Socrates Cafe Online, Tue, Fri, Sat, 1st. Sun, 6:30 pm Denver MDT Correct Meeting ID and password posted below at 6 pm. Free until 1/1/2024 Watch1 Lead1 Start1

Thursday, December 02, 2004

Business2.0.com: Only on AOL Big Story - Page 1: "For Clif's marketing staff, this was close to the perfect storm: a smallish gathering with lots of young, left-leaning trendsetters, a chance to associate Clif with a socially responsible message -- and a surefire means of coaxing people to try the product. "

This is why more multi-millionairs support Dems than GOP... Young market segment mostly Dem. Who was it that said: "If you aren't a liberal when you are young, you have no heart. If you aren't a conservative when you are older, you have no brain." That's why only grassroots organization can win elections for the GOP. We've proven now in Colorado that a mass market appeal to the young voter with a very attractive candidate along the lines of Clif Erickson (Pete Coors) and a Dem-style get out the vote effort (96-hour campaign) just doesn't work. What we need are grassroots county chairs, hard working district captains who fill every precient with trained leaders and block workers, culminating in 1) well attended neighborhood caucuses, and 2) support of every GOP candidate from nomination to get out the vote on election day. At least that's what I think. Do you agree?

Monday, November 29, 2004

Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Naomi Klein: Hand-to-brand-combat (part two): "'This is not a consumer issue; it's a political issue. There is a way for us to respond as citizens that is not simply as consumers. Over and over again, people's immediate response to these issues is: what do I buy? I have to immediately solve this problem through shopping. But you can like the products and not like the corporate behaviour; because the corporate behaviour is a political issue, and the products are just stuff. The movement is really not about being purer-than-thou and producing a recipe for being an ethical consumer. That drains a lot of political energy.' "
Guardian Unlimited Books | By genre | Review: Fences and Windows by Naomi Klein: "The fences are a metaphor for the barriers erected by the multinational corporations, para-governmental institutions and superstates to contain and separate people from what were previously public resources, thus 'locking them away from much-needed land and water, restricting their ability to move across borders, to express political dissent, to demonstrate on public streets, even keeping politicians from enacting policies that make sense for the people who elected them'. The windows are for us to open so that we may 'breathe deeply and taste freedom'." One fence here in Colorado: the attach on our neighborhood caucus-assembly system for nominating to the primary ballot.
Fighting the Wrong Enemy: Antiglobal Activists and Multinational Enterprises: Institute for International Economics Bookstore: "'[Graham's book] demolishes many of the [antiglobalist] arguments, including the claims that foreign direct investment results in job losses at home and drives down labor, environmental, and wage standards everywhere.'
Time Magazine"
TIME Europe | Books: Gaining Street Cred | 1/22/2001: "Klein is not seeking a meeting of minds with her opponents. Nor is there any sign the antiglobalization backlash is waning. Yet facts remain out there, and some seem irrefutable � for example, that a half-century of growing international trade has helped send per capita income up by 150%, even though there are 3.5 billion more people alive than in 1945.

Perhaps older generations should abandon this line of argument. No Logo represents one of those totemic, defining works that ultimately transcend fact and acquire a reality of their own for a generation or a sex or a minority. However misguided, this is a book that should be read by all age groups to understand why rioters trash McDonald's and Starbucks. The immediate target � the corporate culture that substitutes image (brand) for substance (decent jobs and conditions) � is only half the story. For Klein, the child and grandchild of activists, what matters ultimately is the political awareness of her generation. Modern corporate 'imperialism' is her target, but one suspects that what she really despises is the political system that allows some people to get rich. "