Re: <nettime> Re: AW: AW: Urgent inquiry for Paper bags!

[wade tillett <super89@bigfoot.com>]

> > are not
> > disney and starbucks only the symptoms of a culture which refuses
> > responsibility for its leisure, for its consumption?
>
> No they are not. They are taking advantage of a situation. Part of that
> situation is that people basically just want to live well and be happy.
> This is the way people have always been. To ask people to be supermen is
> not realistic. Suddenly people will change?

must be nice to blame everyone but yourself. sit and smoke your cigarettes
and blame the government for not stopping you, and the evil corporations
for killing you. 

as a consumer, you would have no problem buying disney products? (since
you are not responsible, since no government has stopped them.) 

i'm not asking anyone to be superman. everyone makes mistakes. i am only
asking that we own up to our responsibility as consumers. that we become
conscious of our consumption. not just say its too hard, its not my fault,
somebody should have passed a law, but since they didn't i'm going to
disneyland. whether there are laws or not we are responsible for our
actions. there are laws against certain drugs and you can still take them
and live with the result. there are no laws against certain other drugs
and you can still take them and live with the result. (maybe if you were
informed about drugs you would either not take them or take them in a way
which reduces your chances of hurting your self.) 

you are expecting too much of government and not enough of people. this
live well and be happy, don't worry be happy attitude is the exact
attitude which breeds the blind and irresponsible
here-we-are-now-entertain-us culture. the 'situation' which starbucks and
disney are taking advantage of is the cultural attitude that we are not
responsible for our consumption and leisure. disney and starbucks are
symptoms of this attitude. and yes, internally perhaps they are committing
crimes. but you cannot solely blame the evil corporations for the culture
which consumes their product. people just want to live well and be
happy... 

if you make people in corporations personally responsible, but then there
is no personal responsibility, who is responsible? where does that magic
line of responsibility start and stop in your opinion? when you punch in
your timecard?  when you buy stocks but not products? what about bank
loans - are they a product or a stock? would i be responsible for taking a
loan from a privacy robbing political heavyweight bank? 

often people think that freedom is the absence of responsibility. the
opposite is true. prisons are places where we take away people's
responsibility, their opportunity to have a direct effect and action on
the world. a space without responsibility is sterile. freedom and
responsibility go hand in hand. so if we don't want to live well and be
happy as sterile slaves staring at a screen, we had damn well better learn
how to live well and be happy and be responsible. 


> I never suggested a company could be expected to know about Susane
> Feminine Concept.

>  Susane Feminine Concept
>
>We have striven to discover something about this company, but have found
>only
>http://www.duced-iua.dk/network/susane/Susane.htm :
>
>  Susane DEA
>  Sustainable Sanitation Network in DEA Countries
>
>This is alarming. Is sanitation a feminine concept? Why? There is no
>indication
>on the Susane DEA website of what they actually do. What do they do?
...
>What about Dresdner Bank, from your front page? UPS? SGS? Geologistics? How
>do you
>KNOW for certain they are not engaged in criminal behavior that could put
>their, your,
>and our, shareholders at risk of jail and fines?
...
>Sincerely,
>Alice Foley
>
>http://rtmark.com/
>Bags for the Pursuit of Happiness

> > following the logic of being personally responsible for corporate crime,
> > should not the punishments proposed for corporations also be extended to
> > consumers who support these corporations by consuming their product?
>
> If you think that's more feasible, more decent, better, and easier, than
> by all means, vote for that solution.

...>not only as a citizen, but
...> also as a consumer, you ALREADY are personally responsible. and i am
...> personally responsible.
(that's what i mean by direct democracy. we live in a space which is an
aggregate of our decisions and those around us.)

> > does
> > this really mean that we are justified in using cars to go protest gas
> > companies?
>
> If it's the only way to go to the protest, yes, certainly!

how often is this the only way to protest? not as often as we think. it is
always the most convenient way to protest - to use the avenues of power
which are already in place, thereby increasing their power (even if it is
a protest).  this is no coincidence. corporations and governments want us
to protest within the boundaries of their power and legislation. this is
why corporations assimilate anti-corporate web-sites. this is why
governments and trade organizations set up advisory committees - to
assimilate the rebellion onto their own turf, thereby increasing their own
power. this sort of protesting is encouraged. 

>Appropriation of oppositional work by the dominant order silences the
>oppositionality of the work.
>(Re: <nettime> con.troll, jen Hui Bon Hoa <epistrophy@yifan.net>)

if we remain within the power limits of what we are protesting and think
we are subverting that power structure, we are only subverting ourselves
really. 

> Imagine living
> in a society so deeply woven with criminality that almost everything you
> did supported some nasty entity, directly or not. Would you go live in the
> woods?

no i don't live in the woods. i am not a pacifist. i make non-perfect choices
in a non-perfect world, but i try to make it a little better through those
choices.

> > we can fight our addictions too.
>
> But that's not the main battleground.

i disagree. if government is a representation of our selves, and yet we
expect nothing from our selves, how can we expect anything of government? 


>  It's the tiniest, most insignificant drop in
> the bucket compared to the environmental wreckage perpetrated by
> corporations every day. *That's* where saving/fixing the environment
> starts: controlling corporations.

consumer pollution, and corporate pollution are inter-related. if no one
demands a product, the product will stop being made. and/or if we choose
products based on the fact that they do less damage, has less packaging,
comes from a company that is more responsible, at least that helps. 

> Corporate crime can be fought through legislation.

i agree. but consumers also must be responsible. yes we can attempt to
make the world better through a top down hierarchy. but we cannot ignore
the bottom up possibilities too. boycotts have worked before also. but
even beyond boycotts, our every minute decision is political.  don't be
fooled into only thinking of the big picture, all the while increasing the
power of those you are fighting against with your everyday life. don't buy
into 'the end justifies the means' because there is no end





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