I've been trying access the archives on this thread, considering its
interesting title but the program doesn't seem to work for me. Which makes
the point I am going to make. I have to work as a 59 year old private
entrepreneur who does not have medical plan or retirement but am responsible
for daughter's college fees, now minimum $60,000 in the U.S. if the college
is any good at all. Whether college itself is relevant is another issue
but not for this post.
I would simply say that a socialist/mini-capitalist framework with a decent
Bureau of Standards for the Internet, telephone, travel and other large
expenses would free us to see that we don't really get much serious work
done at all considering the time we feed this market beast. Not being a
humdrum worker who only works for profit, this makes my work likely to fail
simply for having to deal with the addictive market distraction that most of
the country is involved in. How long can a society exist on such shallow
Anglo premises? I guess we will find out.
America and Ed Weick liked to talk about the failure of Communism as if it
were the only alternative to this Wild West Capitalism but it isn't while
they also make a point that places of extreme poverty like Pine Ridge Indian
Reservation are an aberration in Capitalist society. Except the whole
state of Oklahoma is itself locked in a ghetto that is more affluent in the
old "oil capital" cities but no less poor economically and spiritually in
the countryside than much of Pine Ridge. They only thing keeping it alive
is a religion that swears the earth is less than 10,000 years old.
On the other hand the superbly trained professionals that have escaped the
collapse of the Soviet System have no trouble competing within America's
great "success" at creating affluence for the people who have something to
offer.
Without America's "communities of faith" (with their veneration of an out
date desert cultural manual as literal science), the Russians are not
limited to spending hours justifying the contradictions between that manual
and modern science, in short, they can just study and get their work done.
They are not bad at competing on the cultural venue either. Greedy short
term capitalists like most of the silicone valley implants lobby to gobble
them up us as cheap superbly trained labor while chastising the Americans
for being the America that they love and worship.
They are against environmentalists and yet act, in the market, like the most
retro "leave it alone" environmentalists on the planet. The type that
defend Grizzlies eating campers after they have cut off their free meals at
the garbage dumps. To a poor reservation trained NYCity Opera Director
who believes in culture and self-motivation this seems nuts, although I do
love the way those Russian women wear those skimpy costumes without guilt.
I fear this is a pre-Columbian mistake that my folks have made before.
Ray Evans Harrell
P.S. on the music business issue Brad and others. From what I have been
able to find you aren't even asking the questions yet. I would be
interested in such a discussion. You might read my post to Keith about
the failed salt water fish tanks that cost so much. The success is in the
little things not the big simple easies. REH
----- Original Message -----
From: "Brad McCormick, Ed.D." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Christoph Reuss" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Sunday, February 04, 2001 8:55 AM
Subject: Re: music, internet, money-making (What do *you* think?)
> Christoph Reuss wrote:
> >
> > Brad McCormick replied:
> [snip]
> > > One thing seems fairly certain, to me, however. Insofar as the medium
is
> > > the message, Intel and Dell and AOL and Microsoft and MCI-Worldcom
> > > and Consolidated Edison, etc. are the medium. Never has a "populist"
> > > phenomenon been so massively dependent on such big business.
> >
> > Funny, but I (and many others) have been on the Internet for years
*without*
> > using products from "Intel and Dell and AOL and Microsoft and
MCI-Worldcom
> > and Consolidated Edison". Let's face it, their stuff is for dummies,
and
> > M$ has "slept" the Internet for years. It's pretty easy to avoid their
stuff
> > (in fact you're better off without it), as the Internet is largely based
on
> > GNU software and "any" hardware. Never has a "populist" phenomenon been
> > so massively **INdependent** on such big business!
>
> I forgot Cisco Systems in my list of corporate dependencies of the
> Internet. I believe that far more than half
> (perhaps almost all?) of all the
> "IP packets" (the little bundles of bits that are the building
> blocks of all Internet communication) go through Cisco
> routers.
>
> Populist communication media? How about Ham and CB radio? I think
> they came closer to being independent of big corporations,
> but they were also far less "powerful" than the Internet.
>
> I am not an expert. So I'll ask some questions and see what I
> can learn from others:
>
> + To what extent do you think the Internet is dependent
> on big business and big government?
>
> + What effects if any do you think such dependency or
> lack of dependency has on the role of the Internet
> in the lives of middle class and working class persons
> in the USA, Australia, Canada, etc.?
>
> Yours through Cisco routers, probably some MCI fiber optic
> cable, some Dell or Compaq servers, Verizon telephone
> lines, and who knows what
> other expensive hardware (and, yes, also through some
> "freeware" Apache software at least at my ISP...)....
>
> +\brad mccormick
>
> --
> Let your light so shine before men,
> that they may see your good works.... (Matt 5:16)
>
> Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21)
>
> <![%THINK;[SGML+APL]]> Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> 914.238.0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua NY 10514-3403 USA
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
> Visit my website ==> http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/
