Re: Abraham Lincoln on War and Corporate-Enthronement

[Burkhart <aikidosphere@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

James Devine writes:

[Burkhart writes: >If corporations are so powerful, why don't we cleverly exploit them for progressive change?<]

how would you do that? Jim D. 


Hi Jim,

When I played Water Polo at Caltech, we used to occasional
go play Loyola's team.  It was a unique pool with changing
rooms all around it -- are they still there?

Anyway from a systems engineering perspective, if corporations
dominate sociology it is pretty clear that fixing sociology involves
fixing corporations.  All that is needed when everyone has changed
and is sitting around the pool is for the first one to jump in and tell
everyone else, "the water is fine!"  I think we are that stage.

Corporations have done a lot of great and a lot of terrible things.
There are systemic reasons for the terrible things occuring.  Those
systemic things involve corporate hegemony in politics and public
thought (via media), so really the only truly effective activism I can
imagine at this point is realizing this and either building a powerful
corporation (or converting one that has progressive interests), and
beginning to undo the systemic protections of privelege that bring
problems.  And not stopping there, it will be very beneficial to
reveal how the whole process works so that hopefully past
mistakes will not again be repeated!

What do you think?  Can it work?  Anybody ready to test the water
with me?

(By the way, I try to make this all clear in the essay Aikido Activism
at http://tinyurl.com/38gtl, but I am not sure that I do.  Love any
feedback on any of these ideas.  Harsh criticisms, patronizing insults,
slaps on the back -- whatever.)

Burkhart