Did this guy really *get it*, though?

He talks about “corporatization” at the start, but seems to conclude that corporations are just poorly behaved entities who each need to be reformed –

” … corporations readily abuse power and exploit workers and consumers … seize and control our very sense of what’s real, bend it to their will, driven by greed and focused on profitability above all else …

The remedy, (Rushkoff) suggests, is “the slow subordination of corporate activity to social activity, and corporate behavior to human behavior.”

… and the cultures and values of corporations can be aligned with the values of the individuals who commit so much of their time and energy to work there.”

… whereas my take on the book was that (paraphrase) “the landscape is tilted”: given a set of assumptions made in the past, our actions follow naturally: until we root out the false premises, it’s inevitable – and nobody’s/no corporation’s fault – that we default to certain kinds of behaviour.

The game, once accepted, necessarily implies a set of strategies.

The game’s the problem – the strategies are just consequences.

“The game’s the problem – the strategies are just consequences.”

Very astute observation and analysis.

But one I’ll venture to say, Rushkoff is yet to make. This is why Rushkoff refuses to denounce copyright laws and all the consequences that flow from it.

The comments at the big Lebkowsky’s piece are illuminating in that they reflect multi-disciplinary thinking that goes further than Lebkowsky or Rushkoff care to go.

Essentially, Lebkowsky and Rushkoff agree that we can educate ourselves and tame the beast which has convinced us the “efficiencies” corporation have afforded us justify the means and the evolution of those means and the ancillary ideologies born of them.

It is a very, very long snaking and closed path from corporation and capitalism to derivatives salesmen and their feudal clans. Similarly, there are narratives of bondage and oppression to be heard from in the course of this history.

I would like to see “a slow subordination of corporate activity to social activity, and corporate behavior to human behavior” Douglas advocates and which Lebkowsky offers two programmatic approaches. I want to see this result and am willing to work towards this end. For this reason, i understood why Obama felt the need to continue with the program of bailout. I felt the bail out should have had a lot more strings.

Obviously, millions more have been persuaded and are being persuaded that the bailout will hurt more than help and that we should take our hands off the handlebars [again]. Yippee!

Like i said, i want “a soft landing,” but i am not eager to send the plane up again without a serious conversation. See you all at the town hall…

-mason

To help with what is implicit in my “argument” is some ability in deconstruction or this 7.27 minute crash course in deployment.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTGyiEtEXf4

So come on out hoola dancers!
Won’tcha come out t’night, come out t’night.
You blind judges, you gifted kings and queens
You legends, you martyrs and sheep
who’ve watched us fall to sleep
wash our hands in the morning and start to speak
in our closed circuits, baby……

we’ve got the answers…..

Drat. Please read:

I would like to see “the slow subordination of corporate activity to social activity, and corporate behavior to human behavior” Douglas advocates and to which Lebkowsky offers two programmatic approaches.

that is all

Fearless:

You say the hill’s too steep to climb
Just climb it
You say you’d like to see me try
Climbing
You pick the place and I’ll choose the time
And I’ll climb
The hill in my own way
Just wait a while for the right day
And as I rise above the tree lines and the clouds
I look down
Hear the sound of the things you said today

Fearlessly, the idiot faced the crowd
Smiling
Merciless, the magistrate turns ’round
Frowning
And who’s the fool who wears the crown?
And go down in your own way
And every day is the right day
And as you rise above the fear-lines in his brow
You look down
Hear the sound of the faces in the crowd

http://bit.ly/PV89G

Blessings, hail, mika!

I forget to include the magistrates, poor sons, whose might makes right. They will go down, they will go down, down in their own way. And, true, true enough it’s true “every day is the right day.”

Peace, mason

Blessings! I hope you’ve managed to collect on the recent 10% run on my advice. But if not, there’ll be more to come.

Due to some peculiar circumstances and general constraints on time, it will take a little concentrated effort on my part to even get the resources in place for such transactions. Did have the resource in place once, but had to liquidate. Fortunately, that necessity enabled me to break even on Vale S.A. during a very rough patch. VA will probably fare well forward as well. But i’ve sure missed the bottom!

I always found them bottoms sexier looking as they stair up.

Pink Floyd lyrics aside,
As long as to act in cold and calculating ways brings people success and prosperity (as the ads on TV define for us what success and prosperity are), there will be two choices:

A.) You become a part of that system, and you benefit from it.

B.) You try your best to live outside the system, condemn it, and find solace in things like community. Let’s be logical:

If I, as a young person choose option A, choose a college major like finance, choose a car like BMW, and go be a manager someplace, I at least can be somewhat assured I’ll get what society tells me is success.

If I choose option B, choose a college major like sociology, choose a car like the same 95 Civic I’ve driven for 15 years, and be unemployed, I might be happy in some terms (maybe not), but you can sure bet I’m not going to be successful the way society and the ads on TV define success.

My point: as long as success in America is defined (by corporate media) as success within the corporate system, the system will continue to perpetuate itself. Until we can, as Rushkoff suggests, create local value, there will be no value in our locales. Our perception is ours, it’s all we’ve got, and we ought each try every day to retain and reclaim it.

“The rule that [a paschal lamb] is only eaten by those who were counted [with a view to partaking] of it, has been laid down in order to make sure that it is acquired and that no one relies in this matter upon a relative, a friend or someone he chances to meet, but that he should take care of it from the beginning”

http://tiny.cc/ZV1GM

Gratitude for choice and choosing life aside, our *intention* is also ours. Once we understand what it is to choose a king, work for a corporation or join the aristocracy, we have only to look at television to be assured (as my father enthusiastically assured me) “The world is your oyster.”

When we find that evil and wrong have befallen our little oyster, others and even ourselves, we get one or two opportunities to change, to adopt real intentions based upon true perceptions.

One no longer relies on chance or the certainty that Jesus loves him. Over used as such, Jesus is a very ill oyster.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R532yBoDco4

Doug offers us just 5 centuries of history sliced thin on a slide with an eye on corporatism. There are thousands and thousands of ancillary discourses deployed around it and the millions on millions of people who have experienced and shaped it. To realise that “every care is taken” to manage the self (Foucault) is to find and create value by setting the table ourselves and making room for many others. We create the system ourselves *and* with each other. Otherwise, it’s just another “kick in the eye.”

I think i saw the Smiths in this venue on their first crossing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fe6MmFZbFBY

Rushkoff has had a lot of time to think and digest this. But I think the best way to approach this problem is thru education and awareness. Once people are aware of the problem, the graft, the endless corruption, they will start modifying their behavior and their attitude towards big government and the forces that push for big government and centralization.

Unfortunately, Rushkoff is not the person to look for as example, as he is totally captured by the Left and their platter of big government oligarchy.

Hmm,.. down the memory hole they go.