This is nice that some corporations are trying to help the environment by genetically engineering more easily renewable resources. But, most genetically engineered crops are not sufficiently tested for their effects on animal and plant life.
Testing these effects is left up to the public. So they can sell them, cause everyone to get cancer, and then have the public pay for this. Yet, they never asked us if we wanted it in the first place. Try buying Free Range Chickens, or non-hormone beef in the US (or many other countries now).
Ok, it's cheaper for larger farmers in the long run, to use these kinds of products. But, because of the initial expense, smaller farmers don't have a chance. This leads to what is known as the "Green Revolution", which inevitably forces out the smaller farmers (causing them and their families to then become a part of Free Trade, er umm, slave labor).
This is nothing new. Anyone familiar with Noam Chomsky, Russell Mokhiber, Robert Weissman, Ralph Nader, or any other social advocate who has done any amount of research is well aware of this issue.
It's also common sense, Universities use their students, fellows, and professors to do research. Where do the products of this research go? Pharmacutical companies, High Technology companies, Military/Industrial companies... They sponsor research, for pennies on the dollar at best, and then make a few hundred million or so as they use propriatary licenses and monopolize the 'intellectual property'.
Anyone ever seen student theses on sale? Do you think that a University with such complete disregard for the students will have any problems being owned by corporations? Think of it, a few million from major corporations, and all they have to do is keep those corporations making billions.
It's a corporate dominated world. Good things only happen incidentally.
Governments don't care about the environment, human rights, or anything like that. They are lobbied by corporations, while the people don't bother to vote or hold their representatives accountable. But corporations will, so they get their way. Again, common sense.
I am a tech support person (tech support engineer, customer service engineer, whatever). And I generally agree with just about everything in the article.
I've seen a lot from the customer's point of view. I've been yelled at by people who could barely speak english because I couldn't understand them, or been berated by people who know next to nothing about the product their trying to support.
Corporate Business practices, like those outlined in the article, are normal. Profit uber alles (over everything). This includes customer service, product support, useful/long-lasting products themselves (remember, the US is a 'disposable culture' - we use it and then throw it away for the next release).
I am actually lucky. As a Support Engineer, I actually work for (maybe the only) a company who actually tries. The company is still relatively small, but we actually use customer concerns / questions to better our product. We love beta-testing, they provide useful feedback, which, again, we use to make a better product.
I think a lot of it is because the company is small. I can pick up the phone and have a conversation with the CTO, or VP of R&D. The most important person in the company (one of the founders) is a decent friend of mine. When you get to such a large scale, there is no real way to actually use a customer complaint to implement a new feature, or fix a bug. It has to go through too many loops, and by the time, if ever, it gets to the people who need it, it's too late: the company is either too big to care, or you've already lost the customer.
i was working for a small isp who ran out of money. upper management was very dim, as were the prospects of getting funding. it was my first IT position, and I was THE Systems Administrator. It was the perfect place for me to break in. I hadn't been paid since late September and I was already missing wages at that point. I went all the way to the middle of November before I finally said "no more". I had just gotten married on September 2nd. We couldn't afford to live without pay, of course. I jumped ship because I had no choice, I was heading straight for homeless-world.
I made the jump when I no longer had a choice. You still do. But remember, you can only help yourself sometimes. Do the best you can, and have meetings with your co-workers. Inform them of your intentions and fears. Work together.
Free Speech, The Last Freedom ?
on
Should You Vote?
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· Score: 1
There is a lot of controversy over whether or not we, in the USA, are free in any meaningful sense. Through corporate dominated media and propaganda systems, along with the lack of meaningful participation in government, the people of the great democracy are apathetic.
Leadership in the USA is in the form of top-down control, those at the top make the decisions for those at the bottom. Who is at the top? The major corporations. This is self-evident, simply look at what laws are passed and why. The public doesn't vote, but corporate lobbyists are there 24/7. People don't get involved, and those that vote don't hold their representatives accountable. Corporate lobbyists definitely hold their representatives accountable.
The one freedom we have in the US is freedom of speech, the right to say what you want without being shot or put in prison. If we don't vote and bring back the old definition of Democracy (bottom-up control, people making the decisions for themselves) we will lose the right to vote. The media will cease to bother explaining that this is a democracy, it will no longer be necessary.
Violence is to Dictatorship as Propaganda is to Democracy.
This means that in a Dictatorship, violence is used to control the citizenry; in a Democracy propaganda is used. We should seriously question what politicians mean when they speak of "Enlarging Democracy" (read: Enlarging corporate pockets) or "Spreading Democracy" (read: maintaining top-down control, ensuring US foreign investment and economic/political domination).
A few last thoughts are: The US only allows 2 political parties, both of which are so similar in their views (and the fact that they are both dominated by corporations) that they are really 2 faces of the same coin. There are no meaningful labor rights, human rights, environmental rights, and freedom of speech is almost non-existent. This US has become a police state (simply look at any protest, the people are beaten, gassed and imprisoned for trying to uphold the right to speak out). It is no longer legal to give bad reviews of corporations and their products. In the US people don't have the right to education or health care, only if you can afford it.
Get involved in grassroots organizations and make decisions for yourself.
the AP story mentions allowing the election of 5 members by 'registered internet users'. what's a registered internet user ? if it's only corporations, not only do i not see how it will change anything, except open them up to more corporate rule, as if they're not already, but what about people? the internet is 'suppossed' to be a last resort for freedom of speech.
i pretty much agree. not much really changed with the breakup of at&t. it just made smaller regional monopolies, who act like any other monopoly and the FCC could really care less. look at DSL and the constant rise in prices and service fees. M$ won't change. The market will have to change it's interests for M$ to change. Unix and other alternatives have to utilized more.
provided M$'s appeals don't work, how tightly will it be policed. will the seperate companies act alone, or still be guided by m$'s former market dominance ?
I would like to know how democratic you feel that the current political system in the USA really is. Please take into account that only some 25% of the electorate votes, that they are generally middle to upper class. Also include that most voters allow representatives to maintain no amount of accountability, re-electing them although they have not fulfilled any of the goals or values from their platform. Another notable mention is the fact that there are really only two allowed parties (the others, such as the Green Party, are marginalized), both of which are business parties, thereby severly narrowing the political spectrum. There is also an interesting aspect to American Life; a Gallup once concluded that over 85% of Americans believe that corporations have too much control over their lives and government. One last thing I'd like you to note while forming your response is that it is an axiom, or common knowledge, that most people indeed vote _against_ someone, not _for_ someone.
Please take your time in addressing each issue mentioned above. I feel that they are extremely important questions that each person who wishes to help spread 'democracy' should ask of themselves. What are they going to do about the current top-down control (the people are the dis/misinformed mob, the 'leaders' make the decisions and the mob blindly follows) in this country? How would you bring about bottom-up control (the people making the decisions, the 'leaders' merely enacting/enforcing them)? Bottom-up control is the kind of Democracy that is the real defintion of the word, the kind imagined by Thomas Jeffereson, Adam Smith and many other 'forefathers'. Today, unfortunately, there is a different definition of democracy, and I hope that you can help us see which one you prefer.
Thank you very much for addressing this line by line. We appreciate it very much.
Slashdot Mirror
Testing these effects is left up to the public. So they can sell them, cause everyone to get cancer, and then have the public pay for this. Yet, they never asked us if we wanted it in the first place. Try buying Free Range Chickens, or non-hormone beef in the US (or many other countries now).
Ok, it's cheaper for larger farmers in the long run, to use these kinds of products. But, because of the initial expense, smaller farmers don't have a chance. This leads to what is known as the "Green Revolution", which inevitably forces out the smaller farmers (causing them and their families to then become a part of Free Trade, er umm, slave labor).
It's also common sense, Universities use their students, fellows, and professors to do research. Where do the products of this research go? Pharmacutical companies, High Technology companies, Military/Industrial companies... They sponsor research, for pennies on the dollar at best, and then make a few hundred million or so as they use propriatary licenses and monopolize the 'intellectual property'.
Anyone ever seen student theses on sale? Do you think that a University with such complete disregard for the students will have any problems being owned by corporations? Think of it, a few million from major corporations, and all they have to do is keep those corporations making billions.
It's a corporate dominated world. Good things only happen incidentally.
Governments don't care about the environment, human rights, or anything like that. They are lobbied by corporations, while the people don't bother to vote or hold their representatives accountable. But corporations will, so they get their way. Again, common sense.
I've seen a lot from the customer's point of view. I've been yelled at by people who could barely speak english because I couldn't understand them, or been berated by people who know next to nothing about the product their trying to support. Corporate Business practices, like those outlined in the article, are normal. Profit uber alles (over everything). This includes customer service, product support, useful/long-lasting products themselves (remember, the US is a 'disposable culture' - we use it and then throw it away for the next release).
I am actually lucky. As a Support Engineer, I actually work for (maybe the only) a company who actually tries. The company is still relatively small, but we actually use customer concerns / questions to better our product. We love beta-testing, they provide useful feedback, which, again, we use to make a better product.
I think a lot of it is because the company is small. I can pick up the phone and have a conversation with the CTO, or VP of R&D. The most important person in the company (one of the founders) is a decent friend of mine. When you get to such a large scale, there is no real way to actually use a customer complaint to implement a new feature, or fix a bug. It has to go through too many loops, and by the time, if ever, it gets to the people who need it, it's too late: the company is either too big to care, or you've already lost the customer.
I made the jump when I no longer had a choice. You still do. But remember, you can only help yourself sometimes. Do the best you can, and have meetings with your co-workers. Inform them of your intentions and fears. Work together.
Leadership in the USA is in the form of top-down control, those at the top make the decisions for those at the bottom. Who is at the top? The major corporations. This is self-evident, simply look at what laws are passed and why. The public doesn't vote, but corporate lobbyists are there 24/7. People don't get involved, and those that vote don't hold their representatives accountable. Corporate lobbyists definitely hold their representatives accountable.
The one freedom we have in the US is freedom of speech, the right to say what you want without being shot or put in prison. If we don't vote and bring back the old definition of Democracy (bottom-up control, people making the decisions for themselves) we will lose the right to vote. The media will cease to bother explaining that this is a democracy, it will no longer be necessary.
Violence is to Dictatorship as Propaganda is to Democracy. This means that in a Dictatorship, violence is used to control the citizenry; in a Democracy propaganda is used. We should seriously question what politicians mean when they speak of "Enlarging Democracy" (read: Enlarging corporate pockets) or "Spreading Democracy" (read: maintaining top-down control, ensuring US foreign investment and economic/political domination).
A few last thoughts are: The US only allows 2 political parties, both of which are so similar in their views (and the fact that they are both dominated by corporations) that they are really 2 faces of the same coin. There are no meaningful labor rights, human rights, environmental rights, and freedom of speech is almost non-existent. This US has become a police state (simply look at any protest, the people are beaten, gassed and imprisoned for trying to uphold the right to speak out). It is no longer legal to give bad reviews of corporations and their products. In the US people don't have the right to education or health care, only if you can afford it.
Get involved in grassroots organizations and make decisions for yourself.
the AP story mentions allowing the election of 5 members by 'registered internet users'. what's a registered internet user ? if it's only corporations, not only do i not see how it will change anything, except open them up to more corporate rule, as if they're not already, but what about people? the internet is 'suppossed' to be a last resort for freedom of speech.
i pretty much agree. not much really changed with the breakup of at&t. it just made smaller regional monopolies, who act like any other monopoly and the FCC could really care less. look at DSL and the constant rise in prices and service fees. M$ won't change. The market will have to change it's interests for M$ to change. Unix and other alternatives have to utilized more.
provided M$'s appeals don't work, how tightly will it be policed. will the seperate companies act alone, or still be guided by m$'s former market dominance ?
I would like to know how democratic you feel that the current political system in the USA really is. Please take into account that only some 25% of the electorate votes, that they are generally middle to upper class. Also include that most voters allow representatives to maintain no amount of accountability, re-electing them although they have not fulfilled any of the goals or values from their platform. Another notable mention is the fact that there are really only two allowed parties (the others, such as the Green Party, are marginalized), both of which are business parties, thereby severly narrowing the political spectrum. There is also an interesting aspect to American Life; a Gallup once concluded that over 85% of Americans believe that corporations have too much control over their lives and government. One last thing I'd like you to note while forming your response is that it is an axiom, or common knowledge, that most people indeed vote _against_ someone, not _for_ someone.
Please take your time in addressing each issue mentioned above. I feel that they are extremely important questions that each person who wishes to help spread 'democracy' should ask of themselves. What are they going to do about the current top-down control (the people are the dis/misinformed mob, the 'leaders' make the decisions and the mob blindly follows) in this country? How would you bring about bottom-up control (the people making the decisions, the 'leaders' merely enacting/enforcing them)? Bottom-up control is the kind of Democracy that is the real defintion of the word, the kind imagined by Thomas Jeffereson, Adam Smith and many other 'forefathers'. Today, unfortunately, there is a different definition of democracy, and I hope that you can help us see which one you prefer.
Thank you very much for addressing this line by line. We appreciate it very much.
Who would pay that much for such limited functionality ?