Les said, the better II

what would you do for a gmail invite?

The government just released some of the henious plot by Jose Padilla, US Citizen arrested and held extra-constitutionally for months, accused of being in al-Qaida. He was denied many constitutional rights and has yet to be charged. But, recall, we was accused of trying to build a dirty bomb. Today the feds said that he was giong to explode a dirty bomb made out of uranium. To which several nuclear scientists said, “oh no! not uranium! It might, um, not hurt anything at all.” One reported that he uses a brick of uranium as a door stop.

Yes, it’s radioactive. If you get a whole mess of uranium, you can start a chain reaction where it will all explode and create a huge of a mess and cause highly dangerous radioactive waste to go everywhere. That kind of device is called a nuclear bomb. If you just take some uranium and attach it to some dynamite to make a dirty bomb, well, it’s not so bad. The radioactive waves emitted from uranium won’t even penetrate your skin. You can stand around in the same room with it an not be harmed. Simply, it’s not dangerous unless you eat it or inhale it. that’s why using oodles of depleted uranium in warfare is dastardly, because it gets blown up into a fine dust which people breathe. And it’s why exploding a small amount of it in an urban area is kind of lame. It could be cleaned up by folks with protection from eating it or breathing it.
Also, spent fuel rods are dangerous to handle, dangerous to transport and would kill anyone who handled them in a dirty bomb plot. But once exploded with dynamite? Not so dangerous at all. Dirty bombs are interesting to al-Qaida only because they are scary to people. And why are they scary? Because the Bush administration, instead of preventing the populace from coming to harm by arming it with information, has decided to increase risks, play up fear and cause panic. But hey, any city big enough to merit a dirty bomb probably votes democrat anyone, so who cares, right?
It would be nice to see the Bush administration follow the law and respect the rights of Padilla. I mean, he’s a citizen, even. What’s up with the FBI and federal law enforcement anyway? Do they have no ability to back off when they have no case. Remember Wen Ho Lee, Los Almos lab guy who had his reputation smeared for months while they claimed he was spying for China. They finally had to give up when it turned out the only thing he was guilty of was being of the same race as the government of China. There’s defeinitely a spy-like connection there. Or not. And the latest? The FBI just arrested an installation artist who had some lab equipment in his house for an installation he was working of for Mass MoCA. It should be obvious by now that Steve Kurtz isn’t guilty of anyhting more than being an artist, but he and two others have been served subpoenas to appear before a federal grand jury that will consider bioterrorism charges against them. There’s a defense fund set up to help the artists involved in this: http://www.caedefensefund.org/ and you can read some media accounts of it at: http://www.appliedautonomy.com/cae/, An AP story, Editorial in the Buffalo News, and The Washington Post.

The blogosphere reacts. Actually, that’s my girlfriend reacting, but she’s smart. But she leaves an important question unanswered:

What circle of hell has Reagan been sent to?

This requires some thought. How much did he know. Was he smart enough and present enough to understand his evil actions? Was he lightly dozing or unable to recall? Or was he activelty participating? (The structure of Hell) What levels are good canidates? I’ll create a handy guide, skipping levels which are totally unsuitable, such as “unbaptized infants”

Level	Sub level	sin	Pro	Con	eternal punishment
Vestibule of Hell		The neutral; uncommitted	Reagan wasn’t all that aware. perhaps he was a neutral non-participant	His talk wasn’t at all neutral. Also, I think he merrits more than the vestibule	Stung by insects; running after banners
Circle 4		avarice (extreme greed)	Chomsky described Reagan as “throwing a party for the rich.” He defunded social services while cutting taxes.	Supporting reaigns of terror seem to be about more than just greed. And the punishment, while ironic is kind of light.	Condemned to useless labor
Circle 7	Round 1	Violent against neighbors and fellow men: murderers, war makers, homicides	Well, cutting social services to the point where mentally ill people are dying in the streets is really a form of structural violence. It’s also directly violent to attack Nicaragua and support genocide in Guatemala.	He didn’t recall anything about the Iran/Contra thing. Maybe nobody bothered to tell him about it.	Submerged in hot blood and Guarded by centaurs, who shoot any soul which attempts to rise
Circle 9 – Cocytus – Realm of Compound Fraud	Round 2 Antenora	Traitors to country	Well, he was the worst president we ever had and he really screwed the majority of the people in the country. He appointed people to comissions who dismanteled those commissions, such as Clarence Thomas to the Equal Opportunity Commission which did not persue one claim under the Thomas tenure.	Was his intense patriotism real or a sign of his extrme deviousness?	Gripped by ice
Circle 9 – Cocytus – Realm of Compound Fraud	Round 3 Judecca	The Ultimate Destroyer	Lots and lots of nukes. Was the world going to end?	Didn’t actually bring about nuclear war.	Lucifer’s three wings send forth freezing blasts of impotence, ignorance and hatred. Also, he chews three guys in his maw, including Judas.

Conclusion

I think Reagan is probably in Circle 7, but might be in 9.

(Read previous post about corporations)

• The Profit Motive
• What to do
• How to do it
• Obstacles

The Profit Motive

The purpose of a corporation is to make money and only to make money. In fact, they are legally obligated to make as much money as possible. And legally obligated to make said money in the short term. If a corporation fails to make as much money as possible, they can be sued by their stockholders who would argue that the corp had not done enough to increase the stockholders’ wealth. Corporation must always think of the short term financial interests of their stockholders first and everything else second.
This means that if they can figure out a way to make money, they must do it. For example: tobacco companies. They sell cigarettes to children in the third world. They park logo-decorated vans outside of elementary schools and tell kids that American kids smoke their brand. And they have to do it. If company X stopped doing that while all the other companies still did it, they could be sued by their shareholders. Tobacco companies have to lobby against laws designed to protect people from second hand smoke. They have to fight public health measures against them. Nicotine is one of the most addictive drugs on earth. More so than heroin. And smoking-related deaths are a major problem around the world. Tobacco companies are shortening lives and hurting quality of life around the world. Yet the US government blocks any efforts to outlaw smoking in other countries. Even ones that really cannot afford the additional health costs brought about by smoking (life long smoking, starting from elementary school). Countries that try to create minimum smoking age laws are bullied by the Us government. Why? Because the tobacco industry has super-good lobbyists. They have to. It maximized profits. It’s the law.
Ok, now take an example of a company that produces 7 tons of dioxin every year. This is a fictitious example. (However, dioxin is an extremely common pollutant, produced ad a byproduct of many process, including burning diesel and bleaching paper. It’s also one of the most carcinogenic chemicals on earth and was a major “inactive” component of agent orange and currently lurks in Monsanto product Roundup.) Let’s say the dump all 7 tons into the San Francisco Bay. Right now, it is illegal to dump dioxin into the bay. (And in fact, most dioxin pollution in the bay is no longer from industrial dumping, but comes from things like folks burning dino-diesel in semi-trucks.) Let’s say it would cost $100 million to alter their production lines so they produce 75% less dioxin. Lets’ say it would cost $2 million to dispose of the dioxin in a legally allowable manner. Let’s say the fines for dumping dioxin in the bay are $3 million and 4 inspectors work in the entire Bay Area and only visited the factory once in the last two years. All these numbers are made up. So, on average, if the inspectors only come every other year, the fines for illegally dumping dioxin would be $1.5 million per year. And if they only produce dioxin on Tuesdays and the inspectors do not time their visits accordingly, the cost of dumping dioxin in the bay is $300,000 per year. That means, that it’s cheaper to pay on average $300,000 in fines for dumping carcinogenic toxins in the bay than disposing of it legally. That’s the behavior that would maximize short term profit for stockholders. That’s a cost of doing business. That’s what capitalism is all about. And they’ll lobby against higher fines with their vast wealth. And they’ll lobby against being mandated to install equipment to reduce dioxin. And they’ll hire a team of extremely good lawyers when people sue saying they’ve gotten cancer. So the only way to make them reduce output is if a concerned public hounds government with the same tenacity as the corporate lobbyists or if they threat of lawsuits becomes strong enough that they feel they can best protect their assets by taking action now to prevent future losses.
This is how the system has been legally and socially structured to work. Corporate structures limit financial liability. They also function to limit moral liability. It’s a bunch of people just doing their jobs. Who do you point at and say, “that’s a bad guy!”?? Chomsky says, in the movie The Corporation (I highly recommend this film), that the system is monstrous. Individuals in the system may be great people, but the system itself is evil. The system itself must be radically altered. Either the character of corporations must be entirely rethought, or they must be come much less powerful and forced to look at the interests of society. Because when the most powerful institutions in society are working against the interests of society, there is a huge problem.

What to do

Reducing corporate power! It’s the answer.

Revoking Charters

Recall that corporations are chartered in a particular state. If they keep violating the laws of that state, they can have their charter revoked. They cease to exist. However, this is like putting out spot fires. It’s a good idea to give regulatory agencies more teeth for sure. Our fictitious dioxin-producing company would be more likely to follow the law if they could be de-chartered for breaking it. But you still would have to challenge every corporation separately while the still lobbied against you and donated money to all politicians involved. In California, citizens cannot sue to revoke a charter. Only the attorney general (an elected position) can.

Ending Corporate Personhood

As I’ve said before, clearly corporations are not people. I mean, what if a real person was only concerned with making as much money as possible and saw hurting people and paying fines for breaking the law as just part of that quest. We’d say they were nuts. A sociopath, even. The legal “decision” giving corporations the rights of people must be overturned. I’ve put “decision” in quotes because no written decision exists. Before the Supreme Court was set to heart oral arguments in SANTA CLARA COUNTY v. SOUTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD CO., 118 U.S. 394 (1886), the chief justice just announced that the whole court agreed that corporations deserved the rights of people and didn’t want to hear arguments about it. And thus it became law in that once sentence. No public debate. No legal reasoning.

How to do it

In the past, the court has made decisions that were ultimately overturned. For example, the same court that decided that corporations deserved equal protection later decided (with only one dissenting vote) that African Americans did not. That decision was overturned in Brown vs The Board of Education. The Bauer decision, which said it was ok to make sodomy illegal was overturned last summer. Roe Vs. Wade is currently under attack and may be overturned. These fights seem to have some elements in common.

Activism

People were in the streets protesting against anti-sodomy laws. Protesting against Jim Crow and now protesting against abortion rights. Activism increases public awareness, gets attention, lets the other side know that you’re serious. The Montgomery Bus Boycott ended segregation on public transit. It was a court case and direct action. Both elements were needed.

Legal Action

there is now a huge mass of precedent saying corporations are people. That precedent must be challenged. A body of anti-corporate people arguments must be produced. This means getting think-tank-types: law students, professors, interested professionals, together to start writing stuff. It also means getting lawyers to start arguing stuff in courts. We need law students and some law professors to get on board. Labor Law is probably a good recruitment area.

Other Actions

I was surprised to see a note in The Corporation that two cities had passed ordinances saying they would not consider corporations people. This sounds like something Berkeley could get on board with. These ordinances may not have much legal power, but they have huge symbolic values. They show that people care about the issue and are engaged in government and politics. They show that voters care. Which can affect court appointments.

Obstacles

I think this is something that could happen and something that’s worth working on. However, right now corporations have way more resources than us and have more rights than us. They will fight this any way that they can. Heck, they have to. It will not be easy. But something must be done. Our system is unsustainable an cannot be fixed without radically changing the dominant institutions. Institutions that control resources must be publicly accountable. We cannot put essential life-sustaining resources in the hands of organizations that only look for short term-profits. It’s suicide. We can do this. We must do this.

The American Composers Forum is sponsoring a Christmas Carol Contest. They’re looking for music for choral groups, SATB (Sopranao, Alto, Tenor, Bass). Lyrics can have a winter or a Christmas theme and must either be public domain or have written permission of the author.

So I’m having a contest too. Write lyrics! I’m looking for mostly winter or Solstice themed, but feel free to submit Christmas lyrics too. One lucky person will have their lyrics set to music and submitted to this contest. Woot. Also, I will endeavor to find a performance of the work in another venue in the case that it doesn’t win the contest… You will receive a copy of the sheet music, a recording of whatever performance I can put together, all the benefits of being a lyracist, um, and other fun things, like, um, dinner.
The deadline for turning in the music is September, but obviously, I need lyrics well in advance of that. Send as many sets of words as you want. Thenk you

I came to visit my cousin. She is 86 years old, owing to her actually being my grandmother’s first cousin and my first cousin twice removed. She lives in a convent in Brentwood, as she is a nun. She is my sole remaining female relatives. How many relatives have I watched slowly die? I sat at my grandmothers’ bedsides. I sat at my mother’s. Now, at my cousin’s. She hasn’t eaten anything in three days and barely takes liquid. She nearly died a few weeks ago. She had an anti-biotic resistant infection in her blood. The nuns called my dad saying that they didn’t think she would live through the weekend, but then she did. My dad didn’t tell me, because I was so far away. I’ve been complaining about this to other people and not him, but actually, I’m not mad. You can’t undo the past. And I’m kind of glad I didn’t know.

It’s been nearly a year since I last came to see her. Last July or August I came by myself. Normally, I came every time with Christi. Now I’m here with my dad. She didn’t open her eyes to recognize me. I’m not sure if she was asleep or awake when I held her hand and talked to her about grad school. I can hear her voice so clearly in my head, being excited when I told her I was going away to school. But now she’s nearly mute. Sister Jeanne said that she can be more talkative around lunchtime.
I didn’t come over fall break or thanksgiving or winter break or spring break. Now, I’m finally here. And she. like everyone I love, will die or leave. I expect to be back here soon.

Our country is currently controlled by moneied interests who donate vast sums to both major parties. Corporate money now has greater voting power than humans in the United States. Legal systems have been set up that make this situation difficult to combat. This is a bit about how they work and where they’re vunerable

• What is a Corporation? – Definitions
• Corporations are People too
• What does it mean for corporations to have human rights?
• Corporations have too many rights
• Things are bad, but we can undo them

What is a Corporation? – Definitions

The Daytrader’s Glossary defines a corporation as a “form of business organization characterized by a state charter or articles of incorporation enabling certain rights separate from its owners. Common features of a corporation include limited liability of the owners, issuance of stock in evidence of ownership, election of directors and officers by vote of shareholders and taxation of the corporation separate to that of the owners.” Ok, so what that means is that a corporation is a type of buisiness organization with many owners. The corporation is considered a legally seperate entitiy from it’s owners. It is a thing that exists in the world, seperate from it’s owners. Corporations limit liability of the owners. What this means is that the owners are not personally responcible for the debts of the corporation. If the company runs out of money and owes many debts, the company can go bankrupt, but the owners are not responcible for the debt. So if Mitch and I own a corporation that owes $50,000 to Sophie, and the corporation only has $20,000 in assets, Mitch and I personally don’t owe the remaining $30,000 and too bad for Sophie.

Corporations issue stock. A stock is a share of ownership in the corporation. A person who owns one or more stocks (also called “shares”) is a stockholder. The percentage of the corporation owned by any stockholder is the number of shares owned divided by the total number of shares issued. Stockholders get to vote on resolutions and on the directors and officers of the corporation. One share is one vote (except in special cases, like the Google IPO). So if you own 50 shares, you get 50 votes. Corporations also, as a seperate legal entity have tax liability. The organization owes taxes, but since liability is seperated, the owners do not owe those taxes.
Corporations are chartered. This means that some state causes them to come into existance. People who want to start a corporation file paperwork in some state and pay some fees and then they have a corporation. The state could, at some point, decide to revoke the charter of a corporation and then it would cease to legally exist.
Ok, so corporations are collectively owned and the owners have no liability. They are chartered in some state. Under law, corporations exist as things in the world. what sort of things?

Corporations are People too

In 1886, the supreme court of the Unites States decided that corporations were legally people. There was a case about corporate taxation before them. SANTA CLARA COUNTY v. SOUTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD CO., 118 U.S. 394 (1886) And they decided that the 14th Amendment and Equal Protection applied to corporations, as they were legally people. An excellent explination what what this means and how it came about. This is called a “legal fiction.” So when corporations are in court, judges employ a fiction and pretend that corporations are people. This means that corporations, as people, get all the rights that people get. Free speech. The right to bear arms. Protections against unlawful search and seizure. The whole bill of rights and every other constitutional right too. All the rights that were written for actual, real-life, non-fictional people.
But corporations have limitted liability. You can’t send a corporation to jail, obviously. And the owners can’t lose more than their stock. So coporations are super-people. They have all the same rights that you and I do, plus they don’t get sick, fall and break their arm, go to jail, die of old age, or have any human frailties. The only bad things that can happen to corporations s that they can run out of money or they can have their charter revoked.

What does it mean for corporations to have human rights?

The idea that corporation deserve human rights, and, in fact, deserve more rights than humans is deeply troubling. One of the “rights” they have is freedom of speech. This means that a corporation can officially say whatever the heck it wants, just like a person can. Nike argued that this meant the have the right to lie about whether or not their shoes are made with sweatshop labor. It also means that corporations have the right to political speech, such as trying to influence the outcome of a poltical contest. Donating money to a politician is cirrently viewed as a type of “speech,” so corporations have the right to give money to candidates that they agree with. Many coporations have way more resources than individuals. This means, practically, they have more freedom of speech than us lowly humans. And they’re basically feudal. Corporations are heirachical. your boss tells you what to do. You, as an employee don’t get to elect leadership or have any influence in anything aside from worrying whether or not you’re going to get fired. Yeah, some employees own stock, but in their role as an employee they do not have any rights in influencing the direction of the corporation aside from what the corporation chooses to grant them. Which means that a textile company which employees 1000 people at minimum wage and 100 highly paid managers and who has 100 rich stockholders can use it’s wealth to lobby to have the minimum wage reduced. It can publish ads in newspapers saying the minimum wage is too high. It can give sums of money to politicians that want to elmininate minimum wage entirely. It can put posters on the walls telling emplyees that minimum wages are a bad idea and unions are evil. It can make them watch videos saying that. So there would exist a company where 200 people controlled the wealth generated by 1000 (or 1100) people and decide in what political direction the money should be thrown. The 1000 workers could all decide to vote in favor of minimum wage increases, but they proabbly don’t have much money to give to politicians, and the corporation does. A politician in favor of minimum wage increases would be at a financial disadvantage. And many the company gives equal sums to both major parties as long as they keep wages down. Then the workers can either vote Green or it doesn’t matter who they vote for, because the company, working against their interests, bought the major parties.

Corporations have too many rights

and they keep getting new ones all the time. All these weird trade organizations, like the WTO have secret ruling councils that periodically decide that corporations should have more and more rights. Ones that humans don’t get. As citizens, you and I can’t vote about the WTO. So we work for feudal institutions who are given extra rights by pseudo-government bodies made up of the same people who own the corporations. Oh, and your pension fund? It’s invested in those same corporations. The fund managers want the stock of the companies to go up. So they vote to lobby for lower wages. What this means is that your own retirement fund money is controlled by a financial manger who is activelly lobyying to lower your wages. You own money is being used as a weapon against you. when coporations have too many rights, we are serfs. The product of our labor is being sued to harm us. Our own prpoerty is a weapon against us. And our laws can be overtuned by super-national bodies, like the WTO, which we get absolutely no say in.

Things are bad, but we can undo them

The proplem is this stupid legal fiction. Corporations exist to make money for their owners. That’s not a person! First of all, people can’t own each other! What should happen is that SANTA CLARA COUNTY v. SOUTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD CO should be overturned. Stupid descisions have been overtunred before. The will of the people does influence the court. So step one is letting people know about this. Human people. And human people need to let their voices be heard, corporate personhood was a bad idea and needs to stop now.

Way back in January or February, I put an ad up on Yahoo personals. Today, I cancelled it. They asked me why. I said something about having a girlfriend and the Connecticut lesbian dating scene being unfathomable. But they asked me again to take a survey.

What did you like most about your Yahoo! Personals service?

um, honestly, mocking the ads of the other users.
 

What did you like least about your Yahoo! Personals service?

 going to coffee shops to meet women with mullets who think /i’m/ weird

What changes would you suggest we make to the service that would improve the experience?

This is a large problem which requires a multi-facetted approach. First of all, personal ads are still viewed with suspicion by members of the lesbian community, especially in New England. It might be a good idea to advertise in MetroLine, a gay publication that seems to be popular. This would make people less embarrassed when their lurker friends found their ad and would increase the size of the population placing ads.

Secondly, many people have poor written communication skills, which makes their ads subliterate or causes misunderstanding in their ad-realted correspondence. You may want to lobby for better writing programs in highschools. The whole on-line industry depends on the reading and writing skills on the general populace, so it’s in your best interests to improve education.

Um, I really don’t know what you can do about the over-representation of TV-addicted women with mullets. Maybe start offering free haircuts with a subscription?

But gos, that makes me sound like an asshole. And while I’m not really into northeastern suburban lesbian hair fashions, it’s not so auful as I make it out. And while I really had little in common with the women I met, they were actually nice people and some I would like to keep around as friends. Maybe I bare some blame for the oddness of my internet-dating experiences.

Her: what popular bands do you like?
me: i don’t listen to popular music
her: oh, um, what tv shows do you watch?
me: i don’t watch tv
her: what kind of car do you drive?
me: i prefer bicycling due to the general unavilability of vegetable-based fuels in this area
her: uh…. ok… so what do you study?
me: I compose experimental electronic music with my laptop.

Phillip K dick wrote in Radio Free Abelmouth that once you become a Berkeley radical, you can never leave. Thishas happened to me. I can really never leave Berkeley. I can go to visit other places anywhere in the world, but always as a foreigner. They sell t-shirts on Telegraph Ave that say “The People’s Republic of Berkeley.” I could never decide if I wanted one or they were too touristy and deserved to be mocked. I think I might get one for East Coast wearing.

So a few weeks ago, I went to a music festival and symposium at Wesleyan, called the For a Long Time festival. One of the symposium speakers was Michael Schumacher, who runs the Diapason Gallery in New York City. This gallery specializes in sound installations. One of their current projects is sound installations for people’s homes. People who really like such things pay a fee and get an installation put into their homes. Depending on the amount of money they put in, they get a certain number and quality of speakers put up around their house. So somebody might pay a few thousand dollars and get a killer sound system and some pieces to play on it. The deal, though, is that it’s an installation. It’s self-directing art. The customer does not controll the art. Meaning, they don’t know what they’re getting ahead of time. Furthermore, there is no volume control. It plays what it plays when it plays it, which might be just on the full moon or something, who knows. If you don’t like the installation, you can turn it off, but you can’t turn it down. Schumacher told us of an early customer who said that it completely changed her life. I bet it would.

Personally, I wouldn’t want an installation in my home, because I work in my home. It would be hard to write stuff for my own installation if there was one already going. But if I were not a composer and I really loved sound art, I could totally see getting one. Fortunately, Cola has an installation in her apartment of the same sort by accident. Her intercomm is freaking out. (Read her account of it.) Sometimes it plays street sounds into her apartment. No volume control. It’s even more hardcore than Diapason’s venture, since there’s no off switch. I kind of liked it as it reminded me of this project. But sometimes, randomly, it will switch and play sounds from the apartment to the street. This is a bit more distressing because, well, few people would want all the sounds from their studio apartment to be played out of a speaker on the stoop. No. Not good.
Cola, however, is a good sport and while she was upset about this (I would be upset too), she is willing to let me take advantage of this situation. The stoop speaker masks everything with a bad 60hz hum. A bad hum. Something is clearly ungrounded. Well, I mean, obviously the wiring is screwed up or this wouldn’t be going on. So anyway, what we did was duct-tape a speaker over the intercom and then set my computer to play out of the speaker. It’s playing my tuning ratios but retuned to be overtones of 60hz, the same frequency as the hum. The effect is subtle. (Maybe a bit too subtle, but when it was louder, it ended up alarming the other tennants…. anyway, I turned it down.) It’s kind of nice. However, I was unwilling to sacrifice my laptop during the day, so it’s not going when I’m not there. What I clearly need is a second laptop that can run osx so I can leave this up 24/7 until the intercom is fixed. Really. heh. I am too pleased with myself about this.

This post killed.
I am keeping casaninja.com as is.