Thinking Outside the Box

[This was a comment I posted at slashdot.org today (October 12, 2011) in response to a solicitation about what people thought about the Occupy Wall Street movement. As you can see, I have some pretty strong views on the matter, which I believe are well supported by history! --Rick] I have not read all of the many interesting comments here , but a text search tells me that no one has yet mentioned the issue of corporate personhood; but it deserves mention, because it is the Achilles heel in the legal armor that corporations have used to rise to prominence in our economy -- and deserves to become a more prominent part of the hue and cry at OWS events. (I've seen it as part of their demands, but not very prominently.) This singular fact is well known to some in the progressive activist community -- Thom Hartmann, Amy Goodman, Dennis Kucinich, Chris Hedges, Van Jones, to name a few -- but not to the mainstream media, much less the American public. The main activity center trying to...

[For those not aware, the steady deregulation of the financial industry since the 1980's basically gave the big banks and associated industries (insurance, credit rating, etc) the freedom to do whatever the hell they want, which pushed us back into the situation of the 1920's, where there was zero regulation of anything financial -- ie, recreating conditions that led to the Great Crash of 1929 due to a huge asset bubble (that time in stock prices, this time in housing prices), and inducing the Great Depression...which we only narrowly averted reenacting in 2008, and are still experiencing. A big area of interest in how to restructure the financial industry landscape is state banks, in which we have a living, breathing example in North Dakota. A great article was recently published on this very topic, and I have taken the liberty of reproducing the key excerpts from it...which I hope convey its vital essential message that this is a HUGELY GOOD IDEA to put our support behind. --...

[This was a reply I made on August 27, 2011 to a question poised on the steadystaters@googlegroups.com listserv. It mainly points out how raising awareness among the general public is the underlying action that needs to happen -- which can be thought of a lifelong service to a noble goal.] Sharon, To reply to your questions, please see my responses below: is there something else that needs to happen besides abolishing the right of corporations to be treated as 'people'? I think what needs to happen is raising awareness and education among the general public which amounts to consciousness raising about the issue of corporate personhood and why we must change it. This will not happen quickly, but there are literally hundreds of thousands of activist organizations all over the world working hard on this goal. Have you heard of Bioneers and wiserearth.org , started by Paul Hawken ? They are certainly in the vanguard but unfortunately the mainstream media does not quite ...

[Another post to the steadystaters@google.com listserv....on August 26, 2011] I fully agree with Sharon of Australia. What she makes clear is that all of us are facing the same economic, environmental and political problem. But this political aspect is what I saw missing from Sharon's compassionate description of what needs to happen to improve our economic and environmental situation -- but which is critical to acknowledge within the steady state community. From my viewpoint, the economic and environmental situation will never change until the political perception changes to the point where we begin to pass legislation that supports the environment and supports an economy based on people, and not corporations. And it is this struggle between the rights of people and the rights of corporations which will become more and more clear, as our problems intensify, and the causes of them become more and more obvious. This will require changing the stated public purpose of the insti...

[This is a post I made to a listserv dedicated to ecological economics, sometimes referred to as steady state economics. I sidestep the ideological discussions that the question below could devolve into, and point that if ecological economists are sincere about the change they say they seek, they must get involved political process...otherwise their contributions are merely "academic", i.e. without effect in the so-called 'real world.'] On Sun, Aug 7, 2011 at 10:43 PM, cruxcatalyst (sharon) wrote: Here's a curly question for the economists among us with more expertise than myself: how can a capitalist world model exist (theoretically and practically) without an ever expanding world population? Cheers Sharon To answer, such questions, I agree that it is wise to avoid ideology. My following comments are based solely on the practical recent lessons of why we are experiencing the current recession, and the direction we sure...