[kj] Killing joke and Communism

[ade]

I think the problem is that there are pros & cons to EVERYTHING. So inevitably,
no system can be perfect. And if you think people en-masse give a flying fuck
about others, well no, they don't. I said recently, humanity is a constant
struggle - rich/poor, haves/havenots, intelligent/thick, educated/ignorant,
the list goes on!


-----Original Message-----
From: gathering-bounces at misera.net
[mailto:gathering-bounces at misera.net]On Behalf Of Brendan
Sent: 22 August 2007 05:19
To: A list about all things Killing Joke (the band!)
Subject: Re: [kj] Killing joke and Communism


Yeah I've done several rants about that doco, I really like it...have also
tried to distribute it to a lot of my friends, but no one has ever
actually WATCHED it...sigh. I kinda gave up after a while.

I think about this stuff a lot. I don't have all the answers to creating
Utopia, but I can't understand why we are so far behind, with all the
intelligent and good willed people in the world. Perhaps it's as they say
in The Corp, the people within the system are often fine, it's the system
itself that's corrupt.

I used to think that we had enough resources, so why couldn't we share
them more evenly...now I wonder if we do have enough resources at all. At
the rate China, Brazil, India etc are growing (and that's not a slight
against them at all...) and industrializing....? Hrm.

What always confuses me however, is how obvious the solution seems. With
the advent of the Internet, the decades / centuries of the same old cycles
happening over and over, the advances in science and thinking across the
board, surely it should be possible to start a movement, I hesitate to say
a political movement, but a movement whereby you transcend governments and
corporations etc, you in effect have a 'Party' that exists wherever anyone
subscribes to a set of basic principles...

Boycott certain corporations
Boycott goods produced by certain countries
Boycott particular classes of goods (landmines, military rifles,
ridiculous luxury goods, goods with far too much wasteful packaging, too
many 'externalities' in the production process etc)
Avoid financial speculation
Support only ethical and financially sound investments
Boycott companies that provide weapons to the military
Pool financial resouces to provide support for aligned causes and
gregarious ventures etc...
Free dissemination of information
Set up independent, reliable, non-corporate agenda media
Aim to restrict population growth
More money into R&D for products that are sustainable
More money into research and think tanks to address worldwide issues
More political cohesion between governments...

Aren't there enough intelligent, wealthy, well intentioned people out
there that that could get off that the ground...? So instead of little
movements that boycott one particular corporation or lobby one particular
(current) government, a comprehensive movement aimed to rectify the things
that everyone always bemoans, through sheer force of consumer purchasing
power and charitable effort...?

I seriously think we could transcend country, religious, maybe even
political boundaries by acting towards a shared goal, as opposed to self
interest. Isn't self interest short sighted? Long term I believe 'no one
can be happy until everyone is happy'...not literally but you get my
meaning.

One of the things I really like about Killing Joke is the Gathering ethic,
it's a step towards what I described above...

PS: I forgot, free the weed! Fight the power! We shall overcome etc....now
where's my Che T-shirt and prayer beads ;)



> I think the documentary _The Corporation_ is a good antidote, and ina ny

> evet simply more accurate, than America: From Freedom to fascism.

>

> It tracks the development of the entity known as the "coporation" as

> being the primary unit of economic production and distribution in the

> United States.

>

> Many folks are surprised to learn that the legal entity known as the

> "corporation" in US law was not created until the 1880s in the U.S. It

> was a way for individuals to acquire wealth while escaping

> responsibility. This artificial entity, the "corporation," technically

> made the money, which was paid out to the folks behind it; while if the

> corporation did anything heinous, the "corporation," since it was its

> own separate legal entity, like a human, could be held responsible, and

> not necessarily the people behind it. "Piercing the corporate veil" is

> the term for getting at the folks behind corporations, who are really

> its masters. Like holding executives at Enron responsible instead of

> simply just this abstract legal entity known as "Enron."

>

> This is why Ambrobe Bierce, in his late 19th century _Devil's

> Dictionary_, defined a "corporation" this way: *

>

> Corporation*: n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit

> without individual responsibility.

>

> In any event, prior to 1880, in America joint stock companies or

> chartered companies existed, but they are different from corporations. A

> company might be assembled for a particular task -- say, building a

> bridge. A state, like Vermont, would grant a charter to that company so

> that they could do this as a unit. Once the brigde was buit, the charter

> was dissolved/rescinded, and the company was over.

>

> In th 1880s that changed, and corporations could be created with no

> other purpose than to "make money," for an indefinite period of time,

> forever, yet were still regarded as individual persons, asigned a TAX ID

> instead of a Social Security number, and privy to the same

> Constitutional rights formerly reserved for the people only -- like,

> rights to freedom of speech, etc.

>

> What many people don't realize is that states still have to issue

> corporate charters for corporations to exist. And there is a movement to

> revoke the corporate charters of many companies that have not behaved in

> the public interest. Politicians are not eager to do that -- because

> guess where most of their election campaign comes from? not the Joe

> Sixpacks dealing with the effects of, say, a corporation's environmental

> damage -- but from corporations.

>

> The documentary The Corporation traces the history of "The Corporation"

> and how now it is so culturally ingrained into US life as a simple fact

> of existence that many folks forget corporations did not exist as such

> before the 1880s and were controversial arrangements from the get-go.

>

> -Oliver

>

>

>

>

> Brendan wrote:

>> Christ on a bike, things are going downhill when the fascists start

>> putting out their own conspiracy theories, thought that was for hippies

>> like us?!

>>

>> The feral right annoy me too, I was over at my friend's place the other

>> day and his Dad, who is head of one of the larger japanese car

>> companies'

>> presence in NZ, was there. He's always going on about his right agenda,

>> he's another one who believes in Ayn Rand's self correcting perfect

>> market

>> bullshit...but he's too dumb to have done any research into it so didn't

>> even know who Ayn Rand is...

>>

>> Anyway get this, I know all this sounds too good to be true (I almost

>> wished I had it on tape...), but they are adopting 'environmentally

>> friendly' policies at his behest, even though in his words "there's not

>> a

>> scrap of scientific evidence to support global warming"...merely as  PR

>> exercise.

>>

>> Waste of time talking to people like that.

>>

>> Oh and at my cousin's baby's party recently, I met a guy who works in

>> marketing, someone asked him how to promote a particular product (a

>> class

>> of small yacht), and he unabashedly told him to get a couple of kids

>> with

>> cancer out there and publicise it...everyone wins, they get an

>> experience

>> they otherwise wouldn't have, and you get your good publicity.

>>

>> Fucking unbelievable...Cancerous Kids Marketing inc. I know it all

>> sounds

>> too good (bad) to be true but both instances happened within the same

>> week.

>>

>>

>>

>>

>>

>

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>



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