Forum Post: Re: "Down with Evil Corporations" image

With regard to the recently surfaced image, now avidly re-posted in certain circles

http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/l4p7n/this_down_with_evil_corporations_image_is_going/

My perspective: The premise of inconsistency which the image attempts to depict is misguided. A corporation is a legal structure -- like the Canon cameras in the photo, it is an INSTRUMENT. This instrument can either be used in a moral and ethical manner (respectful and supportive of human and civil rights) or abused, such that these rights are willfully curtailed and harm is done to individual health, freedom, dignity, and education (including being well informed and able to hold the government accountable and independent of undue influence).

I bet the demonstrators understand this distinction, and the products and services they are using represent their "votes of confidence" (or "dollar votes" when making purchases) into corporation-made products which they perceive as overall beneficial personally and publicly. I bet the demonstrators would rather pay someone to make their t-shirt or camera, in exchange for fair market value. Nobody is protesting the discontinuation of these goods.

In other words, there is no inconsistency in the publc's use of certain products during the protest, or the rest of their lives.

What the demonstration is about is when the powers of the corporations are used in ill-intended ways, which hold profit above ALL else, and result in the subversion of the individual rights. When irresponsible, misleading, false lending practices are used; when over-speculation in the pursuit of short term gain at any cost causes an imbalance in the market; when drugs are manufactured to suppress symptoms rather than cure disease; when private industry becomes dependent on the defense sector (i.e. ongoing military interventions), etc. etc. -- we got a problem.

There is hope, though. The great, though often overlooked and under-exploited weakness of the most powerful corporations, is that they themselves are not immune to the cutthroat reality in which they operate and which they propagate. When the economic waters recede, they, too, should fall. It's a dynamic system. If we as a society are willing to sustain industries whose profits are contingent on militarism and over-exposed to market risk from excessive speculation, we must be able to suck it up and watch them go down when the shit hits the fan.

SO WHERE IS THE HOPE? The hope is that when that happens, and the corporate players of this game are allowed to slash each others' throats, the society will adjust by redesigning and IMPROVING the system under which these organizations operated earlier, to prevent the same conditions from re-occuring in the future.

The Occupy Wall St (Main St, etc.) movement is a vote of no-confidence for the government's ability to undertake this redesign as quickly and as radically as the circumstances warrant. It is a vote for an alternative, bottom-up approach to reform of the political and economic system. It is not inconsistent. On the opposite, it is a natural consequence of the events of the past several years. It's just a matter of time, and, perhaps, that time has come and the 99% can take it no more.