Re: [microsound] [ot] what is worse?

[Graeme Scott <mail@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Thanks gregory, phil and Jean, you all had interesting things to say.(i
think i got everyone)

Right now I'm a manager for an organic food store, which is about as feel
good as it gets.  we are trying to do all the right things - the triple
bottom line of fiscal, social and environmental responsibility.

But I am also as the owner of a label and I'm in a band.   how do I behave,
how do I market my music with out being part of the problem?  I don't need
to make money playing music but I buy services (graphic design, CD
reproduction or CD-R's, computers, and a lot of gear) And I've toured
(pounds and pounds of volatile organic compounds) and I don't think the poor
are excited to have Vanity Records in their neighborhood.

ethics and music to most people means protest songs, like bob Dylan, old U2,
rage against the machine. but there has to be (much) more that we can do.
further, I'd like to suggest that ethics are never an off topic on this
list.  I have no idea which computer company extends health coverage to same
sex couples, or who squashed a union and these need to be just as important
as the debating aesthetics of failure.

graeme

some comments are added below, thanks.

>
>>
>> it's not so much a question of blame, but a question
>> of pointing out that
>> global capitalism constitutes a brutal attack on
>> over half the planet's
>> population, and that brutal attack continues almost
>> relentlessly in the wake
>> of the brutal attacks on U$ soil. there is injustice
>> in that. that was
>> graeme's point (or do i misunderstand you, g?)

yep, you got it.

>
>i agree with this and i think that anyone aware of the
>problems inherent in certain power and trade
>structures
>could not likely disagree with it and back it up... i
>suppose what i meant more (though didn't adequately
>explain) was that i think there is a delineation that
>must be made between the two (i believe) different
>issues of global corporate injustice and the shopping
>and buying habits of the average person.  certainly
>there is BIG problems with the way the global economy
>maginalizes, brutalizes and exploits the less
>developed world, no one is arguing with that.  the
>issue that i think ought to be recognized, is that
>many people don't even realize that this is the sort
>of behavior that they're buying habits encourage.
>to a certain extent, corporate media has taken
>measures
>to ensure that people don't readily make these sorts
>of
>connections, and alternative media channels usually
>require effort that most people don't want to, don't
>know how to, or haven't been told to exert.  the real
>problem lies in the marketing of these products, and
>the illusion of choice that people are given.  there's
>so many different colors and fashions to choose from,
>but ultimately they seem mostly to lead back to the
>same twisted corrupt paths.  how do you let people
>know this on a large enough scale that you can make
>a difference? and can you blame someone for doing
>things that they likely don't even know they're doing?
>

and yep, you've got it too.

>as far as the relevance of this to tuesday's attacks,
>of course they must be faced together as two heads
>of the same ugly beast...  there is a lot of bad shit
>in the world and it all plays out to effect everything
>else in the end.  my suspicion though, is that by and
>large, the biggest issue at hand was u.s. foreign
>policy, and i think without big changes, we are likely
>to be susceptible to further tragedies.
>
>my original reply was written mostly with the idea
>that it was not the time to discuss those things, and
>i still think that, but i recognize your insistence
>that innocent people fall by the wayside unreported
>in the wake of the attacks, and i frankly don't know
>how to respond to that.
>with love,
>gregory
>
>>
>> >while i think it's necessary to
>> >be conscientious, i can also understand the
>> attitude
>> >of the consumer who doesn't have the time nor the
>> >energy to pay attention to these sorts of things.
>> >i am a little disturbed at your apathetic attitude,
>>
>> you totally missed the boat man. graeme is
>> *criticizing* the apathy of
>> people who will carry on with "bizness as usual" in
>> the wake of these
>> attacks. and as for the "consumer" who doesnt have
>> the "time or the energy",
>> i cant accept that as an excuse. once one becomes at
>> least marginally aware
>> of the structure of global capitalism, there is no
>> excuse for not at least
>> *trying* to make more ethical purchases or
>> confronting the system in some
>> way. the "time and energy" that we find so precious
>> over here is bought at
>> the expense of millions of people in the so-called
>> "third world". our whole
>> "way of life" is totally parastical. that may be
>> part of the motivation
>> behind the attacks we've seen, as reprehensible as
>> they are.
>>
>> >and for what it's worth, i don't think it's the
>> time
>> >to criticize the marketplace.
>>
>> whose interests are served by this attitude? not
>> those of the innocent
>> victims. not those in the third world who are about
>> to become innocent
>> victims, as in afghanistan.
>>
>> >right now should be a
>> >quiet time to figure out what's next, and to say
>> >goodbye to what's past.
>>
>> grame has already figured out what's next. that was
>> the point.

it's what scares me.  And I haven't been the only one on the list to
criticize the market place.  I think Mr. Tolsma did it in a most brutal and
honest way.

>>
>> i agree that we need to be extremely sensitive and
>> cautious after what we've
>> seen this week, but i dont think thats an excuse to
>> avoid confronting unjust
>> structures of power. for me, the best thing we can
>> do to honour the memory
>> of innocent victims is to confront *all facets of*
>> the structures that
>> victimized them.
>>
>> phil
>>
>>
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