored as a petty criminal.
One other question about Mr. Bove: If he's so damned worried about "globalization", why does he care if the US buys his cheese? Sounds like he's only concerned about it if he's not personally making money on it.
Jon, you should read a bit more about people before you decide that they're heros.
Michael
Do you have ESP?
That's true, it's just that America does it bigger and nastier than everyone else.
I was once asked a question that confused the hell out of me...
What is the scariest
A Cheese
B Lettuce
I vote for cheese, anyone else?
This essay in particular seems to fit squarely inside the genre, with liberal application of the terms "corporatism," "The corporate republic," and "unconcious citizens," but with nothing to really back up your claims. How is this essay even about corporatism? It's about one French guy's vivid, but ultimately useless, protest against a damn McDonald's franchise. Holding him aloft as a hero to modern america is quite a stretch, and only vaguely supported in your text. Back to the drawing board; try to draft enough paragraphs so that some can be cut next time.
</RANT>
[This Chapter] in particular deals with the Constitution and Confederation, and what was intended by the men who created it. The [next chapter] deals with the Bill of Rights.
The entire book is worth reading, because it will alter the way you view your rights and freedoms. Things aren't as charming as you've been brainwashed to believe: you are not free, it is not a democracy, and your government is slowly but surely destroying the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
Of course, most people won't ever read the book and will go meekly along like sheep to slaughter.
Frankly, I think most of you should be getting a bit more educated, a bit more aware, and a lot more politically active. You need to wrestle control of your country back from the corporations, powermongers and religous fanatics that are destroying it.
--
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
More information about the McLibel case can be found on the activist's group McSpotlight which also contains information on the current French trial of José Bové, and the French Peasant Confederation.
I bid all the anti-globalisation fighters against multi-nationals striving to deprave us of choice and free speech out there the best of luck.
-- "I can't tell the future, I just work there." -- The Doctor
These companies aren't building locations for the giggles of it. There's *DEMAND*, and god forbid, these companies try to actually sell a product to people who are looking to buy.
If these foreign contries are that concerned about it, why, OH WHY, are they BUYING THE PRODUCTS? WHY are these companies making money?? Lemme tell you why..
Becouse this cheese farmer is a minority.
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
I see some knee-jerk reactions here from people who don't know the background to this story. This is explained in the BBC link but obviously people aren't clicking through, finding it easier to make cheap anti-French remarks.
Jose Bove (Zho-zay Bo-vay) is a sheep farmer who was caught in the middle of a trade war between Europe and the US. Since the EU refused to accept imports of American beef containing hormones, the US retaliated by putting a punitive 100% tax on certain "luxury" goods from Europe, include Roquefort cheese, which is made from sheeps milk, and is the main product of Jose Bove's region.
McDonalds was chosen as a symbolic target of a protest demonstration. In his book "The world is not for sale" Jose Bove claims that the McDonalds construction site was not attacked so much as dismantled, and the extent of the material damage has been greatly exaggerated. Both McDonalds and the local authorities were informed of the demonstration in advance. Only afterwards were arrest warrants put out for the demonstration leaders (members of the Confederation Paysanne), and he had to return from holiday to turn himself in.
What really projected M Bove into the news was the fact that he refused to pay his bail which was set at an excessive amount, and was therefore remanded in custody. This created a groundswell of public sympathy which resulted in his release. Since then he has gone from strength to strength.
Jose Bove is incredibly articulate, and a man of conviction. It is a shame that most Slashdot readers, who don't speak French, won't hear what he has to say.
If you're wondering why Jon has a special place in his heart for Jose, remember that Jon is quite a cheese farmer himself...
Or should I say fromage?
If what Katz submitted is considerd good commentary on an important issue, I'm deeply disappointed. This was not a thoughtful piece but a mere parroting of jargon. Katz didn't even _try_ to present facts in support of his position - he simply argued by assertion.
For example, he talks about a country in which a "robust economy, conformity and market research are national religions, and a nation where kids who dissent and act strangely are routinely tossed out of school or thrown in jail. " I see - and this is a new trend and something which didn't exist before? In America in the 1950's nonconformity was encouraged? I agree with him that this is a Bad Thing, but he has to convince us that this is somehow new.
Also, I lived in France for a few years a while back and can tell you that they, too, have issues with nonconformity. When I was there a young girl who was Muslim was disciplined at school for wearing a headscarf because it identified her as Muslim. Jewish boys at school are not permitted to wear yarmulkes - again because it identifies them religiously. Many of the French people who I spoke with about the girl's headscarf were astonished that anyone would take exception to her being disciplined - they genuninely felt that this rule was there to protect the secular character of the school.
This is not an anti-French rant - I'm just trying to point out that the things he's trying to identify as being specifically exported by the United States actually exist in lots of places. Had I lived in Italy (or Germany, or Thailand, or wherever) I would probably have stories to tell about them, too. (For the French speakers reading this - pour que vous sachiez, j'ai pas de complexe anti-francais - je garde de tres bonnes memoires de la France et j'y retourne assez souvent pour voir de mes amis et pour revoir mes bars preferes a Paris)
Katz completely ignores the self-interest element in what's going on here. Bove's reaction was in response to an American tariff on Roquefort cheeses, which was in response to European restrictions on hormone-enhance U.S. beef. (And if you want to, you can probably go back further and further - these disputes are like peeling an onion.) Does truly think that this is merely about lofty issues such as conformity vs. non-conformity? Doesn't he see that a lot of it boils down to grubby money issues? Bove was a cheese farmer and the tariff that converted him into an anti-globalization advocate was a tariff on cheeses. Doesn't Katz see that much of his stance is self-interested?
Can it failed also to have escaped Katz the context in which this happened? Bove is a union leader in France. There is an strong tradition of anti-Americanism in this milieu. Has Katz paused to consider that this, too, may have played a role in motivating Bove, beyond his more noble motivations?
Katz claims that Jose Bove's stance and attitudes reflect American values - which ones? It would have been interesting to hear which values Katz would consider American and which ones he thinks Bove endorses.
His entire post is long on jargon and short on specifics. He fails to look critically at the self-interested stances of the person who he wants us to admire as a selfless warrior in the battle against globalization. This was not thoughtful post - it was intellectual pap and I think that, generally speaking, the Slashdot crowd deserves better.
Sigh. My id isn't prime. 2 2 2 2 2 3 5 313
How can a chain restraunt be the best in a town that was practically built on cows?
They must be doing a good job.
Find out all about cheese.
Picketing isn't a bad idea either. Nor is publising (perhaps on a web page, and in the local newspaper) the reasons other might want to also not go to McDonalds (or buy a particular shoe, or brekfast cerial).
I agree whole-heartedly with your right, and the rights of others to do this.
One person alone skipping a product they dislike is a start, but if they actually want to get rid of the hated thing they need to convice others to skip the product as well. Fortunitly in this country there are plenty of protected free speach rights they can use to do so (well to attempt to do so, they have no right to actually convice anyone of anything, just the right to try). I expect france isn't exactly lacking either.
Again, while I support the right of prople to voice their opinions, I do not understand the desire to remove from others the ability to do things you disagree with (this is in reference to the part about "if they actually want to get rid of the hated thing"). If you don't like McD's, fine. If you don't want to eat there, fine. If you want to very publicly state your position against McD's, fine. If you want to peacefully discourage others from eating at McD's, fine. If you want to prevent me from going to McD's, you've crossed the line.
When will Windows be ready for the desktop?
WAMU a Washington, DC public radio station, has an archive of its old shows. The Jon Katz inverview is here. (Real Audio is required for this link to work.)
I agree that it's all fine and dandy that he did something about it, but as someone else pointed out farther up the thread, violence should be a sort of last resort. Even the revolutionary war was a LAST resort, when all other avenues had been closed. Random violence and vandalism doesn't say anything but "I'm a thug." Choosing not to eat at McDonald's says a whole lot more.
This guy doesn't deserve a medal, he deserves jail time.
-V
I think you're missing the point. The whole idea behind this is that it's a struggle that must be fought. Yes, protests, boycotts, and all that work as well, but so does vandalism. It gets the point across. Think about it: If someone is so completely bent on something that they would feel like vandalizing a building in the name of counter-oppression, what is it most closely related to? War. Numerous wars have been fought through the destruction of buildings, most of the time safely, without casualty. This is a proven method to make people think about their ways, and how they ignore the little people.
Obviously just this incident will not cause McDo's to remove from Europe, but this is only the beginning. Everything starts somewhere, beit vandalism, a hunger strike, disabling net censoring software, or standing boldly in from of a line of tanks. It's just a fact that pissed off people will do what they need to do. Choose your weapon.
-niteq
I'm posting this as an AC, since I'm moderating.
The BBC has another good article on this, which explains the situation much better than Katz does. The situation started when France banned hormone-injected American beef that was not labelled. The US responded by adding a 100% tax on Roquefort cheese (which Mr Bove produces) and other French delicacies.
Trashing.
There are many freedoms we enjoy, but destroying the property of others is not one of them.
Sadly, these neo-revolutionaries like to redefine their definitions of right and wrong, violence and peaceful protest.
Check out the definition of violence according to these groups. Pay close attention to the 2nd point:
These people believe the destruction of property belonging to others (IT DOESN'T MATTER WHO... since only greedy capitalists would own something anyways) is a perfectly acceptable means of furthering their own views.
By definition, anyone who so much as disagrees with them is an "oppressor" and by their first definition, is inextricably linked with "white supremacists", "homophobia", "animal abuse" and a range of other equally distasteful groups.
I harbour no sympathy for Jose or his anarchist compatriots. Society is not built upon anarchy. He deserves whatever he gets.
Jon, next time, please find a "hero" that's worth respecting.
--
Corporate greed fleecing people; serving their shareholder's tireless need for profit at the expense of people.
Poultry in america is already reported to have a 10% increase in fecal contamination now that "irradiation" can be used to sterilize it -- after all, if a corporation can serve you sterile shit with your food, why not eat it, if it means higher profits through increased efficiency! Plus, that chicken can sit on the shelf at the market for weeks now, without expiring. yummy.
And that liberal clinton government. They signed in a law so fruits and vegetables may be labeled "cold pasteurized" instead of "irradiated". After all, who would buy food labeled "irradiated" if the bin next to it says "organic"? What do you want to feed your baby? The baby food manufacturers have already decided to skip on "irradiated" products. Wouldn't Louis Pasteur be proud!!
Here's the real shit about freedom -- it's not maintaining the staus quo -- it's about working every day to end the reign of power structures that desperately want to control you mind and poison your body (salt, sugar and fat are the cheapest (and unhealthiest) ways to satisfy your body's cravings for nutrition) while picking your pocket:
> > Subject: Declaration of Independence
> >
> >
> > Have you ever wondered what happened to the 56 men who signed the
> > Declaration of Independence?
> >
> > Five signers were captured by the British as traitors, and tortured
> > before they died.
> > Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned.
> > Two lost their sons serving in the Revolutionary Army; another had two
> > sons captured.
> > Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of the
> > Revolutionary War.
> > They signed and they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their
> > sacred honor.
> >
> > What kind of men were they?
> >
> > Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists. Eleven were merchants, nine were
> > farmers and large plantation owners; men of means, well educated. But
> > they signed the Declaration of Independence knowing full well that the
> > penalty would be death if they were captured.
> > Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, saw his
> > ships swept from the seas by the British Navy. He sold his home and
> > properties to pay his debts, and died in rags.
> > Thomas McKeam was so hounded by the British that he was forced to
> > move his family almost constantly. He served in the Congress without
> > pay, and his family was kept in hiding. His possessions were taken from
> > him, and poverty was his reward.
> > Vandals or soldiers looted the properties of Dillery, Hall, Clymer,
> > Walton, Gwinnett, Heyward, Ruttledge, and Middleton. At the battle of
> > Yorktown,Thomas Nelson Jr, noted that the British General Cornwallis had
> > taken over the Nelson home for his headquarters. He quietly urged
> > General George Washington to open fire. The home was destroyed, and
> > Nelson died bankrupt.
> > Francis Lewis had his home and properties destroyed. The enemy jailed
> > his wife, and she died within a few months.
> > John Hart was driven from his wife's bedside as she was dying.Their
> > 13 children fled for their lives. His fields and his gristmill were laid
> > to waste. For more than a year he lived in forests and caves, returning
> > home to find his wife dead and his children vanished. A few weeks later
> > he died from exhaustion and a broken heart.
> > Norris and Livingston suffered similar fates.
> > Such were the stories and sacrifices of the American Revolution.
> > These were not wild-eyed, rabble-rousing ruffians. They were
> > soft-spoken men of means and education. They had security, but they
> > valued liberty more. Standing tall, straight, and unwavering, they
> > pledged: "For the support of this declaration, with firm reliance on the
> > protection of the divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other,
> > our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor."
> > They gave you and me a free and independent America. The history
> > books never told you a lot about what happened in the Revolutionary War.
> > We didn't fight just the British. We were British subjects at that time
> > and we fought our own government!
> > Some of us take these liberties so much for granted, but we
> > shouldn't.
> > So, take a few minutes while enjoying your 4th of July holiday and
> > silently thank these patriots. It's not much to ask for the price they
> > paid. Remember: freedom is never free! I hope you will show your
> > support by please sending this to as many people as you can. It's time
> > we get the word out that patriotism is NOT a sin, and the Fourth of July
> > has more to it than beer, picnics, and baseball games.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
From the comments I just read below, I get a quite bad view of the young americans (the main audience of slashdot...)
Not a single of you seem to know anything about Bové (yeah with one of those characters you can't find on your keyboard) except the little 30 seconds subject you saw on CNN (what a source...)
I have nothing against american people, but I hate your way of taking position on any subject without having the smallest idea about it.
It sadly also applies to politics:
Clinton: yeah we're gonna destroy this Milosevic jerk and his army...
result: Milosevic is still there and those Migs, well, they were made of plastic...
And guess what: the situation may be worse now than before the war...
I hope the 21 century will see the end of the US world domination. You can say: we're the best and we deserve this domination, but this is plain false... Because many aspects of this domination were obtained by errr... not very ethical means...
Look a bit at your country and your problems before banging on anybody out there...
Human rights: Did I hear death penalty, racist justice?
Racism: Did I hear KKK, Rodney King...
Politics: no, I won't say anything, except that the US monetary balance make it look like an african country...
So try to grow up a bit before judging everybody in the world like you were God himself...
Now, ready to flame?
That's exactly what I'm expecting, so come on!
In Geneva, today, a nine judge panel finally reached its verdict in the trial of cyberterrorist Jon Katz, who single handedly fomented the so called Corporatist Rebellions.
Katz stirred up people through his series of articles on the fledgling Slashdot Conglomerate web site, inciting riots against McDonalds, Barnes & Noble, Walmart , and a small hot dog vendor name Sam .
As in the case of the Unibomber, nobody knows why Katz set out upon this quest, but some have suggestions.
"He was a lousy writer," says a member of the Anonymous Coward Gestalt , "and I suppose that comments related to Natalie portman and hot grits just sent him over the edge. Hee hee."
World Triad leaders Steve Case, Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, set a reward for Katz's capture when local Starbucks stores were trashed as a result of one of Mr. Katz's articles.
Says Mr. Case, "That was the last straw. He was directly responsible for the attack on the epitomy of lowest common denominator marketing in this country. We had to respond."
As part of his punishment, Jon Katz will now be required to publish nothing but press releases for the Microsoft A and Microsoft B monopolies, and patent specifications for Amazon International .
Mark Edwards
Proof of Sanity Forged Upon Request
Actually, swine, some studies late last year showed that the tax rate between the US and Canada for people making under 60k (read - the vast majority of folks in both countries) is almost identical (Canada having a 1-2% greater rate). And we have a large safe tolerant country voted #1 by the UN for 7 years running. Where does the US rank? 15? or 20?
I guess you get what you pay for, eh?
Never by hatred has hatred been appeased, only by kindness - the Buddha
Canada didn't gain independence until 1867 as a result. So they went through most of the 'industrial revolution' as a colony, and suffered the consequences.
They're 'independent' now. So is Zimbabwe.
McDonalds isn't a threat to most mom and pop restaurants because those restaurants aren't in the same business as McDonalds. They specialize in REAL food.... not trashy, fatty fast food like McDonalds. Both can coexist wonderfully, my county is a good example of that. We have several mom and pop restaurants which are quite successful.
As for the guy you're talking about, I don't respect him because he vandalized property that didn't belond to him. If he wants to complain about the cheese duties then why doesn't he push his OWN country to lower its regulations on imports. Both the US and France are fairly protectionist nations. If he can't understand that the feds want to protect dairy farmers in the US at the expense of foreign dairy farmers then he is an idiot.
I once believed in the "corporate republic" but I don't believe it will come to pass any longer. Things like eBooks will make it much easier for the creators to circumvent the corporate system... and why should the providers of that kind of technology care about the book publishers, etc? Their money comes from empowering the creator to take total control over their works.
Here are my suggestions on how you can avoid the permanent establishment of the corporate republic without going over to the equally-conformist socialist system advocated by people like that French protester.
-restrict patents to ONLY physical products which the inventor can show that he/she/the company has already made and has a working implementation of it. No patenting of ideas, regardless of how narrow or broad.... only specific products that the inventor has a working model of
-give JOINT ownership of the copyright of a corporate production to the creative team.... disney publishes Bambi 2.0 and the team that made it has a shared, 50/50, stake in the copyright (or even better give them the copyright completely)
-recognize the supreme authority of the constitution regardless of whether the institution violating the rights of the individual/group is publically or privately owned
-allow judges to give extreme fines, without appeal, to companies which attempt to use the courts to silence/persecute their enemies
-allow the courts to impose jail sentences or fines on school officials that attack their eccentric students.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
I guess McDonald's is pretty popular and you're in the minority there, therefore it won't close near you any time soon.
If you're really are against McDonald's, form an organization and educate people why they shouldn't eat there. Same with Amazon, or whatever.
What are we supposed to do , just close anything you don't like ???
- sigs are for wimps.
Yeah, sure, biotech is full of wonderful wholesome potential. So was atomic energy.
Now let's look at what these things are used for in the real world. That is, if you don't mind referring, now and again, to the real world, just for a break for variety's sake from the glowing-monitor Metaverse of free-floating theory. But if you do mind, please skip what follows, as it is sure to distress you.
Atomic energy - remember atomic energy? - was supposed to make electricty too cheap to meter, to irrigate the Sahara, and in general to usher mankind into a new era of prosperity and contentment. But in reality, the very first application of it was to smash and/or incinerate about one hundred and fifty thousand defenseless civilians to bloody pulp. Later in its career, atomic energy was used to politically terrorize half the globe, and as a side-benefit, in a mere half-century it has heaped up upon the face of the earth vast volumes of pervasive high-intensity pollutants, which to this day no one knows how to safely store for decades much less hundreds of millennia, that will require something in excess of twenty times the length of recorded history to subside in toxicity to where they are no longer an acute threat to the continuation of mammalian life.
Biotech is supposed to make it possible to grow crops in the Sahara, and to cure all known diseases, and in general to usher mankind into a new era of prosperity and contentment. So let's take a look at the very first two commercial products of this wonderful transgenic technology which the Monsanto Corporation has brought to the marketplace. The first is something called "Roundup-ready" soybeans. These soybeans have been modified so that factory farmers can hose down their soybean fields with hitherto unusable quantities of another Monsanto product, a toxic herbicide called "Roundup," in order to kill off all the weeds. Without the "Roundup-ready" gene, the quantities of the herbicide "Roundup" that are employed would render the field as sterile as a patch in the middle of the Sea of Tranquillity, but the artificial gene makes the customized soybeans immune to this toxin. If you're planning on eating these crops, I hope you too are immune to that "Roundup" herbicide. Not that you'd know, however, because the chemical companies have lobbied our legislators so vendors of this Frankenfood are not required to inform you that that package you plucked off the store shelf contains a product not of nature but of the lab.
If you think that's sinister, contemplate the second commercial application of biotech. It's called "Terminator" . It has precisely one purpose: to render food crops sterile. See, ever since the days of the Sumerian Empire and even before, humans practicing agriculture have saved a certain amount of year X's harvest as seed for year X+1's planting. But Monsanto sells seed to farmers in eighty-plus countries, and, insanely, Monsanto claims that one hundred percent of the genotype of these seeds they sell ("developed," in the main, by nature and evolution across geological eras of time) is all Monsanto's "intellectual property". Well, just like any other greed-crazed industrial megalith, Monsanto is pathologically protective of its "intellectual property" and the profits which flow therefrom.
Suppose I am a farmer in, say, India, and I buy a load of Monsanto-brand seeds and plant a crop. When I harvest my crop, as farmers have done since prehistoric times, I save a portion of the grain for next year's seed crop. Now I don't need to go back to Monsanto and buy more, right? Which God forbid! Why, that would be like allowing a heroin addict to grow his own poppies. Where's the big profit for the drug lords there? The only difference being, of course, one can kick heroin addiction, but who can kick the eating habit?
So to prevent the catastrophe of a Fortune 500 corportation losing any potential profits, the genetic engineers at Monsanto inject a special gene - the "Terminator" gene - into the seeds I bought, so that they are fertile in the first generation but totally infertile in the second.
That's pretty bad in itself, my farm becoming helplessly addicted to purchasing Monsanto's seeds, but it gets worse. You're an adult, you know about the birds and the bees, right? Even plants have sex, dreamy plant-like sex, and sex means they trade their genes back and forth. So when the pollen from "Terminator" treated food crops drifts over the fence into my neighbor's field, his crops can end up infected with the diabolical "Terminator" gene. Now his next year's crop comes up OK at first but suddenly it all drops dead after about eleven weeks. Gee, won't he be happy! Now imagine this effect taking place en masse all across a continent. It would take the psychotic sensibility of PKD's "Null-O" to dispassionately contemplate the vast and unprecedented human catastrophe that would occur if, say, one year a third of the Asian rice crop were accidentally wiped out by the uncontrollable dissemination of this destructive gene.
OK, those are the very first two applications of biotech out of Monsanto. Have I made my point yet? Sure, biotech is full of promise. But biotech is not being employed by civic-minded scientists with benevolent goals. Today biotech is owned and operated by capitalist corporations, despite the fact that the entire scientific foundation upon which it rests, and half of the innovations, are the direct product of research paid for by the taxpayers in general - just like with the Internet, the taxpayer pays for the basic research, then after it becomes commercially viable corporations patent all the good parts and stuff the profits in their pockets. And as everyone knows, everything that capitalism touches it turns to shit.
In theory, biotech may have potential for good results, but so long as it is employed solely to deepen the wealth gap between the investing class and the rest of us, I am convinced that it will only yield evil results.
Yours WDK - WKiernan@concentric.net
I'm sorry but bové is not a french patriot and does not prefer asterix to mickey. Indeed, he was born in USA and studied there. The destruction of a McDonald was probably not the cleverest thing to do, but fighting against junk food is not his only motivation. he can NOT be suspected of any corporatism - he just doesn't want that our lifes [whereever you live] to be ruled by the OMC (with a few multinational companies replacing governments). He also supports the Tobin Tax . you should check that.
That is the essence of the both of you. The freedom you seem to want is freedom from any business more popular and successful (yes, that's what "big" means) than a mom-and-pop coffee shop. Freedom to have their inconvenient freedoms (to own property, to seek mutual trade) taken away.
If you hate the bland conformism of "big business", then in a free society - which is what Independence Day is all about - you must do it by persuading people there is a market for good quality, not by mudslinging - nor worse by lobbying to have those you dislike banned or ran out of town.
But, I'm coming to suspect you don't care about these things at all. You're just angry with anyone who's successful, because they were the ones who kicked sand in your face as a kid.
Recently Mr. Katz proclaimed how wonderful it is that people openly steal the intellectual property of others (even though his own books are copyrighted to the hilt, and I'm sure he'd be more than pissed if they were made available for free downloading), and now he wants to raise a petty vandal to the status of the signators of the Declaration of Independance.
Jose is now rotting in a French jail, which is exactly where his worthless vandalizing ass should be. His meals should consist of nothing but Big Macs, and Katz should be restricted to a diet of water and Happy Meals.
Katz's postings prove yet again that old saying...the two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
Today is the 4th of July, right? What is the US celebrating? Rebelling against a country, something that caused many, many people to die? And for what, high taxes? Bah, throughout history there have been far better reasons to start a war than what the colonists had. So here we are, glorifying our violence, and you have the nerve to condemn this frenchman?? Give me a break.
Don't they teach American history in schools? What was the Boston Tea Party but an act of vanadalism??
McDonald's isn't going door-to-door confiscating guns, nor are they placing people in prison for refusing to pay taxes.
If you refuse to eat McDonald's food, they don't haul you off at gunpoint.
The Boston Tea Party has *NOTHING WHATSOEVER* in common with this French criminal, and to even imply that it does is to belittle the heroic sacrifices of the men who died securing those rights we hold so dearly.
What's curious is that in the rest of your post, you clearly Get It, but you started with something like this without clarifying it.
--
2) from any
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3) Find the name Jon Katz in the list of AUTHORS (try not to wince in discust while reading his name):
X JonKatz place an X here
4) Scroll down to the bottom of the page and find a button that says savehome and click on it.
Your /. experience will now be as informative and interesting as before but without those dreadfully trollish rantings from the tiresome and clueless yonny cats.
___
I will take as my example WalMart, a large US corporation making its way into Canada recently.
Smaller companies, such as the local individual corner store, or Zellers, Giant Tiger, etc, are not able to compete because they cannot buy goods in the same quantities as WalMart. WalMart, as an enormous company, can buy in huge quantities. This leads, eventually, to monopolization, as the largest company has the greatest advantage which retaining good margins.
This is part of why Capitalism doesn't work. There are other examples of why it does.
Its funny how American media has deluded the public into thinking the US was the deciding factor in WWII. Try reading a British Text or a Canadian Text (or inidan, russian - whatever) on WWII. Understand history - not pop culture.
You know, the real way to protest McDonalds opening in your neighbourhood is - don't eat there.
Yeah. That's worked so well with Amazon.com over their "One-Click Shopping" patent. Ooo! Ooo! I don't use Microsoft software. How much longer until they're gone?
You know, the odd thing is that I already don't eat McDonalds because I don't like the food. I wonder why the ones near me haven't closed yet?
Reality is funny that way.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
I'd rather be pepper-sprayed by a mountie,
Did you hear the call my little calfs? The becon for differentiation? Oh slashdot Juniors, do you yern to be different? Then follow Katz and have safety in numbers. Oh yes, he "sparks discussion" very well, but hey, so did Hitler.
In all seriousness though, I'm no fan of these franchises, but who am I, or any individual to dictate to the rest of the world? Does the mere dislike of McDonalds entitle me to destroy it? I think not. America was founded based on sensible laws aimed to achieve the greatest good. They strove to strike a balance between the individual and society at large. Jose's actions are a direct strike against that. We are a nation of laws and process. You may not always like the outcome, but remember that process is far better than the alternative, anarchy. Furthermore, remember that you are just one individual; for every one of you, there may be many others who feel differently.
This is yet another thoughtless thread by Katz. Katz is not some great thought proking journalist. Quite the contrary, he's a shallow inflamatory scribbler from the left. You would get much the same affect if you brought in someone like Rush Limbaugh (sic?) from the right. But that is not the point. Is it? Sure, you get discussion, but you don't promote intelligent discussion that way. I really don't much care to see 1000 flames. Slashdot's management seems to confuse quantity, the volume of discussion, with quality. The problem is that Slashdot's revenues are currently being driven by quantity, they simply don't care.
The only solution is to simply turn Katz off (yes, I know, I'm obviously reading this one, but I typically dont) and let slashdot know why. Perhaps when the slashdot juniors tire of these worthless threads, we may see something better.
Exactly!! Just adds another level of Irony to Katz's Populist inspired ranting. So the self hating American cozies up the apparent Frenchman who actually exhibits good ol' 'merican Berkley inspired "action".
Quel iron!
Exactly, he may have good ideas, and what he did was vandalism. But notice that when these events occurred, and when Bove was emprisonned for a week or two, many many people went into some Mac Donalds and offered french or other alternative products. That was their demonstration against MacDonald. At least, those people have realised that vandalism is really the wrong way, and that this initial event was a mistake.
John, this was one of your worst articles.
Who is José Bové, and is he admirable?
He is a Frenchman who was born in Bordeaux in 1953, and grew up at Berkeley, as his parents studied Biochem. Back in France, he refused to do his military service and dropped out of Bordeaux University to immerse himself in various leftist political and ecological movements. In 1975 he and his wife decided to move to the country, take up sheep farming and join a local peasant movement (Confédération paysanne), which he terms 'a trade union', though I do not understand in what sense he means this) against a plan to extend an army base in southern France. He was arrested for "invading" the base during a 1976 protest, and he spent three weeks in prison. (The military project was canceled five years later, more due to the economy than nanything else
In 1998, he blew up up a silo (which belonged to the pharmaceutical firm Novartis) because it contained genetically modified corn. Here's Mssr. Bove's own statement about his actions and motives. It appears to have been written in English, or at least be an authorized translation. I haven't found a French original or variant translations.
In 1999, he became a 'national hero' (according to his supporters -- he's certainly a cult figure) for damaging an unfinished McDonalds with a bulldozer, and later organizing a massive giveaway of Roquefort cheese to protest US import restrictions. He also is known for staging 'illegal' free Roquefort and French bread picnics in front to McDonald's during the WTO protests in Seattle. Distributing the cheese was 'illegal' because it was unpasteurized. Time magazine did a piece on him
But he's not in jail for the bulldozer attack. he spent 20 days in jail for that in 1999. He calls that the greatest favor the judge could have done, due to the publicity it gave him.
On Wednesday, April 19, 2000, an attack on a McDonald's resulted in the death of a '28 year-old waitress'. Jose Bove is believed to have ordered this attack. He has always proclaimmed his movement (Confédération paysanne) to be nonviolent, but admits that violent means have been used, and often refers to the groups actions as 'combat' (same in French as English) I found a French account of the attack that you can babelfish, if necessary
I also found an 12/99 interview where he outlines his current views. He is not an ultra-liberal (in fact he denounced ultraliberalism as 'suicidal'), his personal views are a patchwork of conflicting insistence on individualism and collectivism, (which becomes harder for me to render coherently, the more I read) Politically, he opposes 'internationalization' and insists that 'each nation has a right to choose what it wants to eat' (he supports French Bans on US food, while protesting US bans on French foods)
I leave an analysis of his ideology to others -- anyone but Katz.
If you can go to bed, knowing you did a valuable thing today, you're very lucky. If you can't... it's not bedtime
You are an incredible doofus.
By your definition, if I took issue with your post and destroyed your entire home while you were vacationing at the Cannes, that would constitute a "noble act" since I didn't "directly hurt you."
A violation of property rights is an act of violence and is almost never morally acceptable. Perhaps you'll learn that in Philosophy 102.
Uh, the "English" were already there. You know, like, the colonists? And the government of the day?
History wasn't your best subject, was it?
Heh.
I hear they don't call it a Quarter Pounder in France. I hear they call it a "Royale with Cheese."
Just like the British government sat back and ignored farmers blatant disregard of the law and allowed a fatal and incurable disease (BSE/CJD) to enter the food chain.
Katz has put a huge pile of issues in a blender and somehow wants to label the melange American corporatism, and label trade protectionism as "American"? Sorry, but I don't get it.
That's the way it would work if there were one or two or ten mcdonalds. But I bet they can afford to run a loss now in more neighbourhoods than they will actually make a loss, and will do so in order to keep as much market share as they can. _That's_ the way capitalism works.
No.. I think his point is that Hitler and the Mongols were oppressing people. Somebody opening up a McDonald's or a Burger King is not oppression. "Gods! Don't offer to sell me food! No.. anything but that! I could choose NOT to eat it! No!! I'm being oppressed!"
I think not.
You have valid avenues of expressing your displeasure of a particular franchise or event. Vandalism is not a valid avenue.
-V
Well, at least here in Southern Germany they display certificates that their beef is from local Southern German farmers (they started doing this (displaying the certificates ) because people were afraid of getting mad cow disease from British meat ), and if one considers the high EU import taxes on agricultural goods, this seems very likely as it would be much cheaper to buy the stuff for inner-EU use here then somewhere else. Their sauces are definitely made under license in Germany for Germany and if IIRC from my last UK trip it's the same for the UK.
Thank you John Katz , for painting my profession and peers with the broad brush of cowardace.
News for Nerds, my Ass!
-=paulf
PS -- Makes you wonder, how many people have to stave from lousy crop yields before food technology will be "okay" with Katz?
...-.-
I visit the states regularly on business, and I have seen what unconstrained capitalism can do.
Tariffs are constraints on capitalism. Tariffs are bad (as you and Jose seem to agree). Please don't confuse corporatism with capitalism. Corporatism is the belief that your corporation's agenda is more important than any other objective. Capitalism is the belief that free market economics (elimination of tariffs and other trade barriers, unrestrained competition, free flow of information, etc.) will result in the rapidest financial benefit for all, including labor and management, foreign and domestic.
The worst aspects of America's economy are the result of corporatism (tariffs, patents, auto insurance, health care, Microsoft, etc.). The best aspects are the result of free market capitalism (high standard of living, opportunity to try a startup, ubiquitous Internet access, etc.). I agree that America has problems, but capitalism is not at fault.
Regarding the stricter restrictions on food processing, I wish to avoid salmonella and mad cow disease, and am in favor.
Bob (rbb36)
Terrorism is an act of horrendous violence aimed at unseating those in power.
The fact that anyone would consider this terrorism says, first of all, that many have accepted it as de facto that McDonald's has, or even deserves to have, more power than a democratically elected national government.
Furthermore, saying this is terrorism means that violence against people isn't even necessary to qualify as a terrorist. All you have to do is attack the mechanisms of profit, and you are a vile terrorist. It means that many people see assaults on millionaires' (divine?) right to make money without working to earn it as just as serious a crime as assaults on human life.
That is pretty scary, and if that is the system you want to set up, then you can call me your enemy.
What is the robbing of a bank, compared to the founding of a bank? -- Bertolt Brecht
Yea, the thing about america today is that the companies which control it have gotten so big through mergers and (insert buisness term that i do not know here) that it is almost impossible to decide the outcome of the company if you don't buy their product. This is especially compounded when the company you hate is also in control of the media (i.e. mpaa ):
I'm not saying that It's impossible for one person to change everything, cause the only reason that anything gets done is cause a bunch of individuals get together and stand up for what they belive in (i.e. unions), but it's kinda hard when a company is soooooooo huge like the mega corps here.
So quick with fear you tiny fools!
While the artical above may have a good point, the fact is the tie-in to the McDondald's event is a poor choice.
I'm sure Slashdot has better things to do than to promote terrorism.
Sure I'd love to destroy the new wing of my school and demand a better standard of education in the existing buildings, but I know that doing so would set back my cause and increase the type of prejudice against my "type" that causes me to have such whims, thoughts, ideas, carefully planned operations intended to acomplish the task, etc.
So I wont do it, because I know it will take something more than a simple destructive act to change such a deep-rooted mass-idiocy as we as a world are afflicted with.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
They must be doing a good job.
Yeah, a good job making pretty commercials. The herd works in mysterious ways. If it's flashy and is displayed on prime time television, it's bound to be successful.
I find it difficult to understand how someone can justify a violent reponse to the appearance of a McDonald's restaurant. Especially when there are many, effective, non-violent approaches.
M. Bove could have chosen to organize a protest, perhaps blocking the site entrance with a legal protest. These things take a large number of people to organize and thus can be taken as a representative view of local opinion (in lieu of other, established democratic forms).
He could have organized to block food shipments after the fact or to inform patrons as they approached the completed McD's or to undertake any number of other, legal and non-violent approaches. But they wouldn't have been such a good vehicle for rallying forces...
Violence might be justified if there is an imminent threat and it is certainly a good choice of response to prior violence. That hardly seems to be the case here. McDonald's hasn't chosen to wear red coats and to march in with rifles and bayonets to enforce the eating of greasy, over-processed foods laden with hormones. If the majority of M. Bove's countrymen choose to follow the American hegemonization process, then why shouldn't M. Bove respect their choice.
What right allows any individual to force their own point of view of their community?
Stephen
P.S. I wonder how Jon Katz would feel if someone trashed his computers because they felt that his writing was a threat to their interpretation of what topics should be consumed by other readers?
You know what? I fully support the editors. If this purported 'bitchslap' thing is real, then so be it. We need a tool to protect Slashdot from script kiddies (view Slashdot's most popular story) and generally prolific jackasses. If you honestly feel you need to fear the 'bitchslap,' then you should realize that you're not wanted here. Go away. Find other places to get your kicks annoying people.
If Slashdot is suing people abusing their message boards, so be it. They are a private company and there are many cases that establish that the First Amendment only applies to government censorship. For a personal favorite, look at AOL vs. Cyber Promotions. Cyber Promotions tried to establish that AOL was acting as a state governing body and could not filter SPAM from its network. The U.S. District Court of Appeals held that this argument (based on Marsh vs. Alabama) was nonsense. I am not a lawyer, by the way. I just had to research SPAM for a class recently.
I fully support Slashdot's rights to minimize the damages done by assholes to it's site. I've been reading this site for years, and trolls have been an increasing problem in picking out useful articles from bad. More often than not, there are too few moderator points to go around to handle what is little more than a content based denial-of-service attack. If the editors have added something to the system to handle aggressively assinine posters, then I support them fully. It's too bad there's nothing to prevent those jerks from posting anonymously or getting new users. We don't need them here.
I tell you what, you have prompted me to e-mail Rob Malda. I'm going to e-mail him my full support.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
1) McDonald's may be the "international symbol of globalization" but as far as evil corporations, they are one of the more benign ones out there. After all, all they provide is food for people who are *willing* to pay for it because they want to eat it. Not only that, but while keeping recipes fairly standardized, McDonald's purchases most of its food from local sources, thus actually helping to contribute to the agricultaral economy that Jose is so fighting to protect. Besides, what's wrong with providing access to "American" food to people outside the U.S.? New Yorkers pride themselves on having Indian/Chinese/whatever food as good as from the native country. Yet how come no one's bombing the local chinese takeout counter as a "symbol of homogenization and mediocrity"? Although McDonald's may seem banal and mediocre to us in the U.S., it's seen as exotic around the world. Just like the crappy food sold in sidewalk food stalls on the streets of Ethiopia is seen as exotic and unusual here.
2) If you really want to speak out about the evils of globalization and the wholesale, naked pursuit of cash without any concern for anything else, there are plenty of companies to choose from. For example, ever hear of Dutch Shell? They are a European oil company that also happens to be the largest oil company in Nigeria. Being that large, you'd think that they would use their power to push Nigeria toward better governance and fewer human rights abuses. Yet they actively support the Nigerian military regime (with everything from money to arms), have looked the other way at the numerous human rights abuses, and has returned very little of the billions of dollars worth of oil that it has extracted from the country back to the local Nigerians. They continue to do this despite extensive international condemnation of the Nigerian government, thus helping to prop up a military junta that the international community is trying to remove. But as long as the oil flows to power distant SUV's and cars, who cares, right? But people choosing to eat Big Macs? The Horror!!_ Shell.html
Check out these links for more info:
http://www.cohdn.ca/news/1-1/6.html
http://www.pirc.co.uk/shellmar.htm
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Boycotts/Flames
3) This guy is a trade unionist who was protesting the U.S. regulating the import of french cheese. In other words, he wants to throw McDonald's out of France but wants French cheese unfettered access to U.S. markets. See the hypocrisy? This guy isn't protesting globalization. He's protesting the fact that it's the Americans who are doing the globalization. If the entire world spoke French, ate the cheese that he grows in his farm, and washed it down with champagne purchased from his beloved country, he'd have no problems with that. Ironically, Americans are lot more culturally diverse than the French. After all, we have no qualms adopting words like "que pasa?" and "hasta la vista" (and of course "cojones" :-) from a foreign language while the French have an entire government organization dedicated to keeping the French language pure of such cross-cultural "contamination". The French defending cultural diversity? Please....
4) Finally, even if despite all this, you wished to protest McDonald's, this is the stupidest way to do so. First of all, I question the moral foundation of a person who resorts to violent means to achieve his supposedly moral purpose. But even setting that aside, from a purely Machiavellian point of view, he still went about things the wrong way. As other posters have pointed out, what will really hurt McDonald's is bad publicity, and government action (e.g. denying building permits, etc.) If this so-called champion of farmers was able to document how McDonald's was hurting the livelihood of local farmers and was destroying their ability to live, and this was publicized, he would have done far more damage to McDonald's than his current actions. But of course that actually takes some hard work. Much easier to lob a little bomb and go down as a "martyr". So he bombed one store and went to jail for it. So what? McDonald's will simply build another one. Indeed, I wouldn't be surprised if this sleepy little town became a tourist attraction simply because of its newfound notoriety. And what will those tourists eat? ;-)
I apologize in advance if this message sounds like a troll, because it isn't. I'm just fed up with people who adopt a cause without really thinking about it and then wonder why things don't change. Hell, even the people protesting Nike were smarter than this guy. After all, they were protesting a serious characteristic of globalization (child labor) and they went about it in a way that brought about change, however small. This guy has done nothing good for the anti-globalization movement and to hold him up as a hero of the movement insults those who are actually doing something productive.
Trust me, I'll be the first one to argue that globalization has its problems (although I'll also argue that there are many benefits :-). But to protest McDonald's as the epitome of those problems only cheapens the very real concerns that need to be addressed.
But he was attacking a corporation from a country that has an insular and xenophobic culture.
Would the pot please refrain from insulting the kettle. Thank you.
Maybe so, but in that case I don't think it is worth celebrating. Enforcing your own preferences with violence on other people does not seem like a good thing.
I don't like McDonalds food, so I don't eat there. I don't see how this give me the right to deny others the choice of eating at McDonald.
I also don't like the ridiculously small portions served at most of the higher class restourants here in Denmark, most of which subscribe to the French "Nouvelle Cousine" (the food is fine, there is just too little of it). Does this give me the right to vandalize all the French resteaurants in Denmark?
Maybe traditional Danish cousine should be the only option in Denmark. That would be fried pork, potatoes, and vegetables from which all taste have been boiled out.
Since when does attacking a half-built McDonalds qualify you for heroism status? Did they free the sesame seed buns from oppression?
This guy is not interested in liberty, he's interested in the price of his sheep, and he's probably pissed because McDonalds doesn't sell Mutton McTesticles, or some other such product that can be purchased from him.
I don't think he can be viewed as an american hero at all, unless you count being pissed off and lashing out at something that generates a mere media circus as a lofty american value, somewhere up there with mom and apple pie.
This is about as important a protest as that of the entartistes (dudes who throw pies in faces of famous people). It interests the 'supporters', satiates the media, and merely amuses the rest of us. But an american hero?
Vive le fromage!
And in international news, the McDonalds Air Force launched a counter attack against Cheese Farmers accross all of france today.
The UN is reported to have conveined an emergency meeting as to what to do with these dictators. Rumors of a counterattack have abounded, and it is thought that NATO will become involved possibly in force by tommorow..
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
Hi Marc!
Ronald McDonald House is not a children's hospital, and the RMHs don't provide services, per se, to seriously ill children. What they do is provide a place for the families of those children to stay nearby, so the family unit can stay intact.
The original RMH is in Philadelphia, near to Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. CHOP serves patients from a wide area--I live about 100 miles from CHOP and know several families that are at CHOP routinely. If you have a child with pervasive disabilities, or that requires continuing treatments, commuting back and forth to Philadelphia can become an enormous task. Wealthier parents might stay in a local hotel, but it was all too common for parents to stop coming--leaving the child alone for days or weeks at a time.
Doctors have known for years that children do better in the hospital when Mom or Dad and/or siblings are around. CHOP doctors (including the chief surgeon, C. Everett Koop) also realized that kids weren't eating their prescribed meals--what they really wanted was junk food. They struck an interesting bargain with the McDonald's franchisers in the Philadelphia area.
McDonald's contributed big bucks for the renovation of Children's Hospital, including the construction of a new lobby. McDonald's built a restaurant *in* the lobby, so ambulatory patients could come down to the restaurant with their parents. In addition, children can have McDonald's meals in their rooms, in place of regular hospital food.
On top of that, the local franchisers bought a nearby rowhouse and rehabbed it as a place for parents and families to stay while a child was at CHOP...which they named Ronald McDonald House.
I agree with you wholeheartedly--Ronald McDonald House is a wonderful institution. I just wanted to mention that RMH is always associated with (and typically adjacent to) a children's hospital--RMH is for the patient's parents.
"----- "Ekki-Ekki-Ekki-Ekki-PTANG! Zoom-Boing! Z'nourrwringmm!" Oh yeah? NI!
-----
Score 3? For what? Being wrong, at length? - smirkleton
Won't that just be contributing to the problem?
Actually, I think they were #3 this year. Oh, and remember, for people making under $20K (the vast majority of the people I know), Canada has lower taxes. The main difference is that our rich our taxed, unlike the Americans. Of course, "USian" (eh?) culture is mostly Canadian citizens making movies and suppling their news...
Intolerant people should be shot.
Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists. Eleven were merchants, nine were farmers and large plantation owners; men of means, well educated. But they signed the Declaration of Independence knowing full well that the penalty would be death if they were captured.
Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, saw his ships swept from the seas by the British Navy. He sold his home and properties to pay his debts, and died in rags.
Thomas McKeam was so hounded by the British that he was forced to move his family almost constantly. He served in the Congress without pay, and his family was kept in hiding. His possessions were taken from him, and poverty was his reward.
Vandals or soldiers looted the properties of Dillery, Hall, Clymer, Walton, Gwinnett, Heyward, Ruttledge, and Middleton.
At the battle of Yorktown, Thomas Nelson Jr, noted that the British General Cornwallis had taken over the Nelson home for his headquarters. He quietly urged General George Washington to open fire. The home was destroyed, and Nelson died bankrupt.
Francis Lewis had his home and properties destroyed. The enemy jailed his wife, and she died within a few months.
John Hart was driven from his wife's bedside as she was dying. Their 13 children fled for their lives. His fields and his gristmill were laid to waste. For more than a year he lived in forests and caves, returning home to find his wife dead and his children vanished. A few weeks later he died from exhaustion and a broken heart.
Norris and Livingston suffered similar fates.
Such were the stories and sacrifices of the American Revolution. These were not wild-eyed, rabble-rousing ruffians. They were soft-spoken men of means and education. They had security, but they valued liberty more.
Standing tall, straight, and unwavering, they pledged: "For the support of this declaration, with firm reliance on the protection of the divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other, our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor."
They gave you and me a free and independent America. The history books never told you a lot about what happened in the Revolutionary War. We didn't fight just the British. We were British subjects at that time and we fought our own government!
Some of us take these liberties so much for granted, but we shouldn't.
So, take a few minutes while enjoying your 4th of July holiday and silently thank these patriots. It's not much to ask for the price they paid. Remember: freedom is never free!
--------
Oscarfish.com: tropical fish with attitude. Way t
It was a pretty big PR shot-in-foot for McDs.
Yea, I remember, it was just like Elian. NBC/CBS/CNN had 24-hour news coverage, choppers, the whole nine yards. Oh wait, those were McDonald's commercials
Is it any wonder why the "look at this idiot for a month" media has taken over?
--
+&x
Sir, what would you like to drink.
Well, what do you have?
Well Sir, we have Coke, Diet Coke, no Pepsi, Wine?
. Consider, for instance, the large infrastructure investment McDonalds needed to make while opening their Moscow location just to get fresh vegetables and non-rotten potatoes
The US propaganda machine has you convinced there would be no fresh-food without McDs. Give your head a shake. The planet managed to feed itself for a VERY long time before the US style Multi-Nationals.
Moscovites(sp?), for the most part, eat just fine. You want to site poor, helpless masses? Goto Alabama.
The US notion that it and its policies are going to save the world make me sick. McDs is not the height of human evolution, but it will be our greatest master. (McDs cited as an example, not literally)
No, actually no one would ever learn that in a contemporary philosophy class. They'd learn exactly the sort of incredibly inane and shortsighted crap that Jon Katz spews forth. Property rights? Corporate myth, the attempt to subvert individualism with facist control structures. Individual rights? Individuals have the right to have every whim satisfied, and it is the responsibility of anyone producing anything to satisfy those whims, as a duty. You are nothing, the Consumer is All. A more detailed analysis might compare Jon Katz's views of "The Corporate Republic" to a Nazi diatribe.. but at least the Nazis didn't hide behind the rhetoric of individualism.
One man's religion is another man's belly-laugh. - LL
This guy is a hero for trashing a McDonald's?
/. is an American Oppressor?
What happens when the anarchists decide
If you aren't part of the solution, there is good money to be made prolonging the problem
McDonalds is a business. Surprise surprise.
no, the people with the money are the majority and this rarely has anything to do with the will of the masses. i still don't think this guy was right to use violence though. he'll now go to jail where he can accomplish nothing... one vandalized fast food restaurant does little to put multi-national corporations in check.
Karma: Excellent, but still won't get you laid.
God in Heaven, are you ever wrong about that. The class war in the U.S.A. is alive and well. It's just that only one side is fighting, the other side, my side, is mostly standing around, numbly, dumbly staring mouth agape at the TV, taking the blows and not fighting back. That's what's wrong with this country, why we've gone down the tubes so bad these last couple of decades. The family at the median point of incomes in the U.S.A. works something like fifteen weeks more per year than in 1975 for the same amount of goods, meanwhile the top one percent of incomes has doubled their share of the national wealth, but you never noticed at all. It's because suckers like you refuse to pay any attention, that our enemies in the ongoing class war have made the devastating inroads that they have.
Why don't you tune in to the economic news in your daily newspaper? The Fed has been raising the prime rate for years now with the naked intent of running the unemployment rate up to what is to them a more comfortable figure. Sooner or later the recession they are so assiduously engineering is going to kick in, and then the shit's really going to hit the fan. Who will you blame then, "welfare queens"?
Yours WDK - WKiernan@concentric.net
Uh, what consequences would that be? Are you implying that we're as underdeveloped as Zimbabwe? Could you provide some examples of areas that Canadian development is signifigantly less than American?
Intolerant people should be shot.
You know, the real way to protest McDonalds opening in your neighbourhood is - don't eat there.
You don't eat there, they close up shop and go home. You eat there, Micky D's makes some money, and opens up another franchise down the street.
Capitalism is funny that way.
Clinton is no liberal, not at least by the modern definition. The original definition was "a laissez-faire guy," someone who wants to hand the entire nation to capitalists on a silver platter. Maybe he qualifies for that.
AFDC, NAFTA, MAI, the "War on Drugs". That the original poster described Clinton as a liberal just proves that he believes what he is told by lying morons such as Limbaugh, to the exclusion of the evidence of his own two eyes.
Yours WDK - WKiernan@concentric.net
Jose unilaterally decided no one should be able to choose to eat at a McDonalds. No one is ever dragged, kicking and screaming, through the door of a McDonalds, or compelled to wear Gap jeans, or perform any other such acts of evil consumption. People WANT to. Jose is losing his cheese business (or whatever) because people PREFER McDonalds to the product he produces. He doesn't want them to have that choice. Neither, apparently, does Mr. Katz.
I don't mind socialism. (Well, OK, I do) But let us CALL it socialism. For Mr. Katz to use the word 'individualism' to describe the world of grinding conformity -- yes, CONFORMITY -- that will come out of the likes of Jose is beyond repulsiuve. It is, perhaps, the closest thing I, uber-atheist-Lizard, have heard to blasphemy.
A world in which a howling mob is the arbiter of who can open a shop, build a house, or market a product is not a world of individualism. It is a world in which all is reduced to that which is acceptable to the most small-minded member of the most violent horde.
Jose is not stnading up for geeks, freaks, and innovators -- he lives in deadly fear of them. It is, after, all the geeks who are cracking the genetic code, programming the computers, and writing the marketing algorithms. It was the geeks who created the industrial revolution. It's folks like Jose who fear anything new, anything different, anything which upsets the dull, plodding routine of their planned, plotted, lives.
Jon, to put it simply -- you are off the deep end. You're flailing around for a new 'theme', now that the Internet is everywhere and Columbine is in the past, and you've latched onto a repulsive mix of Communism and Luddism that is turning you from a moderately cool, if somewhat liberal, commentator into a total laughingstock.
Thanks for personal holiday greetings Jon, Happy independence day to you too. Although I am not american, I'll think of it more as Happy (belated) Canada Day.
cheers,
Jose
The basic sleazeware produced in a drunken fury by a bunch of UCBerkeley grad students was still the core of BIND. --PV
Whatever.
Yes, no country can claim to be the glorious protector of freedom. But i've never heard that there have been problems with bretons after the WWII [except those who where suspected of collaboration with the nazis - but it was in the whole country]. Anyway, france did more awfull things during the independance wars durings its colonies wars, in algeria for example.
Please learn to separate between private (corporate) "property" which is based on the force of weapons (police, border guards, army) and private belongings, such as a home to live, food to eat, the necessities to work, etc.
The amassing of the first kind of "property" in the hand of a few is depriving the majority of the earth's inhabitants of the second. This in itself makes me feel like smashing a few McDodo-windows... But I prefer more accountable ways of acting.
Love & anarchy
Ewiz
Face it folks, globalization is the natural evolution of human society on it's way from tribe, village, city-state, nation towards a real world society. Anything or anyone that tries to fight this is simply a socio-luddite..
Some interesting ideas discussed in:
The Naked Ape
by: Desmond Morris
Mass Market Paperback (August 1973)
ISBN: 0440362660
Ooo! Direct action! How heroic!
Myabe I missed a meeting here. Since when did we start pinning medals on the chests of those who would break the law for their ideologies, when better alternatives were at hand. And don't give me the "America did it back in 1776" bs either. When the colonies broke away from England, they did it because all otehr avenues had been closed to them. They had petitioned, and sent people over to lobby, and all of this had failed. It was only when all legal attempts had failed that they resorted to violence.
You'll pardon me if I don't stand up and cheer a common vandal with an insular and xenophobic ideology behind him. If he really and truly despised McDonalds, he could have protested, or petitioned his government, or hell, even run for public office. But instead, he chose to be a thug. Hoo-ray.
Of course, that's just my opinion. Jon could be wrong.
"This is your world. These are your people. You can live for yourself today, or help build tomorrow for everyone."
Have you eaten there? They make really good food! I mean.. I'm sure that there are better restaurants than Outback, but man.. it's still really good food.
-V
With regard to the issue about small farmers and other people being squeezed out of their 'way of life' - perhaps it is important to take a broad look at the way society is changing across the board. Are the children of these people taking on new-age roles and jobs, and living in the future ? If so, then it is inevitable that life in the new world will not include 'small farmers' as anything other than a lifestyle choice, rather than an economically sustainable way to live. The same thing happened to 'blacksmiths' and 'wood turners' as the world ebbed into industrialisation -- such is life, and such is progress!
-- Matthew - matthew.gream@pobox.com, http://matthewgream.net
it has not been long since French farmers stopped lorries carrying lamb entering France from the UK and burnt the (already slaughtered) contents.
French farmers do from time to time stop lorries (cheaper and earlier) vegetables from Spain and drop the load onto the road. The French police does look interestedly and nothing else. Years later, the French government pay something to the Spaniards.
But now the Spaniards have learnt, and Southern Spanish farmers stop lorries from Morocco carrying (cheaper and earlier) vegetables, and drop the load onto the road. These farmers will complain later about the massive immigration of unemployed Moroccan wetbacks. The immigrants come to work under the Spanish farmers, but they want them with papers.
On a related note, Portuguese fishermen dropped Spanish fish that was brought to profit of the obscene prices of fish during the St. John's (06-24) Day.
Meanwhile, the whole agricultural (tobacco included!) and fish production of Europe is subsidized by the EU.
__
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
This post's parent would have been quickly scored at -1, Flamebait.
I quote: "this guy is largely full of shit": splendid example of how "orabidoo" conceive debating: mere insult.
"he would just like to replace Mickey Mouse with Asterix": totally stupid argument, and totally false either. José Bové is not against American Culture, and have never even talked about cartoons and comics. And, by the way, how could Mickey Mouse speak for us ?
"ust some local closed-mindedness": your utmost argument: if it's not american-born, it's local ; I fear you can't think another way. It's sad for you. José is surely less close-minded than you, at last he looks at the future and warn of the forthcoming threats.
sigmentation fault
Remember, their beef (no pun intended) was with being ruled without representation by some braindead aristocratic loser thousands of miles away. The twit Brits believed that just because his father was King so should his son be king. How insane is that? What qualifications does he have? That's not a way to rule a country. You need democratically elected representatives to voice the opinion of the majority of the nation!
Thats exactly what the artical is saying! France has the right to live out of the rule of the corporate america. And take a look at American "democracy" these days. America is one of the oldest democracies thats still around and this is something to be pround of. But its age shows. We americans live under a plutocracy, where third parties can not have a voice. Other newer democracies are not like this! Why is it that we are the richest nation in the world but second only to Mexico in poverty in industrialized nations?
And now organizations like the WTO take American sovernity. Check out this link from a conservative legistlator complaining about the WTO for those reasons.
And it is rather funny to see this these things unfold. Isn't america the land of majority rule and minority right? And the mojority want their McDonalds and their C+M and their cheap clothes and planned obscelence. And then Along come some intellectuals. Who think _they_ know what the people really want, and what is best for the "people." I'm sorry to say, but McDonalds is moving there because people buy it, like it, eat it, and by the vote of their Dollar's (or franc's) elect to have a McDonalds. Now, I do not like this, but hey, i don't like mondays, and cant do much about that anyway. People against things such as ramapnt corparatism are the minority, people who back up their words with action are the minority. The happy fat masses will always rule, because THEY are the majority. We cannot change that, and can only try and teach those willing to learn, and protect the corner of reality (where we have staked out our minority rights) from encrochment.
What? - Einstein
First of all, please take special note that this is NOT an anonymous post. I am willing to take the kind of beating to my karma that I will likely face for posting this. With that said...
SLASHDOT != FREE SPEECH!
Witness the lawsuit against osm, who has gathered quite a reputation as a troll on Slashdot. This comes out of a sometimes misunderstanding of his posts, and the last straw finally came after a story where many chided for forgetting that it was Natalie Portman's 19th birthday. See this for a complete list of the things that Slashdot has done that go against their belief in "free speech".
JonKatz, if you are so ideological about being anti-coporate, why do you work for Slashdot, and indirectly for Andover.net and VA Linux? Oh yeah, that's right, they gave you some nice stock options...
Friends don't let friends use multiple inheritance.
From [Redacted] Tue Jul 4 09:45:43 2000
:)\n"
Date: Tue, 4 Jul 2000 09:44:52 -0700 (MST)
From: [Redacted]
To: jonkatz@slashdot.org
Subject: Article for 07/04/00
This is William Sutton ([Redacted]) who has contacted you in the past about this or that. Most of the time when you post an editorial I agree with it, and I even stand up for you on #slashdot when the anti-Katz sentiment sweeps the channel.
I'm not sure that I can agree with this one though. It would be nice to see some hard facts backing up just WHY Jose is a prototypical champion of American Values. From the sounds of things, he is really a prototypical champion of French Values. Consider:
- A majority of the posts point out that Jose hardly has reasons to be disinterested, and these are financial reasons. Jose (they point out) was responding to a threat to his wallet rather than a threat to his freedom or life (e.g., quartering troops). The "taxation without representation" arguement doesn't wash here either, because it's a US tax, not a French tax. Thus, Jose is subject to American import duties, but is not a US citizen (unlike the colonists here in the 1700's who were mostly English citizens and who claimed that they were not represented).
- American values have never supported wanton destruction against foreign property as a way to achieve something, and with the rare exception of the "Boston Tea Party," against domestic property.
- The French have a long history of lower and middle class violence against anything perceived as a financial threat. This extends to the revolts against the crown during the time of Henry V and the French kings who preceded him. It is an established pattern that when the French citizenry feels itself unjustly taxed or treated that it spreads over the countryside looting and pillaging, opening prisons (remember the Bastille?), and generally creating anarchy. This violence typically starts with the lower class and is manipulated by the middle and upper-middle classes (see Tuchman's _A_Distant_Mirror_ for examples). Jose is in the perfect position as an upper-middle class labor leader to tap into popular sentiment and control things to his ends. (Lower and middle class people don't regularly jet between France and the US, so Jose is a man of some means. And since he is a farmer, he's definitely not in the upper class.)
- The French helped us in the 1700's, not, as some would ascribe, to a desire to promote freedom, but because it made trouble for their bitter enemies, the English. Note how often the French and the Scots (and later the Americans) colluded to bring the English grief? Notice that the English, for the same reason, used the people of Brittainy and Flanders against the French? It wasn't disinterested, and it wasn't for the well-being of the people being used.
American corporatism may or not be evil (you descrbe it as "spreading like measels"), and Jose may or may not be an activist, but one thing is apparent: Jose is definitely *NOT* an American hero, and it may even be questioned whether or not he is a French hero. As far as I can tell Jose is simply a French criminal with little self-control and less sense about appropriate measures for redress and grievance. He would have accomplished more by taking his claims to the French government or by making an emotional appeal on American TV than by his ill-considered actions against McDonalds.
William Sutton
if ($user =~ m/shaldannon/i) {
print "\n-- $user
}
What is your Slash Rating?
Wonderfully put. Right on!
--- WWSD? What Would Strider Do?
Honestly, people, do I have to surround my messages with <sarcasm></sarcasm> tags? I mean, "Ooo! Ooo!" isn't normally part of an evenly measured argument.
Everyone seems to be responding to me with exactly my point. No, you and I protesting McDonalds by not eating there does not shut them down. It only looses them 2 customers. In the mean time, there are millions more. The whole idea that people can control the actions of corporations by single-handedly not purchasing from them is ridiculous. That's why corporations are so dangerous. Without someone bigger bullying them around (i.e. the government), they have almost no accountability for their actions.
...and no, I don't think McDonalds should be closed because I don't like their food. I'm just pointing out that me not buying food from them hasn't hurt them badly. While there's nothing formal in the way of a boycott or protest in my actions, they are no different to McDonalds, Inc. than that of some guy who doesn't visit them because they're upset about some issue.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Taxes without fair representation. A government attempting to govern from overseas. The abuse and exploitation of the colonies by an oppressive King.
There's a slight different between that and a McDonald's cropping up in someone's town. McD wouldn't be there if there weren't a demand. Face, people, in general, like greasy, artery clogging slabs of beef between two pieces of bread... if they didn't, then we wouldn't have the fast food joints we do now.
Humorless sig goes here.
Perhaps I'm missing something, but isn't the American dream something like anyone can build a multinational out of old shoelaces in America. Aren't corporations like McDonalds, Microsoft, and AOL-Time-Warner the peak of that dream?
How then can a French man lashing out against "an international symbol for the globalization, mass-marketing and homogenization that U.S.-bred corporatism is spreading like the measles." be considered an American patriot? He stands against everything the American dream stands for.
Maybe you have to be an American to really understand?
As an American living Europe, I see quite a bit of this type of reaction, coming mostly from 16-20 year old males with Mohawk haircuts, and clothespins through their noses and other various body parts. Their knee-jerk reactions are pretty much synonymous with your hero's actions -- they too, have an utter disdain for the property of others. If breaking a few windows in the local Mickey D's can somehow make a political statement about corporatism, globalization, anti-ecologism and any other -isms you care to through in, I sure don't see how. Jose in no way embodies American values.
Happy Fourth to you, too.
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"Go Metallica. Die RIAA." -- Linus Torvalds
Similarly, when it comes to independence, Canada benefitted from America's slipstream. Even a superficial reading of history shows this. For starters, try this page, from which I quote:
The seriousness of the troubles in British North America caused deep concern in Great Britain, where memories of the American Revolution could be recalled. At the request of Queen Victoria, who came to the throne in 1837...
This happened after events like the Montreal Riots of 1837, which while not revolutions in themselves, were certainly violence being used to achieve a political end, which led directly to the actions taken by Queen Victoria.
This resulted in a degree of self-government and local representation which was precisely what the Americans had to fight so hard for, 60 years earlier. Americans tried very hard to achieve a diplomatic solution, but King George III was uncompromising, since he believed his redcoats could keep order against any colonial uprising. He used violence and the threat thereof to collect taxes, and the Americans were forced to use violence to make him stop.
I'm not an American, in fact I'm from another ex-British colony. But as a believer in individual freedoms and rights, I consider the American Revolution to have been fought by some very brave and thoughtful people, who stood up for what they thought was right. In doing so, they had a profound impact for the better on the political thinking of the human race, worldwide.
Your antipathy towards violence is commendable, but it's predicated on the assumption that the parties on both sides of a dispute are reasonable people who can reach a compromise in non-violent ways. This attitude relies heavily on assumptions we take for granted today, such as the rule of law and concepts of individual rights which are exactly what the Americans fought for.
In the 1770's, they had no recourse to such luxuries. If they spoke out non-violently, they risked being hanged for "treason" against the remote British King. Under such circumstances, I'm curious to know what sort of non-violent solutions you favor.
France banned hormone-injected American beef that was not labelled. Instead of labelling our meat properly, our government childishly responded by adding a 100% tax on Roquefort cheese and other French delicacies.
Yes, he broke the law when he vandalized a McDonalds. However there is one very American thing most of you forgot about: Civil Disobedience - breaking the law as a form of protest. It is indeed a valid, time honored way to get your point across, and as long as you aren't directly hurting anyone and are willing to pay the consenquences, is a noble act.
No, Thursday's out. How about never - is never good for you?
The way I see it, if you don't like something, instead of just sitting there, you DO something about it. I applaud Jose's actions and I'm glad someone is taking a stand on this issue.
I am strongly against the americanization of the world; and I'm going to move to London as soon as I finish college (I live in the USA right now, in a suburb of DC).... but if this keeps happening in other parts of the world (McD's and Wendy's and Burger Kings popping up everywhere), then it'll be pretty much pointless. This isnt the Land of the Free; it's the Land of the Bought.
and on a side note, I was staying in a hotel at the same time the WTO held their protest in Vancouver last summer.... quite impressive IMO. At the time i didn't know what was going on; but if I knew what I know now, I would have joined them.
'Nuff said
What? - Einstein
Every capitalist economy aim to produce monopoly because it's the easier way to get more money from your customer. Why if capitalism works so well American Government have to take big company in judgement ? Where is your liberty if you can choose only between BicMac and Mega BicMac ?
It was more than taxes. Read the Declaration of Independence sometime. Besides, the British were the ones who came in with warships and soldiers when we petitioned to become independant. There was a revolution, partially over taxes, but that wasn't nearly as bad as the Civil War, which was a much bloodier war started by a bunch of southern states who got a bit angry when they didn't get their way with the presidential election (I am over-simplifying things, but I don't have a history book lying around to reference).
i did some camping in Milau, it's a great place, warm weather, very neat, and me too i don't want to see a mcdo there! when mcdo will open a "restaurant" on the artic continent? or on the moon?
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BeDevId 15453 - Download BeOS R5 Lite free!
"Science will win because it works." - Stephen Hawking
Well said. While America offers a lot of good things, few of them are to do with it's culture, or food. The US makes good entertainment - if you don't mind the lowest common denominator, and a lack of historical accuracy. Food wise - McD, a barely edible snack. French cuisine - food from heaven. Those who would rather eat at the golden arches - have obviously never eaten decent food. And I ain't a limey. I'm a Jock.
Last time I checked, the revolutionaries in 1776 were vast supporters of Adam Smith and a free market society.
This is true, but you draw a questionable conclusion. American businesses at the time were small and local, unlike the European businesses that Americans had to deal with: Faceless bureaucracies which were in league with, and therefore susceptible to, the whims of the arrogant plutocracies that effectively held power in their "home country." Now look at the supernationals Jon's talking about. Their structure is essentially no different than the Dutch East India Tea Company back in colonial times, whose structure was likewise little different than the feudal governments that gave rise to aristocracy in the first place.
Remember, their beef (no pun intended) was with being ruled without representation by some braindead aristocratic loser thousands of miles away
No, it wasn't. Even then, the King couldn't wield much power without going through Parliament or his own trading interests in various companies, just like now. Make no mistake: the King was a figurehead, just like our presidents are. The people were rallied against him, but our real enemies were parliament and the "multinational" trading companies of the day.
The rest of what you said...well...most of us grew out of that a long time ago, patriotism being a 'virtue of the vicious' and all...
There is a big difference between the kind of free-market capitalism Smith (and his faithful back then) were supporting and the vertically integrated multinationals of both then and now. They are "foreign powers" in their own right, landless feudal structures whose only interest is their self-perpetuation, but the real danger they pose isn't their ability to sell one billion dishwashers in China, it's the power structures that are becoming entrenched around them. Structures like the G8 that have no elected representatives and are therefore not accountable to anyone.
I'm not one to waste my time and effort protesting things I have no control over, but if what you wrote is really all you think there is to the 4th, it's time you looked a little more deeply into the world around you. Just because this country, our country, set a high-water mark once or twice in its history, doesn't mean there isn't still room for improvement. We can start by getting these supernational foreign powers out of our own Constitutional process.
-jpowers
-jpowers
Come to think of it, I think you're right. What are the struggles of overcoming Hitler compared to having convenient food? The horror! Boy, I'll bet when the Mongols were rampaging through a village and killed every single person, they didn't realize how lucky they were to be slaughtered. They could have been under the yoke of the Big Mac!
Katz is right. It is clear that only at the end of the 20th century is oppression truly understood. We can only hope to find within ourselves the same courage that allowed the men to storm Normandy, as we try to resist the temptation of Supersizing, and hope that freedom fighters everywhere will rise up and slay the dragon that is only now recognized by humble servants of Man such as Jose.
Let the poems begin. Let us write a thousand songs to be sung by soldiers who will march in this epic battle! Godspeed, brave soldiers, godspeed!
Glory, glory hallelujia!
Glory, glory hallelujia!
Glory, glory hallelujia!
His troops are marching on!
RM101 breaks down in tears
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Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Nope Canada is still #1 according to UN.
Fuck him!
As far as I'm concerned, Slashdot is the property of the Slashdot editors. The trolling that has been happening is nothing more than graffiti on an otherwise great web resource. If someone came an sprayed tags on the door to your house and you caught them at it, would you let them just walk away or would you report them to the police (or perhaps take matters into your own hands mr AC?).
As a long time Slashdot reader I am sick and tired of the trolls. Sue the lot of 'em I say.
"Give the anarchist a cigarette"
A little planning goes a long way...
I resemble that! Seriously, Mcdonalds is not the worlds best place to eat. In fact, I can't stand thier food anymore. However, its clear that they aren't breaking any laws.. (Asside from potentialy immigration laws, but thats another issue entirley).. So, whats the problem? In the US McDonalds represents our culture very well. We all look for quick easy solutions to a problem. Nobody has time to sit down and have a meal at a dinner table anymore, everyone is always on the go. Thats why McDonalds can be so succesful here. On there other hand, in France, even with my limited knowledge of french culture, My guess is that McDonalds is not part of thier culture. I think this farmer is trying to stop the US from spreading our culture onto them like a infectious virus. As Americans we have done a good enough job dystroying our own morals and values, why do we need to start doing it to other countries?
Katz deserves no break. This story is pathetic, a vandal defacing a McDonalds is not a 4th of July extravaganza, nor is it WW3 or a Mongol slaughtering.
/. reading public, again evoking an emotional response to a non-issue. Large corporations don't give a rats ass about individualists as long as they buy their product.
A few points about this article (loose definition)
"Corporate Republic" WTF??? "Yahoo Serious"?? These words don't really make sense together...Such a thing doesn't exist. There is no underground corporate movement plotting to overthrow the goverment. Fear Mongering in action via Katz.
He is comparing Capitalism to the Measles in the fourth paragraph!! How many people died from the measles worldwide! Measles is a horrifying desease... This type of emotion-evoking yet utterly meaningless comparison has no place in a technology journal.
To top things off with a cherry, he includes hackers and programmers in with his list of "threatened" individualists. Clever how he turns the "evil empire" against the
"What in this country isn't for sale?" Certainly Katz's own book would be included in the "for sale" category?
Supermarkets are the status-quo, and yet small markets are still thriving. Why? Because people appreciate quality and service. There is no evil threat looming over the individualists of the world, and Jon Katz is as deluded as the vandal Jose Bove.
Remove the NOSPAM to spam me...
I wonder if, because one finds Slashdot to be morally and economically reprehensible, Katz and the editors who allow him to post his fascist drivel would have no problem if that person were to lay a DoS attack on the site.
So globalisation and corporatism are exclusively American ideas are they? Please get off this America = the world trip - it's starting to get boring.
While a bit overdramatic, Katz raised a few good points.
I'm amazed at the parallels he draws between corporate America and communist China. Suppressing individualism, promoting conformity (though that's a tad redundant), corrupting the political system... I wonder if that was intentional.
One thing Katz would do well to cultivate is a little faith in humanity. He forgets that despite corporate-world-domination-schemes and totalitarian governments (like China), humans have one very strong attribute that lets us survive every time. We're tough to keep down. We're tough to kill.
To quote Bill Hicks, "We're a virus with shoes."
Besides, without McDonald's and AOL/Time Warner, who would we take our anti-establishment sentiment out on? The government?
John, though I normally have no problem with you expressing your increasingly libertarian views, you've gone a bit far by drawing parallels between this farmer and the American Revolution. Our revolution was justified because it was our only means of expressing our views, because America was governed by a foreign power without proper representation (yes, I realize "No taxation without representation" is a trite phrase, but nonetheless). France is not under dictatorial rule. It is a republic. This farmer had other ways of expressing his views, of attempting to change the system. Peacefully. He chose instead to smash up a McDonald's. Call him a revolutionary only if you are prepared to call those who attack abortion clinics revolutionaries. I prefer to call them both what they are: criminals.
I'm talking about the past when British farmers were just as arrogant as the French ones are now, and I feel no sympathy for them. As for criticizing countries that don't obey the rule of law, take a look at the UK arms industry as an appalling example of the flouting of international and European law. The French farmers/lorry drivers may piss people off, myself included (I was working in Luxembourg when the bastards closed the border for the day), but the Brits can hardly resort to mud-slinging.
See Jose, they are nice, hard-working people, not some big bad scary multinational corp, McDonalds is your friend, I'd advise you to have one of their great MBX sandwiches today! We all know that since McDonalds is the most popular restaurant in the world, that they make the best food too.
Shine on, you crazy diamond.
Socialism is dying an ungraceful death and while writing its own mournful eulogy.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darueber muss man schweigen. Ludwig Wittgenstein
Sing it brother! -United States of America- the country that can solve any conflict with these few words, "I gotta big gun here....."
WURD!!
Wow. "Informative" and [fact]???
Last time I checked this terrorist act was attributed to "independantistes bretons" and has nothing to do with Jose Bove. Also his McDonalds destruction was made in a near public way, nothing to do with secretive terrorists.
I do not endorse the destruction of the McDonald (who does?), but casting a "terrorist" adjective on Jose Bove is pure FUD here.
Usually french farmers put tons of tomatoes, fruits or bad smelling stuff in front of public buildings when there're not happy anyway ;-).
It's amazing. The same country that produced Frederic Bastiat also produces jose bove.
Now I see jon katz glorifying this person who doesn't understand personal liberty. Which indicates jon doesn't either. If jose bove is a hero, jon katz is a talented writer.
I've had jon filtered out. Strange thing is that user preferences never seem to work - slashdot keeps forgetting I'm logged in.
I hate repeat what others have been saying, since I used to disbelieve them. Slashdot is sloppy reporting-full of faulty logic, repeat stories, lack of fact checking, and bias from the people who post the stories.
Compound that with the growing attitude of the Kids Without Real World Experience who think that metallica are a**holes because they expect to get paid for their music, while they are in the right because they are stealing someone else's property, and you have a site with a complete lack of common sense. Not even roblimo can save you now.
So it's fitting that today, July 4th, I delare my independence from slashdot. When I want breaking tech news, I'll go to another site (perhaps the register). When I want bad reporting and immature commentary, I'll come back to slashdot. But I don't expect that to be any time soon.
It's been fun.
I say again, this isn't true. European aristocracy had already basically lost power to the mercantile class by that time. They were, in fact, rebelling against "Taxation without Representation" -- in Parliament, that is. The King was a figurehead used by us colonists for propaganda and nothing more.
-jpowers
-jpowers
Really? I don't remember anything about Adam Smith in Paine's Common Sense. And Thomas Jefferson opposed capitalism. His idea of freedom hinged on self-reliance and to him that meant owning land and farming. He saw capitalism as inimical to personal freedom; wage slaves to him were just that, not free. Remember, the original list of voters who elected those "representatives to voice the opinion of the majority of the nation! " was limited to land-owning adult males. Not slaves, women, workers of bums. They spoke for independent farmers mostly. I expect that the sympathies of many of the founding fathers would be with that French farmer, not the suits on Wall Street.
The "right" to prevent other people from choosing their own paths, even if they don't coincide with ours.
The "right" to wrap the whole thing in a sanctimonious cloak that excuses everything.
Katz, once again, has chosen a real winner. There's a reason I don't listen to him anymore.
Honorary Member of Jackie Chan's Kung Fu Process Servers
Mr Katz, The violation of property rights through acts of violence is not a long forgotten American ideal. To paint yourself as an American patriot is truly laughable, for indeed you are the opposite: a communist/socialist/statist. I sincerely hope that someone embodying your values takes issue with your business. We'll see how fast you run to the defense of the "patriot" who puts a bullet in your chest or razes slashdot to the ground.
Mayo on Fries? when the hell did that become the staple diet of Canada. We have Poutine, which is damn good. (Thats gravy and cheese on fries btw.) We don't really have any foods to call our own besides perhap Poutine and Bannock.
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Insert Witty Sig Here
Mr. Katz, if you aren't too busy singing the praises of Jose Bove, you might take a minute to remember Ms. Laurence Turbec, a McDonald's employee in Quevert, France, who was killed by a bomb placed outside the McDonald's restaurant where she worked. Was she an "acceptable loss" in the battle against corporatism and Le Big Mac?
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
People have a need, and a company provides products and services to fulfill that need. America excels at this particular moreso than other countries, which is not a bad thing. People still have free will, and free choice. Don't like McDonalds? Don't go there. Don't like Microsoft? Use Linux. But don't committ crimes like vandalism and hide behind the shield of "those corporate baddys". The rest of us like our Coke/McDonalds/Levis/Nikes...
OliverWillis.Com
An Operative with an Agenda
Ahem.
Jose, can you see
By the dawn's early light....
-JD
I don't feel like writing a long rant here since I've discussed this with so many people so many times, but I really feel I must respond to the constant trashing the biotech industry gets from people who don't really know what is going on. Most of these people have uninformed opinions which are unfortunately widely disseminated, read, discussed, and used as foundation for other people's opinions. These silly memes are really spreading like a "scary mistakenly-made bio-engineered virus". Biotech companies ARE trying to make money, but they aren't going to make money trying to push eugenics on everyone. We aren't even LOOKING at trying to make a 'perfect human', we are looking at diseases and understanding life processes and how to keep them working in the face of various forms of malfunction. Here is the main thing people don't get: Everything is done very precisely and carefully. We don't just throw a bunch of DNA in a vat or mix genes randomly. We find certain sites of interest (often called 'targets') and study them. Then pharmaceutical companies see if they can make a useful drug for the given 'target'.
I think raising fear about genetic research is just too easy for many 'journalists'; they do it without really looking into what they are talking about, just spew what they think MIGHT be happening, it attracts readers and discussion I guess. I have nothing against informed opinions, but I see NO evidence that Jon Katz knows what the hell is going on in genetic research besides what he reads in other mainstream press.
It us understandable to be surly sometimes.
You say that because you're not the one under the yoke. You don't live in the Brazilian rainforest and watch the cattle that end up in micky d's in a new field every two years, a couple miles closer to your home. And that's just one example, we could go into more.
You suggesting United Fruit was good because all they did was offer to sell you fruit? Oh, yeah, and destroy democracy and prop up murderous regimes in all those countries that don't matter...
He is equating a vandalizing french farmer to the men who began the American Revolution. That's fine except McDonalds is in no way oppressing the farmer.
That really impresses me. He is standing up for the victims, even though he is not one. How long did it take all these proud white American revolutinaries to notice that they had been treating black people like cattle? The time span between the revolution and the emancipation proclamation was pretty long...
It's easy to stand up to oppression when you are the victim, but not so badly oppressed that you haven't got more guns than your oppressor. It's harder to stand up when the people you are trying to mobilize are the oppressing class.
And that's whate Bove is trying to do - bring the crimes of oppression to the attention of the oppressors, who after all might have to do without some things if they stopped those crimes.
What is the robbing of a bank, compared to the founding of a bank? -- Bertolt Brecht
Why we should consider a luddite as a hero? Biotech, corporations and the like help our world progress and our technology improve... or should all of us revert to farming, like Jose?
Micky D's is considered the first wave of the invading corporate US culture, and it's seen as the first step in homoganizing European culture, all in the name of the lowest common (financial) denominator.
The French are quite passonate about their culture. Frankly I suspect they would rather allow some of their people to starve or live in poverty than lose their culture. This is not a bad thing per se; just a different value system than the one we have in the United States.
See, in the United States, the problem is not "multi-nationals" or the "corporate culture" as Katz keeps pounding out as some sort of repetitve chant. The problem is that in our ingenuity and our drive to make money, we try to cater to the lowest common denominator of the masses without regards to regional or parochial concerns. After 50 years of studying just in time distribution models and studies in retail competition, we've succeeded in creating more goods for more people at a cheaper price point than at any time in history. Now, even the poorest in the United States can afford a color television, mass-produced jewelry, mass-produced art and many other trappings which used to be reserved for the middle class. We've also reached a state of affairs where you cannot tell if you've walked into a shopping mall in Atlanta or in Los Angeles--because they're the same stores and the same layout with the same color scheme.
The French abhor this bland uniformity. To them, this sort of uniformity in the name of catering to the lowest common denominator is a form of walking death.
And so they protest. And they protest the signs of this bland uniformity, a MacDonalds which strives for such conformity that you couldn't tell a quarter pounder made in a MacDonalds in Japan from one made in Kentucky.
I'm sure there are other issues which drove Jose specifically to be pissed at the United States. The world seems full of people who hate the US with a passion for one reason or another, some of it perceived, some of it real. Knowing though that MacDonalds represents everything the French abhor about the United States, at least you can understand why he attacked one.
This is just unbelievable. A few months ago JonKatz was complaining that chat rooms and online discussion forums are too hostile and here he is celebrating a man whose form of protest is to destroy the property of those he disagrees with.
I wonder if Katz will feel the same way when they come to smash his home.
If you feel the world is becoming too corporate, drop out. It's been done before. Small communities of like minded people will form and become self suficiant. Communes are not a new idea, but probably an idea who's time has finally come.
I am sick and tired of watered down culture myself. In my home town of Oklahoma City(Big Cow City) the local's voted the Outback Steakhouse as the best steak in town. How can a chain restraunt be the best in a town that was practically built on cows?
Walmart, Starbucks, Outback Steakhouse, Barnes and Noble, Borders, etc, etc.. All these companies are puting real people out of business.
Drop out, remove yourself from the grid. See if you like it better that way.
These hackers are just thiefs trying to steal videos so the movie makes can't make money. Do you know of any pirated movie movie on the internet? Ummm....They just want to break the law.
This CPHack program is to let kids see porn! But are the sites bocked so, they can't can't get to it and it's easily bypassable already? Umm...They are trying to corrupt our children.
These crackpots are telling lies about us!!! What statements are untrue? Ummmm...they are making inflamatory statements causing us losses! What losses are you having? Ummm...the statements are untrue.
Fight Spammers!
Now I hate you, Jon.
For most of us non-US -people, the 4th of July doesn't mean a thing. It's something we like to watch from distance and chuckle.
But this is too much. Saying a French upholds American values, and is therefore a hero of the day almost literally makes me sick.
The final words, "Happy independence day, Jose" were the last straw. France has it's own independence day, for Pete's sake!
I'm not even French, but the über-American attitude gives me the creeps.
[ Antti Rasinen ]
I saw this story on BBC World. What he did was gather a mob and demolish a McDonald's that was about 3/4 constructed. Hey, you can demonstrate all you want, but when you get violent, you are nothing better than a |33+ script kiddie.
Oh, those French... they really are wacky. [j/k]
They roam wild in many parts of France and can be hunted (la chasse aux fromages) or caught in traps baited with crusty white bread. Intensively farmed cheeses are cheaper but lack the flavour and health-giving properties of the wild cheese.
They do? They most certainly have interesting ways to demonstrate this. Moving production into the export processing zones in the third world where the local labor laws, much laxer than those in the western world, are viewed mainly as a guideline and where the factories don't pay taxes, most certainly doesn't increase anyone's prosperity except the shareholders'.
Or perhaps the McJobs bring riches to the teeming masses of consumers? Yeah, that must be it. Temps and part-timers who are paid something that is barely above the minimum wage aren't exactly happy customers.
You talk about taking classes - what about the people with university degrees selling coffee at Starbucks? A few classes, eh, so that they would be more employable, and could get real jobs? That must be the solution.
I'm not saying we should return to protectionism, I don't consider that much of a better option. But the transnationals aren't out there to make everyone's lifes better; they are building brands (and shoving those brands down our throats) while getting rid of production capability in favor of subcontractors in Indonesia, China, etc, to maximize profits and shareholder value. And while violence against your local McD franchise isn't probably the solution to world's problems (might get you the fifteen minutes of fame, though), neither is the current situation some utopian dream come true.
Socialism is the political expression of the principle of human interdependence. It embodies the idea that as members of the human-race, we are all essentially responsible for one another: we have an obligation of mutual support and share a reciprocal bond which binds us together for our collective protection and maintenance. On a theory level it is a beautiful thing: Altruism and love for the fellow man. In practice it is the difficult to digest political economy. I only state this as an American. Socialism has a greater appeal to the masses in the third world. That does not mean it cannot be applied here. Expressed in a religious sense, it embodies the proposition that in order to fulfill one's obligation to the Creator (Divine Source, God or Nature) one must necessarily fulfill the commandment to serve one's fellow creatures. It also embodies the principle that the physical possessions which are bestowed, albeit temporarily, upon mankind are for the benefit of everyone, not being confined to the exclusive use of a privileged section of society. Thus we are to work together as stewards of this great gift we call Earth. It was R. Buckminster Fuller that once stated: 'land ownership is a relic of the feudal monarchy'. Bucky was right on target with social theory, and had been inspired to create in that arena.
Socialism has been discredited as a workable political philosophy, and is considered by some to be no longer fashionable. This is the prevalent view of most political commentators and is certainly the opinion of those affluent individuals who occupy the driving seats of the various governments which are running the world at the present time. Unfortunately for the capitalist, socialism has a tendency to stick around. The reason for this is the fact that socialism is the expression of a basic principle of humanity: the fundamental and undeniable equality of the mass of mankind. In spite of the disapproval, there are, and always will be, a minority of thinking people who comprehend the essential validity of the idea: "....all men are created equal." This quotation, no doubt, rings a bell somewhere within the faint and subconscious recollection of those who dwell in the, "Land of the Free!". If men are, fundamentally, equal, then they are entitled, as of right, to an equal share of the good things of life. Capitalism will not submit: profits must be made, otherwise we go under. The richest rewards are in armaments: therefore, they will be produced and men will kill themselves much more efficiently that ever before. Politicians in the USA and elsewhere, are the product of a militarist/capitalist system: they have been educated within that philosophy and can see no other solution to the economic problems facing mankind.
In the past, we have allowed self-interested, opportunistic politicians to trick us into thinking that they were interested in the public at large. Now is the time for working-class people, of all nations, to begin to think for ourselves and not merely to leave that to others, whom we have thought were cleverer than we ourselves. Now, more than ever before, is there a need for workers to unite against the enemy within. These are those puppets of International Capitalism who have been so busy undermining and destroying the essential rights and privileges of working-class people everywhere. We are still in the majority: we have the vote: we should, indeed, unite and elect representatives who will honestly and dutifully fulfill the mandate of the people. Those who profess to work for the people under the banner of a "Labor" Party will need to return to the traditional socialist policies of a Working-Class political party. The only alternative is the formation of new parties, dedicated to the establishment of socialist principles.
pronoblem
Throwing somebody else's perfectly good tea in the harbor was vandalism too. Do you think the fireworks are a coincidence? The founding fathers took King George's property. Religion aside, our founding fathers have alot in common with what the media calls "muslim terrorists".
That account of the Declaration of Independence signers is bogus. Read this factual analysis of the too often quoted, anonymous text. (Scroll to middle of page to see the corrections.)
I'm not sure about the first world war, but Britain was holding its own during World War II. Germany had plans to invade, but decided not to after they lost so many planes in the Battle of Britain. If you remember, we were the ones too cowardly to go and help until we started getting attacked.
I'm so glad as well as a little surprised you decided to talk about this man Jon.
I was there in Millau among the 50,000 or 80,000 human beings gathered under the motto "The World Is Not For Sale.". Ambiance was incredible, everybody was kind to others, and the powerful feeling that we can do something against the marketization of life was in the air.
I can't tell you about American Values, but World Citizenship values were definitely there. Yes, healthcare, education, welfare, local identities and customs, free speech, etc are anything but marketable concepts. And yes, multinational trusts and Almighty Money try to have them under control these days.
I am rather addicted to the Internet, to Slashdot et al, and I am a Free Software aficionado too, but I don't run for stock-options and I don't agree with the ultra liberal freaks that will lead us to sell our mother, our soul and Earth for a few more 0 on a bank account.
Thank you Jon, I usually don't read your columns because I used to find them too American-centric. Not today
BTW, have a look at the IndyMedia network (this link is for France, covering Jose Bove's story). There is life after CNN...
--
gdon
I agree with the premise of the book, but disagree with most of your post.
First, this is a democracy. The problem is the corruption of democracy by big money. If you think this is an American problem, you are dead wrong. If I read the article correctly a farmer in France is rebelling against a multinational, in this case, an American multinational. It sounds like the French are falling asleep on the job too. ( along with the English, German, Russian, Japanese, etc ) Where was this farmer and the rest of the French when this deal was inked?
Second, our government is doing fine. People say we are moving away from the Bill of Rights as if right after it was signed we were all freely getting high, having sex in every flavor, reading whatever we wanted, and worshiping the god(s) or object of our choice without persecution. Never have the people in this country been more free, if anything we are working toward the vision that our founding fathers laid out, not the opposite.
So what is the problem? Corruption. No one in America believes they have a voice anymore, everyone knows the government is corrupt, everyone knows big business is screwing us. We know we are not free! The people in this country, and the rest of the world that hasn't already joined them ( but soon will ), are so buried in corruption, or atleast the idea of it, that it seems utterly futile to even fight it. That, and anymore it is not in anyone's best interest to fight it because you probably work for one of these corporations now. And besides, people are happy right? They've got their new home in the new tree-less development, a home which looks just like their neighbors, with the token SUV in the driveway, and on and on.. In a nutshell, corporations are evil, and we've grown far too dependant on their services. I wish I had the answers, but I'm just a corporate whore like most of you. I have my automobile, my DSL, my air-conditioning, my groceries from the supermarket, and my Diablo II, and I'm kept just content enough to sit back and take it with a smile.
Stupider like a fox! - H.S.
Here in Cleveland the RMH is a wonderful hospital for children (part of the University Hospital Systems). RMH provides amazing care for children who otherwise would have to spend most of their lives in sterile hospital beds next to 90 year old heart patients. They also provide entertainment, recreation, and rehabilitation. Now granted it is not free or anything, but many of the facilities there would not exist without the McDonald's corporation. Sure they are big business and we are supposed to hate them, but at least here, they are doing the Right Thing(tm).
Rev.Marc.
> "Give the anarchist a cigarette"
> - Alice Nutter, Chumbawamba
Did you know it was Bob Dylan who originally said that, and who Chumbawumbe are referring to?
I'm hazy on the details, but it's something like: He was in the back of a limo being carted away from a gig and someone (his manager?) told him (referring to the crowds outside) "hey, they think you're an anarchist". Dylan replied, "come on then, give the anarchist a cigarette".
Sorry, I've been wanting to write this every time I see your sig. I finally cracked!
:-)
http://www.gimbo.org.uk/
This is a hoax, see this thread where slashdot's own Michael Sims says that its nothing but a troll. This is just some kind of sick mind-game.
Shine on, you crazy diamond.
I've lived up and down the US East Coast, and what you're missing in Baltimore is missing all over the place here. I'm in Boston, now, where you can still find some good food, but you have to look.
The worst part is, the McDs costs the same as the local sub shops, but people still eat at McDs! Seems to me someone should mention to the French they're not the only ones suffering...
-jpowers
-jpowers
He also embodies what used to be considered American values.
What, using violence as a means to get what you want without concern for the consequences or ethics? If that's what you mean Jon, then I fully agree that he's a role model for the history and "values" of the US, a nation which started a bloody revolution over taxes.
---
Jon E. Erikson
Jon Erikson, IT guru
You don't think that McD's ships beef and potatoes from the US over to France to turn into burgers and fries, do you?
That "local farmer" protesting against McD's is fighting to destory a _huge_ market for locally grown FRENCH beef and produce. And French beer, I might add, since one can get a cold draught in McD's on the continent.
What exactly is wrong with allowing market forces to take care of your enemies? If he doesn't like McDonald's, and can convince his friends, family, and neighbors to not eat there, then McDonald's will not stay very long. If the restaurant becomes unprofitable, then the corporate office will close it, or the franchisee will lose money, and will look for ways to get rid of the franchise. Since this hasn't happened, then we can only assume that enough people are eating at the store to maintain it. This seems to me to be the purest form of democracy possible. Certainly, those that are opposing the restaurant are more vocal, but if they are not numerous enough to stop the store from profitting, then they cannot win.
Mr. Katz, you seem to have missed the one thing that you could have honored Mr. Bove for: free trade. But, that point presents an obvious hypocracy. Mr. Bove, as stated in your article, protested against U.S. duties on cheese. There, he is fighting for a world dominated by free trade, which is the best for all. However, we later see that Mr. Bove is one of the many who support selective free trade, in which everyone wants their native products to be protected with tariffs, but protests when their exports are subjected to similar tariffs.
Another point you seem to miss is that small farmers are _not_ automatically heros. At this point in time, with this many people on the planet, small farmers cannot continue. They simply cannot produce food as efficiently as a larger farmer can. This appears to me as a benefit for the larger producer. Why should prices for food be artificially inflated to protect the interests of a small number of people? This clearly works against the principles of capitalism as well, as it denies an informed consumer the choice to either the lower priced industrially produced food, or the higher priced food produced by small farmer.
Finally, I've decided that I must now vote my mind on the subject, and set my user profile to no longer show stories by you. I doubt that slashdot monitors this, so there are no market forces for you to fear.
Yeah, don`t eat there. I never ever did, but there seem to be more of them every time I look.
From most of the reactions, and aside form this Jose Bove`s actions, I learn that this issue is really a matter of culture. Most people here argue that 'those european or french people shouldn`t get upset about what america is selling them' and just simply adapt, use free markets to battle etc..
While I can certainly understand the concerns about europeans turning into maddening murderers and pillagers all the time (like some seem to suggest), I don`t think it`s fair to react like this at all.
The issue at hand is not McDonnalds, and it`s not this peasant going bankrupt because he don`t farm like US farmers do. It`s about people being concerned about their quality and trying to fight for their bread on the shelve when their government doesn`t do enough of it for them . Sadly, they go about doing it the wrong way, but that doesn`t make the message any less important.
And yes, it`s about quality. The thing that matters when you eat. Europe happens to be very conservative when it comes to that, because we`re very proud of our food (or at least we used to be). Just like our paysants shouldn`t go and burn McDonnalds`es when they feel like it, you have to respect our choices to disallow manipulated food.
To change the train of thought for a minute: I thought everybody was so concerned with software quality here, so concerned, in fact, that even big companies should opensource their entire software pack. Ditch the capitalistic minded market, all for better quality. But when a rather large part of the world is concerned with the quality of food, hey, please adapt and accept our cheap and ultra efficiently grown capitalist alternatives ? That`s plain hypocritical.
No, health quality and economic wealth are opposite interests. If a paysant destroys property, he`s simply a criminal, and should be punished ? Yes! Arguing that europe should therefore just buy american to prevent thier citizens from protesting against american multinationals ? No! damnit.
With great power comes great electricity bills.
...then you should be terrified of the government. Personally, in comparison to the gov't, I find corporations are to be rather harmless (which is a drastic oversimplification, but it's just to make a point). McDonalds only makes me vomit if I choose to buy it and eat it. MS Frontpage only drives me insane if I choose to buy it and use it. The gov't fucks me whether I ask them to or not.
Without someone bigger bullying them around (i.e. the government), they have almost no accountability for their actions.
And tell me who holds the gov't accountable for it's actions? More gov't. Isn't that convient...
The whole idea that people can control the actions of corporations by single-handedly not purchasing from them is ridiculous. That's why corporations are so dangerous.
Who ever said that one or a few people should be able to bring down a corporation. That, my friend, is ridiculous. You weren't born stupid, so stop acting that way.
Like justin_cave said people either agree, disagree, are ignorant, or don't care. I'm not going to stop someone from eating McDonalds if that's what they want. And as much as I may like to, I'm not going to stop anyone from using FrontPage.
Anyway, why should you care if there is a McD's down the street anyway. They are not going to force feed you. What a stupid fucking crusade. With all the shit going on, all over the world, some dirt farmer at war with McDonalds is the least of our problems. I mean, really, get a life.
>I don't want to generalize
and then you generalize
really good speaking there bro!
almost political eh?
quit your meaningless baffle schmuck!
*y2k -Azathoths minions had it coming*
Unfortunately, Jose forgot to go after the storm troopers who apparently are forcing people at gunpoint to consume corporatist comestibles.
Has it ever occurred to anti-corporatists that these establishments are successful because they meet a demand? Who appointed them the guardians of what goods and services should be available? From 1945-1989 we had several great examples of the 'benefits' of a command-control economic policy. Thanks, but no thanks, I'll take the market.
P.S. My family owned a small television-appliance store that went out of business because of the large electronics retailiers. We moved on and found other means of earning a living, and I buy my electroncs from those same large retailers and enjoy the variety and prices. Life is Darwinian. Deal with it.
And the majority wants WINDOWS ! And then along come some intellectual (RMS, ESR, etc) who think they know what people want, and what is best. But people know better. Windows is good for people. People want Windows. People want talking paperclip. People want AOL. People want to say "moo, mooooooh". People run in pack. People act like lemmings.
> The happy fat masses will always rule, because they are the majority.
"Democracy is the dictature of the mass over the minorities." That's why minorities and intellectual (yes, José Bové is an intellectual) must act spectacularly to get coverage for there thoughts and conditions. They can symbolically unconstruct an unfinished McDonald restaurant, for example.
sigmentation fault
I agree that they would like us to be rich and prosperous, but they don't necessarily want us to be free to think, have choices or to protect the environment.
They would like us to be controlled by advertising, have no choice but their company.
And they would like to use natural resources to make money as fast as possible, rather than conserve them.
Doesn't this make sense from a "company's point of view"? Does it make sense from our point of view?
stay frosty and alert
Got a beef? Plug a name into the Bizarre Rumour Generator!
I'm really disappointed to see that you have
... Stuff that matters ?
...
...) ? They deteriorate
been brainwashed by this affair like most
french medias.
I am really sick of reading about this guy
in each french newspaper. I come to slashdot,
and what can I read ?
A story about jose bove
The french farmers are heavily subsidized (in
addition to the european subsidy layer), they
may noise to get money, it's that simple.
What can a TV seller do when TV prices drop ?
Try to do his job better, reduces his costs,
What do french farmers do when the least
problems occurs (if it's too rainy, too dry,
too hot, too cold, prices drop, "unfair"
competition,
administrative buildings, macdos or anything
which is likely to be seen on the news.
And get money. French farmers are almost
state-employed.
Your independance day deserves more than that.
Alain Tésio
tesio@easynet.fr
Unfortunately, after reading the "editorial" twice, I still can't figure out what specifically MacDonalds or the US, did to poor Jose. What would posess him to attack a unfinished restaraunt? And if it's just because you don't like taxes, or multi-national conglomerates, thats too bad. Taxes are a fact of life, as are conglomerates. Corporations aren't gaining anything by duties paid on items imported. And more countries than the United States have them.
Jon, I DID read this article, TWICE, and I still can't figure out why I should feel bad for this person. I don't agree with his actions. Now if I knew why he did what he did, I might feel differently. Your writing style assumes that I either know exactly what or who you are talking about, or just agree blindly in your hatred of corporate america (or just america for that matter).
Jarod
Jon Katz is at it again. Jon can't you please take out the sensationalism?
But I have one question:
Are we maybe just in a Individualistic timebubble?
If you go back only a hundred years, during the Industrial Revolution, individualism just did not exist as the people worked 14 hours a day to barely make a living. And if you look at the Middle Ages the masses didn't enjoy individuality either. Painters from that time didn't even sign their pictures as that was considered heretic.
So are we just going back to the old way of doing things?
But maybe you'd like to also remember the people who've been killed by people using McDonalds as a "symbol". BBC News report from May 2nd on the fatal bombing of a French McDonalds.
"You know you want me baby!" - Crow T Robot
I am going to have to strongly disagree with your condemnation of multinational corporations. These large corporations may enter new markets of name recognition, but they compete successfully on price. By standardizing across many outlets and buying in bulk, they can offer a product of similar or higher quality at a lower price. Consider, for instance, the large infrastructure investment McDonalds needed to make while opening their Moscow location just to get fresh vegetables and non-rotten potatoes. I don't see your objection as being any different than the complaints about mass production during the Industrial Revolution.
The future I see has the large multinationals providing the basics - fast food, groceries, etc. Regional cuisines and delicacies will move upstream, differentiating based on preparation times, quality, or presentation.
One more thing: if these protestors are so concerned about multinationals, why aren't they protesting the large conglomerate Unilever (a nearby Dutch company)?
Given one hour to live, the student replied: "I'd spend it with professor FP who can make an hour seem like a lifetime."
They're the only place to eat dinner tonight on the fourth of July for those of us slaving away on business objects all day!
funny that this was moderated down
kind of tells you where the moderators stand
*y2k -Azathoths minions had it coming*
OK, now I'm a calmed down a bit, I can back my flamebait by facts (Tx Google).
Here is a link to Le Monde, the French reference paper (say the Times for England, or the Herald Tribune for the USA). All the facts about this bombing and who did it are HERE !
The site you'r linking to is very closely related to a political association who's preaching ultra-liberalism. They're too tainted to be trusted, nothing close to the widely recognized objectivity of Le Monde ("The World" if you can't speak French).
Peace.
--
gdon
Almost everyone who has been through public education in America in the last 50 years or so has, in the process of creating obediant, conformist children, said, "I Pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, (blah, blah, blah)." Pure "Democracy" == Majority rule == Bad Idea.
Second, our government is doing fine.
everyone knows the government is corrupt
FFFish said "Things aren't as charming as you've been brainwashed to believe: you are not free, it is not a democracy, and your government is slowly but surely destroying the Constitution and Bill of Rights." I think you missed his points. You are the victim of a partial brainwashing - you believe you live in freedom, yet you know that all is not well in Wonderland (see above quotes). Maybe today's oppressors allow more freedom than yesterday's, but that doesn't mean that we are magically "free" today. Freedom is the right to Life, Liberty, and the Persuit of Happiness. Most people believe that Liberty is merely the freedom from bodily restraint and the right to free speach and to protest. Liberty is much more than that though...
"... The term Liberty...denotes not merely freedom from bodily restraint, but also the right of the individual to contract, to engage in any of the common occupations of life, to acquire useful knowledge, to marry, to establish a home and bring up children, to worship God according to the dictates of his/her own conscience.. The established doctrine is that this liberty may not be interfered with, under the guise of protecting public interest, by legislative action.."
- Meyer V. Nebraska, 262, U.S. 390, 399, 400.
Today many of the "common occupations of life" are interfered with/restricted/prohibited by "government" under the guise of protecting public interest, by legislative action. Drugs, Motoring around in an automobile ("Driver's License"), Sex (Prostitution, etc), Education (compulsory), etc. Sure, sometimes good things can come from a few of these interferances by government into these "common occupations of life," but that cannot justify government taking away my cherished personal liberty. I want to live a life free from terrorist bureaucrats who desire nothing more than to protect me from myself and make sure their rules are followed to the letter.
If you have any comments/questions, feel free to send me some E-mail.
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
If he had not resorted to vandalism you would not
have sympathy for him because you would never have
heard of him. Sometime you have to do what you
have to to get things stirred up.
Gee if only I'd had a time machine.
Sig pending!
Of course, if they engage in predatory behavior, they will lose the right to sell Roquefort in the US. Pretty nifty, huh.
Predatory behaviors, like refusing to ingurgitate cancer inducing artificial hormon-grown beef? Yeah, we should really feel bad about that.
The very fact that the response rate to this thread is so high only means one thing : If he hadn`t done it, people wouldn`t even consider that there could be a problem.
Sometimes history asks for actions which go beyond the abc textbook of comformant laws. Now, I think that french dude shouldn`t get too excited about what he did, but clearly some people think this commercial food game that is played over our heads should be tied down to more thourough inspection, at least, I think that is his primary message. He doesn`t have a problem with anybody called McDonnalds or even with hamburgerfood, he`s simply had it with the american food industry & lobby, which simply takes away his bread on the shelve.
If all you knew was farming, you`d probably try to protect that too.
And if you were a stupid farmer, you might even do it his way. It simply takes blood and destruction to get some measely minutes in the evening news. Thank you to the media for that one.
No, he isn`t right, but that don`t make McDonnalds right either, even if they are the perfect happy company selling perfect happy meals every prefect happy day.
With great power comes great electricity bills.
Like much of popular american history this story is much exagerated.
For a full debunking read http://www.ctssar.org/articles/price_paid.htm
Alex
American beef can enter the country ... as long as it's grown (and provably so) without added hormons, just like European beef ... how is that unfair?
/me ducks
---------///----------
--
I like to watch.
Just a quick observation or two...
This is one of Katz's better pieces, partially for its brevity (I believe in being concise), and partly because this is one of my favourite subects.
People seldom understand when I attack this Proud Nation of ours for its hypocrisy- 'Brazil' is coming true, and we're all marching happily to the Corporate Tune.
On the lighter side... Katz could use a better editor. No, I'm NOT a Troll! Criticism is the only way any of us can improve, right? Anyhoo, lines like, "He may well be a prophet as well." with its redundant and fragmentary failings, shouldn't be allowed to mar an otherwise excellent document.
~wmaheriv
~wmaheriv
"Shema Yisroel- Adonai Elohenu, Adonai Echad!"
The French always seem to bitch about agricultural things if it even remotely has something to do with poor France versus the rest of civilization. It was the lobbying of French farmers that caused the now-EU to force through the CAP, which successfully turned the clock back fifty years on Euroagriculture. They were the ones to complain about antibiotics and steroids in American beef (even when testing proved that levels in the finished product were negligible to non-existent). And their running war with Britain over anything that can be grown or raised is a joke in agribusiness around the world (as a quality supervisor in the meat and poultry industry, I watch this kind of stuff carefully).
And what's their target when it's the Americans who offend? McDonalds. Every single time, it's McDonalds. This guy's initial complaint was about US duties on Roquefort cheese. Funny, but last time I walked into Mickey D's and ordered a Quarter Pounder with Cheese (or would that be a Hamburger Royale?), I wasn't asked if I wanted the cheese to be Swiss, Gruyere, or Roquefort. I got good old pasteurized, processed American cheese food product on it. So what is McDonalds' sin? It's not part of the French "culture", and France has a tradition of denigrating other cultures. In fact, from the French people I've known, xenophobia is a point of pride among them.
Speaking as an American, we don't have a native culture and cuisine that go back a thousand years. We have to create our own. McDonalds is an aspect of our culture. As for its supposed culinary sins, the protests are coming from a country that:
1) Considers snails to be a delicacy.
2) Considers fungus rooted up by hogs to be a delicacy (and grinds it up with goose liver to produce a paste that's pound for pound more expensive than heroin and tastes worse).
3) Attempted to foist roast pigeon on the world.
4) Invented the concept of microscopic portions at macroscopic prices and called it "nouvelle cuisine" in order to sucker in the pretentious rich people.
In other words, to all the French out there, thanks for that nice statue, and glad that we could save your collective ass twice in the Twentieth Century, but don't throw bricks in glass houses when it comes to culinary culture.
If using Linux is about choice, how come people complain when I choose to use Windows?
A person is just about as big as the things that make them angry.
Errrrmmmm but I'm British, so I have every right to criticise.
If you expect people to respect your property rights, you have to respect the property rights of others. If he doesn't like McDonald's, he should educated others as to why they should not patronize their restaurants. He has no right to simply destroy their property.
This might be the all-time worst trollish JonKatz post.
--
Or thanks to the wonders of corruption, lobbying and other palm greasings: Shouldn't we rather speak about a mongol horde under the command of a mugger?
Say no to software patents.
"I think you should do what jefferson said (it is your civic duty to break bad laws)" Jeferson also tried to Invade Canada (When the majority of the inhabatents were revolutionary refugees.) Jeferson also owned slaves...or wait was slavery a GOOD law....even though he found slavery repulsive. He talked a good talk, but lets face it, He did not live up to it "but why is it wrong to vandalize a place which commits such horrible wage slavery" Mostly because when you vandalise something you don't really accomplish anything. Lets say I walked in to a Gap with a hand granade and tossed it. What whould happen. The store would shut down for a day new stock would come in form wherever, paid for by the insurance company. Nothing really changes. True it didn't hurt anyone, but it didn't help anyone either But lets just say that you convince not force people not to buy GAP clothing. All of a sudden you have change for a positive world. Companies that make non-exploiteve clothing would get sales. People would examine there own lives. This is thebegining of change It is the hardest way, but to do it any other way leads to Facism and intolerance. Which is right back where we are now. I doubt there will ever be a time when every (wo)man will have equil power in all decisions. I am not entirely convinced that they should. "So when I watch the completely biased media report on what anarchist do (it's certainly gonna be biased because we are against they very companies who pay for these news channels)" Oh right like the ONLY people who the NEWS is biased agenst are anarchists. We will just ignore Goths, Skins, Blacks, Arabs, Hispanics and just about everyone else who is different. Nope It's just YOU. Spare Me.
Yes I can not spell...Wait....for a second there I almost cared.
They both serve up something nasty.
I really cannot stand McDonald's food, it is utter crap.
"God prevent we should ever be twenty years without a revolution." -- Thomas Jefferson
> I mean, the French have traditionally been quite
> nationalistic.
Blabla. Cliches. The French never elected a nationalistic government. What's more important, the French are the most active and enthusiastic when it comes to the European construction and integration.
The French don't put national flags on the front of their houses as the people in that other narcissic country (oops, sorry, when Americans do that, it's "patriotism", when French do that, it's "nationalism"). According to an American writer, "the French are the most international people". Note also that the kind of collective fanatism one can observe during a 4th of July in America is far more scary than gentle festivities during a 14th of July in France. Been there, seen that.
Note also that French newspapers don't have anti-Anglo Saxon articles, while English tabloids and American "serious" journals regularly publish their usual francophobic stereotypes (on issues like language, business, government, attitude, etc...). Even last week, I read an article in the "New York Observer" about the purchase of Seagram by Vivendi. Boy, it was incredibly hateful: replace in this kind of article, which are very common in the US, "French" by "Jews" of "Blacks", and you have a real scandal. But, for some reason, French-bashing is politically correct. And, contrary to what some of you might think, American or English-bashing is absolutely not politically correct in France, far from it. When there is a rebellion against the American domination, the point is not America, the point is the fear of a "for-profit" society, to put it in a simple way.
Oh, of course, there is the usual language issue. Well, first, if you think a minority of conservative French politicians are representative of the average French pesron (the vast majority of French _do_ speak fairly good English), you're just wrong. Second, may be Americans could show the way by switching to the metric system, for example, hmmm? It should be easier to do than changing the language which has been used for 1500 years and which has been the driving force behind the nation's unity... and it makes more sense, too: while it is almost impossible to claim the superiority of one language over another one, it's easier to realize that the imperial system is absurdly complex and archaic.
I guess some of us in countries other than the United States sometimes see Americans as a reflex of those big corps. Reading through some of the comments I see how far this is from the truth.
I believe we cannot trust government or corps, just the citizens, the good people out there, just like you and I.
Greetings to US Citizens fo their Independence Day
PS: Mine is tomorrow (5 jul)
Hugonz
... have been going bankrupt in the United States at an alarming rate. The small family farm is nearly extinct in the US, but we would still prosecute a vandal. Truely the economic fortunes of the a particular business do not give the practitioners of that business any additional rights. If you are running a business (farm) and it is not making money, then change your business. Pick a new crop or get out of farming, but don't go down the road and destroy the corporate farm or business.
The fact is that large scale farming in the US is more economically efficient. So, family farms must get bigger, find a new market (organic), or parish. This is the way our system works, as does the global economy.
None of this justifies violence. As soon as you begin to allow this, what stops you from saying individuals should use violence for other economically difficult situations? A new grocery opens and you find yourself (also a grocer) under new competition. Can you justify destroying the competition's propery? If it is owned by a multinational corp?
I don't think so. Bove' is just a vandal and should be treated as such.
Troy
cheese geek - it's got a kind of ring to it, don't you think? Better update the Katz Filter...
Can your IM do this?
Maybe people in the US don't hear about things which happen in Europe, but the French are notorious for vandalism. They regularly block lorries coming from the UK, often burning or spoiling the contents of the lorries, usually produce from Britain. The French police usually sit by and do nothing about this blatant disregard for the law.
So, what are we supposed to do here? Applaud someone who seems to believe that wanton destruction of a companies' assets is going to make one bit of a difference to the US government's trade practices?
--
Consumers should have a right to not pay high prices for goods.
I got into an argument the other night at a party with someone who was from one of the West Indian banana republics. Brittain, which was a former colonial overlord, used to encourage imports of bananas from his country and place inordinately high tarriffs on imports from other countries.
The WTO deemed that illegal and they are not allowed to place inordinately high tarriffs anymore. So the banana farmers in the West Indies can't compete anymore, they claim.
You could go on about evil corporations screwing poor banana farmers, but the bottomline remains that consumers in Brittain now have the right to choose what bananas they will buy.
If they choose to buy the cheaper bananas and thereby hurt the West Indians, it is their RIGHT to do so. Consumers have the right to buy the cheapest product available and not have to pay artificially high prices.
I picked this example because it represents an extreme case where the WTO is screwing the poor. In most cases, such as where it requires Indian textile exports be allowed an equal footing with those from Brittain by barring similar tarriffs, it actually benefits the poor countries.
I stand by my belief that opening up the global markets, while causing some pain in the short term, will in the long term benefit the world - just like when Russia freed its economy - there was short term pain, but in the long run it will lead to a stronger economy.
It's not in the interests of the richer countries or corporations to see abject poverty in third-world countries. It is in their interests to see greater wealth there so those people can buy their products and make them wealthier. This is the reason why several corporations choose to invest in these countries.
Mmmm.. Donuts
A couple questions.
Even though he isn't an American citizen, he's got a pretty good grip on what used to be considered American values, and is thus an Independence Day icon for the increasingly-resented United States, the Corporate Republic's world headquarters.
I'm missing something. Jose Bove fights against a multinational corporation - for which I applaud him - and is thus ascribed "American values"? What are these values (whether or not they still exist)? Why do they have to be "American"? The men in 1776 didn't have a problem with trade, they had a problem with taxes (and the stirrings of abolitionism). I fail to see any valid connection.
Corporatism['s]...primary target is individualism, its primary enemy individualists --which means hackers, programming entrpeneurs, renegade teachers, small businessmen and farmers like Bove, odd-ball filmmakers.
So these now-past American values include individualism? I don't think so. If by individualists you mean non-conformists, then maybe yes. However, most of the people you list there and as Bove's supporters are working from within a collective and cooperative framework, the most familiar example being the OS development community.
Jon, I see where you're going with this, and I think that with more thought it might have been quite a strong point. I think your praise of people like Bove and the comparison you draw between such activists and hackers et al. is an interesting one. But why the hell did you have to drag in the good ole U.S.ofA. and the tired crap about freedom? (Freedom in this version seems to have been invented by those guys in Philly...) It's a glaringly weak point in an otherwise potentially interesting piece -- it introduces thoughtless jingoism. Combine that with the confusion over individualism (which edges dangerously close to the libertoons) and nonconformity/cooperative work, and the piece ends up rather mushy and obscurely irritating, rather than thought-provoking. Save me from rhetoric I could hear in any elementary school around Memorial Day.
A thoughtful comparison between the WTO protesters and hackers into open source would be more than welcome on this screen, however. Maybe I'll try...
--
this is not my beautiful wife. TH
"Perhaps Bove will sail over here when AOL/Time-Warner opens its first franchise office in the United States and give us all an example to live by."
So you're advocating violence as an answer to corporatism. Personally I'd rather follow Gandi's lead. How about symbolically binning all those free AOL CD's outside the franchise? I think you could make quite a large pile.
Sig pending!
As someone else already pointed out, the attack that resulted in a death was not attributed to him.
Also, France doesn't boycott US meat, it boycotts unlabeled hormone-containing meat. The US knows clearly that meat from animals raised hormone-laced food or genetically altered produce don't go down well with consumers, so against the interest of openness they press the rest of the world to accept these foods unlabeled.
In retaliation for the fact that France doesn't exclude the US from compliance with food laws, the US puts a 100% tariff on several typical French food items that threaten the existence of small producers (probably hoping that these producers will lobby the government to allow unsafe food from the US to enter)
If Europe doesn't import a lot of food from third-world countries because it doesn't live up to the host of regulations about food, then why should we import unsafe (because unlabeled, anti-choice) food from the worlds richest nation?
EJB
You've got it backwards. First came some intellectuals in the corporate/government complex, who decided that the majority should want planned obsolesence and the other halmarks of conspicuous consumption, and programed the culture (via the media and the educational system) accordingly. There have been various counter-movements since, led by other groups of intellectuals who have been resistant to the programming.
That's the big flaw in market worship - the idea that what the majority wants must be best, or at least has some relationship to fulfilling people's genuine wants and needs. The majority wants what they're told to want.
Truer words never spoken.
I need only point the /. crowd at M$ FUD for proof. People most frequently take the easiest path. It's easier to use the browser that came with your system than to take the trouble to download something else. There's also a lot of inertia.
It's like the frog in pot of water, as long as you turn the heat up slowly, he happily cooks to death because he didn't notice what was happening to him.
As long as our rights are removed slowly, insidiously, we never notice. And if the corporations can squelch the dissenters (without too much publicity) we never notice.
Whether one is a terrorist or a freedom fighter depends on which side the observer aligns him or herself. Sure, trashing a McDonalds is an act of vandalism, but it raises awareness. Education is the key, but sometimes education requires shocking action to make people aware of the lesson.
Individualism is a Good Thing (tm). I don't agree that crimes like the murders that the Unabomber committed to bring attention to the Creeping Corparatism are appropriate, but confining oneself to property damamge for publicity may be a necessary thing. (Also see the WIPO Seattle protesters.) If Mr. Bove was involved in the death of the girl at the McDonalds resulting from the bombing, then he has crossed the line.
Also, I'm not sure that McDonalds is the right target ultimately, but it was the target that was representative for his environment/community.
Our freedoms are precious. They have been won by many who were willing to take a stand and risk themselves personally. It's sad to see those freedoms leaching away slowly to Corporate interests. Only by raising these issues, loudly and in as much a public way as we can, is there any chance of keeping those freedoms.
Unfortunately, the legal system is not longer a tool of justice and is instead of tool of the moneyed interests, so we can't count on that to protect us. This battle can only be won in the public forum, with education and activism. People are not moved to change unless something incites them. The doublespeak of 1984 has truly come to pass. People accept what they're told and remain fat, dumb and happy. But it's a happiness born of complancency, not of real peace and joy.
You can not attempt to escape a trap unless you know that you're in it.
Russ
War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength. - George Orwell or George Bush?
I know a place, where there used to be a café, you could also eat some cheap food there, and that was convenient because there were no other place like it around. Then McDo bought it. Q: What do we do?
Your comments seem to have little of nothing to do with the article you quoted.
Irradiating food is a different topic the sanitation issues. The point of irradiating food is to reduce the number of live bacteria.
It in no way would make shit a healthy consumable. The fecal matter on chicken is a sanitation issue and should be controlled stingently. I suggest until that happens 1) Don't eat chicken or 2) wash the chicken before you use it. This of course wont help in the salimanila situation, but irradiating the chicken does.
Troy
Who is the victim?
Here we have a company setting up a fast food restaurant. A man comes in an vandalizes the restaurant. I am having a hard time seeing the French man as the victim. Perhaps I just have the inability to draw the line between outcasts being arrested (which is diffidently bad, but unrelated thing) and McDonalds opening up a new restaurant.
The victim here is McDonalds, the people who were to work at the McDonalds that was being set up, and people who want fast, cheap, and admittedly not gourmet food. McDonalds is not the villain. I like McDonalds. I LIKE the fact that the food is cheap, greasy, and tasteless next to a home cooked meal. I LIKE the ability to choose. I like freely and voluntarily to choose to buy cheap greasy uniform food.
Perhaps I view the world differently from others. I think the thing that makes me an American, is my right to choose. I love how our capitalistic system is based around the idea of voluntary choice. I have NEVER been forced buy McDonalds food, a Ford car, or a Sony Discman. I chosen to buy these things. That is freedom. No one has ever told taken away this freedom to choose. No one ever prevented me from choosing because they thought my choices were wrong.
This man in France is the kind of person who would take away my freedom. He would prevent me from freely choosing to buy McDonalds food. He has decided that my decisions are wrong, and is willing to strip away my freedom to choose with force. That is counter to individualism. The man who will tell you that your choices are wrong, and then proceed to use force and violence to prevent you or anyone else from making those decisions are the kind of people who are willing to throw 'outcasts' in jail. They take the power they have and choose for other people their fate. I find that disgusting. I find the actions of that Frenchman disgusting. He did not convince people of his point of view. He did not attempt to starve the franchise by peacefully changing the opinions of others. He instead attempted to strip the choice away form the people around it, which, is in my opinion, is nothing to celebrate.
I have sympathy for him but can't condone his methods: vandalism's vandalism.
The last thing I need to read on the 4th. of July, they day us Americans celebrate the birth of our nation, is a stupid Katz article.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
I believe this came from HNN (Hacker News Network). www.hackernews.com
Where they got it from I don't know.
Linux is only free if your time has no value. Windows is only free if you threaten to use Linux.
This is so called +4 Insightful post is a chain letter that has already been spammed to the current poll and has been debunked on several websites including here..
PS: The post is offtopic as well.
You have got to be kidding here. Since when did terrorism and vandalism become American values? This non-stop rant against "globalization" makes no sense! It's a last ditch effort by people to stir up trouble in what has become an age of prosperity where living conditions are improving the world over.
I'm sure all the anarchists would be much happier if we went back to subsistence farming and raiding our neighbor using clubs when our own crop failed. That is what these anarchists stand for! No rules, no laws, no personal responsibility, no socital responsibility. Then they can rape and pilage to their own heart's content.
The IMF, World Bank, Sony, and McDonalds are not the enemy here. Ignorance is the enemy. Do you think the big corporations want us poor and down trodden? Hell no! They want us all to be rich and properous so we will buy yet more of their goods and services. Rich people are consuming people are happy people.
Change does happen. Live with it. Many of these protesters are people who can't handle changes to the economic direction in the world. If they spent less time protesting and vandalizing, and instead took some classes and spent time learning, they would find that there are many more opportunities being created than being lost.
It all comes down to one simple statement, "get a life!"
World Beach List, my latest project.
from watching the Yankees lost a heartbreaker to the Baltimore O's. But I'm going through these posts and answering my e-mail, and thanks for both. My job is to provoke exactly this kind of discussion and I feel very good about it and the column.
jonkatz@slashdot.org
Well, I'd say from the posts that this concerns a lot of you. And you sure are hazy on your Dylan.
I write about stuff that concerns me, of course, and the people who run
jonkatz@slashdot.org
john katz tries and make us believe that some yoyo demolishing a McDonalds in France is standing up for not only his liberty, but yours. Oh, please.
In JK's mind, acts of violence like the pathetic attack on someone's franchise are symbols of french anti-corporatism and a blow for indvidual liberty against the capitalist juggernaut. Indeed, Jose may soon be leading frustrated frenchmen on a campaign to dismantle their ultra-statist economy, freeing the little guy from the chains of corporate slavery.
Yeah, right.
What Jose has captivated is the imagination of millions of frustrated liberals who are looking for a new ideology to replace the bankrupted leftist canon of communism and socialism. The left, in effect, is looking for a fix for its withdrawl from righteousness anger at the system, and searching desperately for an ideal in which to deify, so as to make their miserable lives meaningful in some way. They get a buzz from the righteousness and militancy of protests and arrests, because they are being victimized and branded by the state who's recognition they so desperately need to self-justify their existence.
Their causes are not causes, they are events in which they are able to finally express their supposed superiority to the masses, a pathetic exclamation of "I AM" to the empty void of the viewing public.
The US revolution was not a media event. It was not a revolution that tore down a new structure in order to put up a flawed ideology. Except for Samuel Adams and the rest of the Mass. contingent, it was a revolution by sober men who were quite aware that they were most likely going to lose their substantial wealth, standing, and lives. And, of course, they built to last, unlike those French losers who tended to go off and kill everyone in the flush of victory (thanks anyway, LaFayette! You still owe us one!)
Unfortunately for katz and his krowd, the corporate/capailist state is much more amenable to the vast majority of the population of the Western World. Except for disaffected youth (and aren't they always disaffected these days?), existence is relatively pastoral. And most of us have no problem at all with that, none at all. Values are expressed at the personal level, not the political level. And that is just fine.
And for those who are unable to define themselves except in respect to others, well, why not watch Fight Club and emulate the protaganist(s)? That guy was going to get REAL results.
--- only for the squeamish
Bove is a hypocrite. European Union farmers, particularly the French, are dependent on the Common Agricultural Policy, which guarantees that the state will buy their produce at above world market prices. This is funded by forcing consumers to pay over world prices for their food.
Apart from the forced transfer of wealth from consumers to a small but politically powerful producer lobby, the CAP results in poor quality and overproduction. Worse still, much of the surplus food is dumped on world markets, hurting more efficient but less protected farmers in other countries (e.g. Australia and New Zealand, and probably the US too)
Bove wants more power for the state and less freedom for individuals. He isn't a victim of capitalism, he's a client of statism!
Tom
I have discovered a wonderful
I don't know where you found those informations, probably in some ultra-liberal activist site. I tend not to answer to sensible political comments like yours, but I really can't let you say such aberrations while having a score of 5 !
;)
But maybe was it intentionally ?
Anyway, the _fact_ is that Jose Bove has always been non-violent, and his actions has always been more symbolic than anything else. The "confederation paysanne" never destroyed the MacDonald's restaurant with a bulldozer, but actually "unmounted" it cleanly, without damaging parts. This action was made after the officials were made aware of it, without any form of violence.
The attack on MacDonald's your are talking about, where unfortunately a 28 years old waitress died, was a completely different terrorist action issued by Britain separatists, and can in no way be compared or assimilated to Jose protests.
He (and his movement) has always been non-violent.
The interesting thing here is that I finally see how much non-sense (since I know this specific subject) can an anti-Katz actvist say
Ben.
My son and I don't usually eat at McDonalds here in California but last summer when we were in Europe they were useful for a number of reasons:
1) McDonalds is the only place you can get a cup of American style coffee. I don't care for the sludge they call Expresso. Gives me cramps.
2) McDonalds is inexpensive compared to the tourist priced resturants in Europe. That and staying at Youth Hostels helped us to stay for 45 days in Europe instead of 30. We went all over, including watching the fireworks in front of the Eifel Tower on July 14th, participating in the Love Parade in Berlin a few days before, watching the fireworks in Florence on St. Somebody's Day, visiting St. Peter's, the canals of Venice, the Matterhorn at Zermatt, the Prado in Madrid, the Alhambra in Granada, even a day in Tangiers across the Straits of Gibraltar from Aljeceris.
3) They are easy to find. There are 47 in the city of Paris alone. Too bad they don't join up with Internet Cafes.
There are some differences. Many sell food with a slight local flavor. They charge you for the catsup. Many do not request you to bus your table; they hire people to do that for you.
4) They are highly successful. The French love them. So does everyone else in Europe, except for the politically motivated left. I'm sure Jose is a political candidate with the Green Party or some such socialist ilk. This is just a publicity stunt by someone who has the ultimate goal of sticking his hand in your wallet.
5) They ALL understand English! Although the food might have a twist to the name to make it fit in the local language. Actually language was only an issue in Germany where a few places required me to use my college German. That was a rare event. Seems like everyone in France speaks English. Oh, I forgot, my son's High School Spanish came in handy in Spain. And my Mandarin Chinese I learned 10 years ago, believe it or not, came in handy at a mom and pop store in Madrid run by some Chinese. Ni hao ma?
6) They are fast (although in the train stations and in Spain you might have to stand in line for 10 minutes). There is really no competition in Europe with that concept.
7) They are courteous. That speaks volumes. The problem people like Jose have is that they are really rude sociopaths wrapping themselves in the flag of some cause.
If people like Jose were really serious they would form a business that competed with McDonalds with more of a local flavor. There are a few attempts like that although we saw that mainly in Spain.
But Jose doesn't doesn't really want success. He can only build himself up by tearing someone else down.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darueber muss man schweigen. Ludwig Wittgenstein
Um, if I recall McDonalds is a franchise. They don't stay anywhere for tax reasons if the franchise goes broke. They go out of business.
(there's a post just a couple up from yours stating that McD's went out of business in his country because nobody wanted to eat there)
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
- Jeff
The French guy is nothing but a nationalistic piece of French shit who wants all French websites to be in French and who will not submit to the New World Order that is McDonalds!!!!!!!!!!!!
I haven't read that book of yours yet, but here are some of my own thoughts on the matter.
The founding fathers intended for there to be a kind of peaceful revolution between political parties, should one become oppressive or totalitarian; you can simply vote them out of office if their policies are harmful. However, this does not occur anymore. Representative democracy only works when a number of conditions are met: the population understands the issues, there is a difference of opinion among the prominent leaders, and when information can be distributed freely and easily. For this very reason, democracy is rather effective on a small scale, but it is decidedly ineffective in America.
Sure, I'd like to think that I have a pretty good idea of what's going on and what's going wrong in Washington, and the majority of Slashdot readers seem pretty opinionated, but your average American does not; in fact, most of us work so hard with our jobs, families, and other considerations that we don't have time to become aware of these things. A person usually takes at least a passing interest in local issues: mass transit, roads, zoning, the schools, public works, and the like. Who has the time to research the impact of the myriad laws and regulations governing our nation? I can barely fathom the broad issues. Thus, people generally choose a candidate based on myths about the major parties: if they're feeling a little bit guilty for all the poor, they vote democratic, and if they believe in smaller government, they vote republican.
Fundamentally, while the democrats and republicans seem to have striking differences on issues such as gun control, government size, abortion, they're really much more alike than different on larger issues, most of which are never even discussed. Both parties support globalism, which in turn means brutal serfdom for third-world countries, appeasing China's regime, police actions against sovereign nations which amount to terrorism (seriously, I find it hard to believe that the NATO countries would bomb Serbia out of the kindness of their hearts), environmental rape, and corporate domination. Both parties support the futile war on drugs, which has over its thirty-odd year reign brought nothing to the American people but urban strife, gang violence, absurd and misleading add campaigns, unconstitutional search and seizure, the imprisonment of people whose only crime is smoking a joint, and the imprisonment of people as drug dealers with no material evidence to substantiate the accusations. And of course, both parties support the expansion of the government; the republicans do not believe in smaller government relative to where it is now, they're actually stating that the government will only grow at a rate of 3% per year rather than the democrat's 5%.
There's not really a place on television where you can hear a truly contrary opinion (except, on rare occasions, C-Span); ABC/Disney, NBC/Microsoft, CNN/Time Warner are all controlled by a few people with similar political agendas. The same people who control the media control most web portals and automatically-assigned home pages, so your average AOLer with a 56K will probably never see anything he wouldn't see on Time Warner's networks, let alone Slashdot. Even then, there's simply no way to reach those without computers; major networks are too busy talking about the weather, the stock market, smiling celebrities, and faceless-suit politicians to report any real news.
Yes, we still have a lot of freedoms in America, thank God, but they're being abridged very, very quickly; in the past, we've had true conflict between parties: Federalists and Democratic-Republicans, Democrats and Lincoln's Whigs, and Progressivism against the establishment earlier in the century. But now, the baby boomers who were the so-called opposition in the 70's have become the establishment, and have embraced fully the ideas which threaten the liberty of every American citizen. A man from Georgia had been sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, after being accused by one of his employees of selling drugs. This employee was facing a lengthily jail term himself after being caught selling, and the only way he could reduce his sentence was by ratting out, by doing the witch hunt thing. As stated above, the man was convicted with no material evidence, only the testimony of a man who had every reason to lie. In defense of this man, a friend wrote to a Georgia senator, who politely refused to even lift a finger for this obviously innocent man; the senator's own son was later caught with copious amounts of marijuana on the way back from England, but only recieved a $500 fine. Is America no longer a land of the people, but a land of the bureaucrats, the wealthy, and the corporations? It sure as hell looks like it's headed that way, at least to me.
EvilSoloman
I love McDonalds. No matter where in the world I am, I am never more than 10 feet away from a cheeseburger, fries, and a coke. Who does Jose think he is to disturb this? I think he is just another discontented Frenchman who is secretly envious of the American way.
This is a difficult issue. I think the type of response from people like this Bove guy is warranted, but I'm not sure wether MacDonald's is an appropriate target (unless someone can show that MacDonald's is actively involved in limiting consumer choice on hormone and genetically modified food and is helping the US government to put pressure on countries to allow imports from the US violate local food laws).
. saga-u.ac.jp/peace/citizdisarm.htm+indones ia+england+jet-fighter+judge&hl=en
There is a very interesting case that shows that property destruction, although forbidden by local law, can be legal when seen on a larger scale.
The following piece is cut-and-paste from the following URL:
http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:pegasus.la
"The cases are relying upon the defence of lawful and reasonable excuse of damage to property in order to prevent a terrible crime from being committed. There was a landmark case in 1996 which rocked the English Judiciary when 4 women (I was one) were acquitted of doing one and a half million pounds worth of damage to a Hawk jet-fighter plane due to be exported to Indonesia where it was likely to be used to continue the genocide of the East Timorese people. We were acquitted in June 1986 after having spent 6 months on remand in prison. We admitted disarming the plane and preventing it from being exported to Indonesia but explained that we were acting lawfully and ethically because it would have been used to bomb innocent civilians and this was contrary to international humanitarian law. We won the case. Similarly we will eventually win the legal arguments in our cases against Trident. We will eventually win because the law is based upon ethics and a common morality and there is no way forward for the global community but to impartially enforce all the laws of war and to back all efforts of peaceful and practical nuclear disarmament."
EJB
That is why any one with a brain bigger that a RepubliKKKan will wash their food. Plus, who has 'reported' this increase? Some health nazis I would bet. They will do anything to scare people from meat.
And that liberal clinton government. Holy shit! republikkkan and a health nazi? How the hell did you get created?
They signed in a law so fruits and vegetables may be labeled "cold pasteurized" instead of "irradiated". After all, who would buy food labeled "irradiated" if the bin next to it says "organic"?
I would (and do) as would (and do) millions of people. You sould like a organic farmer who is just pissed that no one wants to buy his bug and disease ridden food.
What do you want to feed your baby?
I would want to feed my baby something that was not disease ridden or infested with bugs. That organic food looks like it should be in the reject bin. Plus organic food has already been reported to be lased with LSD by some hippie organic farmers.
Here's the real shit about freedom -- it's not maintaining the staus quo -- it's about working every day to end the reign of power structures that desperately want to control you mind and poison your body (salt, sugar and fat are the cheapest (and unhealthiest) ways to satisfy your body's cravings for nutrition) while picking your pocket:
That was a nice try at scare tactics. Sadly (for you) most people are still going to eat meat. I bet that pisses you off. Why do health nazis feel a need to scare people into their lifestyle? What is wrong with me eating meat? Sugar? Salt? It is something that I enjoy. In the end we all die anyway.
No replies made to AC posts. Please log in.
I have a question that I hope someone more knowledgable than I will be able to answer...
w sid_812000/812578.stm)
/.:
From the BBC article, it seems that the igniting factor of this whole situation was the 100% tariff imposed by the United States on the local cheese exports. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/europe/ne
Now, with all the hoopola around competitive markets and how the WTO is supposed to create such markets, how the hell was such a tariff levied? It seems like a hypocritical gesture on behalf of the United States to impose such a tariff when it is the crusader of free markets everywhere.
Another question for the free-market types on
I'm a bit confused about the whole problem with countries not importing genetically modified foods and how that constitutes a market barrier. I would understand if the French (or any other Europeans) were clamoring for cheap genetically modified food, but in these cases, the European governments seem to be acting on behalf of their citizen's wishes when they block such imports. I'm currently in Russia, and the people here think that the American food exports are absolute crap and would not buy the items. I guess I don't see how this is so anti-competitive. Plus they do have valid health reasons for not even wanting such goods.
I apologize if this is slightly incoherent, but would a pro-free market type clarify this for me?
Hey! Moderators! We've got some facts here, get this up over the flamebait and American Values which have nothing to do with anything!
Can your IM do this?
Try running some statistics; the poor in the year 2000 are better off than the middle class in 1971. The average work week has gone DOWN by about 2 hours in the last 30 years.
Since 1900, we've gone from 76% of out income being spent on food, clothing, and shelter to 37%, which is why we have *twice* the income to spend on goodies like cars and computers. If you want a workweek half as long, just give up those toys. More good news like this here.
Here's another tidbit. Did you know that bank's create wealth. Say a ``rich person'' puts a billion dollars in the bank. That money gets loaned out to people who buy goods which funds your salary. You, and a million other people put a thousand in the bank. Guess what? There's now two billion in the bank. So what if they have a billion in the bank? You have your thousand in the bank. Who controls more wealth? Your million friends of the big evil rich person? You both have the same wealth; wealth that you wouldn't have had had then not invested it. What does it matter, unless your envious?
That's what annoys me about all this inequitable distribution of wealth crap. If someone has money, they either do one of two things with it. They spend it, funding other people's salaries, or they invest it, where it gets multiplied 10x; with most of that going to other people's pockets.
The federal reserve is the one thing that's kept this economic expansion going so long. Fundamentally, if you make the competetion for labor sufficiently intense, the cost of labor goes up. Businesses then have to raise prices to compensate for the higher labor costs. This raises the cost of living and makes people demand higher wages. IE: inflation. Inflation is hideous, it can wipe out fixed incomes. (If you're retired and have to live on $500/month, having prices double over 5 years is nasty). It forces interest rates up, as banks have to hedge against being paid back in dollars that are worth less. It also makes long-term planning in any contract. If you agree to sell a million playstations for $300 over the next 3 years, and find out that the dollar is worth 1/2 as much near the end; you've wiped out your profit margin. There are places where inflation has been so severe, that prices have doubled every week; people got paid twice a day to help keep up. Either way, lending rates go up discourage lending, and the economy slows down. One's just nastier than the other.
Now, I will agree that a lot of the crap that corporations do should be stopped. I hate corporations railroading over honest people or freedom just because they're bigger. I hate corporations that lie and manipulate people or are hypocritical (like Ben and Jerrys unsafe, dioxin laced ice cream. ). I dislike the WTO or the MPAA.
But on the other side, I dislike the sabotage, terrorism and, most critically, the lies spread by the anti-corporations side.
Like any other human-made system, capitalism and corporatism isn't perfect. The system needs tuning and fixing once in a while. But, overall, it's the best way to run things that we know about. It's not a fundamentally broken system.
Spreading misinformation or lies around just to scare people into joining you is not the way to win. Spreading the truth is. Ultimately, in a democracy, the government answers to the people. If enough people demand something, it will happen.