Glen Ropella wrote:
Douglas Roberts wrote circa 01/03/2011 08:00 PM:
Fuck 'em. There are 1,426 other mirrors, plus uncounted "stealth"
mirrors out there ready to go live if needed.
That misses the point, though. It's not about Wikileaks. It's about
the (some particular, not all) corporations and the systemic culture of
fear.
And I think that singling out the specific individual corporations or
people who get caught out acting in the manner which is otherwise
generally approved and accepted misses the point as well.
BP's gulf spill was not (merely) a simple reflection of their personal,
specific bad behaviour, it was a consequence of an entire industry, of
the very nature of capitalistic, consumerist industry (what our world,
the first world is built upon) and it *intrinsic* search for higher
profits through increased volumes and exported/denied risk.
It has always been the case that industry has arranged for the majority
of the risk or consequences to fall somewhere besides inside their
boundaries. This is generally (to owners/shareholders called good
business). The coal miners lungs were only the mine's problem insomuch
as they needed to replace those individuals in the mines no longer able
to work effectively. Exxon Corporation was only risking the loss of a
shipful of crude oil and the ship when they allowed the Valdiz to be
grounded/punctured as it was. Union Carbide was risking only the loss
of a highly profitable plant in Bhopal India when they took the
industrial risks (which the Indian Government allowed because they were
only risking the loss of a single community if a disaster struck) that
lead to the 1984 disaster.
Do we buy gasoline or other petroleum products that ultimately came from
BP and Exxon, or industrial chemicals/products from Union Carbide
still? Many boycotted them as best they could at the time of the
accidents, but then either returned to patronizing them after a suitable
period of mourning/indignation or pushed their products into wholesale
markets where we never see the source but continue to reap the
convenience/benefits/marginal-effeciencies of their risk-taking (at
other's expense). Exxon-Mobil, BP, and Union Carbide are all still
doing swimmingly... in fact I suspect most everyone here with money
invested in mutual funds or similar profits (poorly these days) hold
part ownership in all three... and probably Amazon too.
I'm not trying to defuse the righteous indignation against these things,
or the desire to not reinforce bad behaviour, but rather trying to point
out that the problems we face are deeper and more systemic than the
specific behaviour of specific corporations/groups in specific
circumstances.
The Swedes complicity with the Assange thing may implicate them
specifically, but probably doesn't absolve most of the first world who
would very likely cooperate with the USA in the same circumstances. And
the third world as well, maybe more quickly to avoid being declared a
"rogue state" and offered up their own helping of "shock and awe".
Buy.Com is not necessarily a better place to throw your one-stop online
shopping than Amazon simply because they don't offer hosting services
and didn't have the opportunity to decline Wikileaks hosting, etc. I'd
guess they'd do the same in a heartbeat! And Itsy.com for all it's
wonderful handmade goods doesn't offer what most of us think we need.
I strongly agree with Glen's last statement, the only challenge is to
not stop with the most obvious or recent offenders, but to apply it even
more deeply.
/But I'd rather make my life more interesting or simple, than reward
people for their bad behavior./
We are a crowd with at least one thing in common... most of us are rabid
technophiles and very likely (over?) optimizers... my experience is
that the vocal ones here are generally liberal/progressive in their
social ideals, but we have such huge heads that we try to know
everything. I'm surely doing it right here, noticing that for every
Amazon, PayPal, Visa, MasterCard or SiteGround/SoftLayer there are
thousands more that have not had the opportunity (yet) to show their
ugly stripes, and we are likely to blindly throw our support to them in
indignation over those who got caught before we will actually question
the underlying assumptions of what these industries (convenience in
purchasing, online/virtual goods, internet services, etc.) imply for
us. I know plenty of folks who diss WalMart but live for their trips
to Target and Whole Foods. It really only barely computes... or not.
I wonder sometimes why, in the frictionlessness of our new economy and
virtual marketplaces that we don't have more voluntary, collectivism?
Why are there not CoOperative ISPs, Virtual Marketplaces,
Credit/Purchase-Card systems, Gasoline/Oil/Mineral
exploration/production systems, Insurance (Life, Auto, Health)
Systems? Even Itsy and Craigslist are privately held, even if they are
not conventional in their profit motives.
If we vote more with our $$ than our votes, why can't we have at least
as (hopefully much moreso) righteous options for how we spend those $$
and obtain those services/products as we do for electing officials...
wait! Why don't we have as good of choices for our elected officials as
we do for our acquisition of goods and services? Wait... it all
sucks! Why?
Surely there is more we can do than shift around subtly in the shades of
grey, moving our votes from one evil to a (currently perceived to be)
lesser one. Or not?
Is it as simple as economies of scale? Is it as simple as "Power is
Corruption" joined with "Money is Power"?
More questions than answers.. I know. But I can't watch these kinds of
things unfold without asking them of myself, and sometimes I can't
listen to the conversations here without wanting to ask the larger group
the same questions.
- Steve
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