Conference report: Vanishing Democracy
Over one hundred local activists attended a one-day conference organized by sixteen local progressive groups, focusing on the anti-democratic nature of corporations in contemporary American society and the actions citizens can take to improve the situation. Speakers provided a background structure for understanding the history and status of corporate rule. Discussion and action groups worked to understand specific areas of corporate influence and strategize corrective action.

The conference happened at the First Universalist Church in Minneapolis. Keith Ellison, DFL representative from North Minneapolis, MC'd the event in concert with local activist Betsy Barnum. The event also featured spoken word performances by Omaur Bliss and Cedric Bolton, and music by David Rovics and Rachel Nelson.

Barnum began the conference by summarizing the history of corporations in the US. Communities are currently limited to the use of regulatory tactics such as boycotts, lawsuits, and new legislation to limit the damage done by corporations. However, in the beginning of the US and until a little over one hundred years ago, corporations were limited entities created in the public interest. The founding fathers of our country were well acquainted with the problems caused by the powerful British corporations that had been active in the colonies. Corporate charters were issued for limited time periods and specific purposes. Misbehavior by corporations often resulted in the 'corporate death penalty': dissolution.

Then came the 1886 Santa Clara County vs. Southern Pacific Railroad Company decision, which was later understood to grant corporations protection under the 14th amendment, written to help the recently-freed slaves. The resulting power and protections lead to today's situation, in which corporations have acquired de facto governing powers. Harms they cause are very difficult to address unless those harms break specific laws, making it all but impossible to prevent much of the damage they cause.

Following Barnum's introduction, John Nichols delivered the keynote address. Nichols opened by noting that Jane's Defense Weekly, the Wall Street Journal of the military, has written that the planning for the invasion of Iraq suffered from 'excessive amplification'. This means that one perspective got all the airtime, leaving our forces unprepared for unexpected difficulty. This one-sidedness of the discussion about Iraq, argued Nichols, was a product of our ruling class' acceptance of the theory of neoliberalism and its companion, neoconservativism. These theories work like so:

Neoliberalism says that we're at the 'End of History' and have all the answers for how to run the world: just like we run America. If there are problems here or abroad, it's because the neoliberal program hasn't been followed firmly enough. Free trade, privatization of common resources, and the reliance on 'the wisdom of markets' is the one true way to run a country.

Neoconservativism agrees with neoliberalism but adds that resistance to the privatization of the world must be met by a strong police force. The US, as the sole superpower of the world, must fill that role.

Before the terrorist attacks of September 11 2001, George Bush showed little interest in neoconservative arguments. Once we were attacked, though, he suddenly accepted their platform and started pursuing the suggested program: overthrowing regimes in 'rogue nations'.

The results of neoliberalism and neoconservativism identified by Nichols:

• worsening farm crisis
• millions of jobs moving overseas
• concentration of wealth
• consolidation of media
• lowered voting numbers
• eroded civil liberties
• weakened international cooperation

Following Nichols' address, conference attendees broke into discussion groups, focusing on specific issues including labor, environment, healthcare, militarism and globalization, race and reparations, media, and immigration. After the group discussions, a panel shared some promising developments:

John Karvel of Code for Corporate Responsibility talked about their campaign to insert wording into the MN Statutes to require corporations to consider the environment, human rights, and public health in addition to shareholder profits.
Northern Minnesota Representative Bill Hilty covered bills he'll be introducing. One was a state version of Paul Wellstone's federal bill that prevents government contracts with businesses incorporated in tax-exempt zones. Hilty also discussed an amendment to clarify that each instance of "person" in the Minnesota constitution refers to a natural person, as opposed to a corporation.
Nick Palumbo of Fair and Clean Elections talked about their campaign to provide political candidates with public funding when they demonstrate grassroots support and agree to strict funding guidelines. This has been successful in both Maine and Arizona, who have seen the diversity of candidates significantly improved. Half of the MN Senate and one-third of the House are in support.
Korla Masters, a freshman at South high school, talked about the YO anti-sweatshop campaign. They convinced the Minneapolis School Board to adopt a sweatshop-free policy for all garment and athletic equipment purchases, and are working with students in Saint Paul, Stillwater, and area Catholic schools to adopt similar measures.
Joel Albers of the Task Force for Single Payer Healthcare talked about the growing recognition of the need for universal healthcare. His group plans to build local networks to address the issue and raise awareness through the media.

Finally, groups corresponding to the earlier discussion issues met to plan followup action. Many of the groups defined tasks they wished to pursue and resolved to continue meeting after the conference. All groups recognized existing local efforts in their areas, and discussed ways to join or complement those efforts.
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Senator Norm surrounds himself with intelligent people
Accorrding to the Strib:

"America's a great country," said Coleman's Minnesota state director, Erich Mische, observing the protesters earlier this afternoon. "There are few places where average citizens can sit in a United States senator's office and express their opinion and have us not agree with them.

Indeed, in what other country can you sit in a United States senator's office at all?
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More Lies
The lies in Bush's 3/17/03 pre-invasion speech enumerated.

To be fair, a few of the things Bush said weren't out-and-out lies, but were merely misleading.
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MSNBC has lost its marbles
First it canned its highest-rated show (Donahue's). Then it picked up well-known spewer of hate and intolerance Michael Savage. I could generally care less that yet another purveyor of filth is on the air, but his reaction to a general boycott of MSNBC advertisers is really over the top:

"I'm going to find out where you get your money from. You live by handouts, all of you. You live off grants, all of you. You're a bunch of beggars, but you don't know how lucky you are. If you continue this, we're going to go after your funding sources. And we will do everything we can within the legal realm to cut off that funding! We are also going to go to the U.S. Justice Department under John Ashcroft! What you are doing is illegal!

"You think it's 1965 and I'm South Africa? I've got news for you: it's not 1965 and it ain't South Africa! I'll cut your funding off, and if you break the law any further, I'll put you in jail!"

Commenting on the difference between the campaign that succeeded in getting Dr. Laura's television show off the air and any attempt to oust him, Savage said "When they successfully drove Dr. Laura off the air because she didn't kowtow or cater to them, it was under the regime of Janet Reno and Bill Clinton." He pointed out that "They had protection under the Attorney General's Office. That was then, this is now.

"We have a Republican president. We have a Republican attorney general. But more importantly we have a new climate in America. These days of economic terrorism are over," Mr. Savage said.

Help, help, he's bein' oppressed!

Savage is free to say stuff like this, of course, but you really have to wonder about the continued support of his network and advertisers. I'm happy to be a customer of one of MSNBC's advertisers, so I present my letter to MSNBC advertiser GEICO:

(salutations)

My partner and I have held GEICO insurance on our vehicles and apartment for almost four years, and have been happy with the rates and service. However, it has come to our attention that GEICO advertising dollars are helping fund MSNBC and its talk show hosted by Michael Savage. We are disgusted with Savage's intolerant attacks on women, gays, and immigrants, and are very upset that some of the money we pay for insurance is being used to support such un-American hate speech.

While we understand the need for GEICO to get the word out about its services, we cannot in good conscience allow our money to continue to support this particular venue. If GEICO has not pulled all advertising from MSNBC in the next month, we will be forced to look for another insurance company.

Sincerely, etc.

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My Brush With Fame
...was just a three-line email from Bruce Sterling, but was oddly stimulating nonetheless.

Yesterday, while perusing one of his Viridian Notes, I came across a dismissive aside concerning the Seattle WTO protestors and other like-minded individuals. In an email, I called him on his cheap generalizations and questioned whether he was getting his news solely from the mainstream US media. Bruce pointed out that, for these purposes, he is the big US media, having filed a report on the November 02 protests in Florence of the European Social Forum.

While Bruce's Wired article did make a good argument that the mass of protestors in Italy weren't cohesive enough to be a unified political party, he certainly didn't support the objectionable claims that originally raised my ire:

1. protestors are the only group who take Davos, WTO, etc with total seriousness
2. characterization of protestors as 'street canaille. . .waving their anarchist black flags'
3. further characterization of protestors as 'all commercially underwritten by billionaire BINGOs (Big International Non-Governmental Organizations)'

Financial and political leaders in Central and South America, Asia, Africa, and Eastern Europe take the IMF, in particular, very seriously. The state of California, forced by the WTO to continue putting groundwater-polluting additives in its gasoline by a Canadian-sponsored WTO ruling, should also be counted. Plenty of NGOs also take the WTO very seriously.

As for those who make up anti-WTO protests: knowing and having talked to a number of people who were at Seattle in '99, I can attest to the fact that many of those protestors were well-educated professionals with positions in respected research institutions, none of whom was waving an 'anarchist black flag'. The employers of these people are hardly 'commercially underwritten', whatever that might mean in this context. While there may be a billion dollars here and there in the larger world of the foundations that back the relevant NGOs, and there were plenty of NGO employees involved in the protests, there were also plenty of farmers, union members, environmental activists, and generally uncategorizables, all funded ( or not ) in as many ways as you can imagine.

These biases exhibited by Bruce aren't surprising, given the assumptions he's hauled into this Viridian project of his. The original defining speech, after all, includes the declarations 'Our movement has no street credibility' and 'We love cops and soldiers'. Protests happen in the streets, much to the discomfort of cops and soldiers, at least in Seattle and Italy.

But Bruce also made declarations that seem more compatible with anti-WTO protests: 'We have moral gravity and sense of urgency', and '. . .presupplied with powerful, malignant, threatening enemies'. The amazing diversity of people who show up to protest after protest, everywhere across the world, is a testament to the widely held urgency people feel about the current state of the world. These many different groups agree that the WTOs and IMFs are to blame for the many and varied problems that bring the protestors together. Surely Viridians, too, see the harm in the environmentally devestating decisions secretly handed down by the WTO.

While the Viridian biases against 'underground' or 'street' cred and in favor of police may well prevent an embrace of anti-WTO protestors, it's counterproductive to disparage other movements with compatible aims. Sowing dissent amongst possible reformers has long been a tactic of the same elites that are now milking the oil economy for all it's worth; there's no need to do their work for them.
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Terrorists Amongst Us
Captain Bill Chandler of the Hennepin County sheriff's office surveys Minnesota groups and concludes that the Animal Liberation Front and the Earth Liberation Front are more dangerous in Minnesota than Al-Qaida.

Maybe he's right. After all, ALF has comitted an act of vandalism at the U of M, while Al-Qaida has never done anything in this state, or anywhere in the midwest.

Look out! They're gonna free the animals, and then none of us will be safe!
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Bloxsom vs. Movable Type (straw basket match)
Not ready for a steel cage personally; these 'blog' things seem to have the ability to suck up more customization time than I can imagine having, so I'm in no position to make authoritative statements about which all true web writers should employ.

Really, all I want to do is write some stuff and have it show up in a handy format to possibly point others to once in a while. So, for my personal needs, things break down something like this:

Why I'd use MT

1. Slick and full-featured, generally.
2. I can go back and edit old posts to my heart's content without having to worry about the date (and any external links) changing. Wait though, I've now pulled down some dude's bloxsom_edit script for retaining the original timestamp, so this is no longer a big deal.

Why I'd use blosxom

1. I get to do my writing in good ol' vim
2. awful simple, so potentially less distracting.
3. Open source is good. If I do end up spending lots of time using this, I may well end up making fixes / additions / etc., which would be most useful if they could be sent back to an OS project.

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