Online Conference: Help Great Minds Dissect Big Bodies
ARE CORPORATE BODIES REALLY ALIVE? (And are they now our dominant species?)
"The central political issue for the new century..." - - Jim Hightower
From March 3~20, 2000 on a computer near you
***********************************************
INTRO: Now that Corporations Rule the World...
Hierarchic mega-corporations have become leading actors on the global stage and now arguably cause or exacerbate over
80% of the planet's social and environmental ills. Strangely, however, few activists have ever looked at these bodies
holistically as a new class of living system or noticed that their common features may suggest powerful new strategies
of redress. This unique conference will not only explore these ideas for the first time, the diverse influence of it
participants, guests and Internet audience is potentially wide enough to inspire a transformative new perception of the
world. The Internet has been compared to a new planetary nervous system. Come and help it think its first thought...
Hear leading visionaries, activists and living systems thinkers discuss: - the rise & eco-social impact of vast corporate bodies - new ways to conceive and combat corporate pathology - synergistic
strategies for our fractionated activist forces - promising paths to a post-corporate future
****************************
TITLE: ARE CORPORATE BODIES REALLY ALIVE?
- And are they now Earth's dominant species? -
"A living systems look at corporate evolution, anatomy and eco-social pathology"
( >> Big Body Heuristics: Conference I << )
****************************
"A fascinating conceptual breakthrough." - - David Korten "Extraordinarily imaginative and important ideas." - - Howard
Zinn
****************************
DATES: March 3~20, 2000 LOCATION: The computer nearest you (See access page address below)
PARTICIPANTS & CONTRIBUTORS:
Dean "Megamedia" Alger, John Perry "Electronic Frontiers Foundation" Barlow, Ernest "Ecotopia" Callenbach, Fritjof "Web
of Life" Capra, Noam "Necessary Illusions" Chomsky, Kevin "Corporations Gonna Eat your Momma" Danaher, Charles
"Corporation Nation" Derber, Ronnie "Alliance for Democracy" Dugger, James "Living Systems" Grier, Richard "POCLAD"
Grossman, Randy "Rainforest Action Network" Hayes, Hazel "Beyond Globalization" Henderson, Josh "Corporate Planet"
Karliner, David "When Corporations Rule the World" Korten, Frances "Diet for a Small Planet" Lappe, Robert "Rich Media.
Poor Democracy" McChesney, James "Living Systems" Miller, Ralph "The Big Business Reader" Nader, John "Against All Odds"
Rensenbrink, Kirkpatrick "Human Scale" Sale, Robert "Corporate Predators" Weissman, David "Unto Others" Wilson and many,
many more
ENTRY FEE: FREE, though we prayerfully place a (non-coercive) alms box near the door...
****************************
TO PREVIEW OR JOIN THE CONFERENCE, VISIT:
http://www.nancho.net/bigmed2000/bbonline.html
****************************
INSPIRATIONAL EPILOGUE
"Practically every progressive struggle--campaign finance reform, sweatshops, family farms, fair trade, health care for
all, unionization, military spending, tax reform, alternative energy, healthy food, media access, hazardous waste dumps,
redlining, alternative medicine, you name it--is being fought against one cluster of corporations or another. But it is
not that corporation over there or this one over here that is the enemy. It is not one industry's contamination of our
drinking water or another's perversion of the lawmaking process that is the problem--rather it is the corporation itself
that must be addressed if we are to be a free people... The piecemeal approach to fighting corporate abuses keeps us
spread thin, separated, on the defensive, riveted on the minutiae, and fighting on their terms. Piecemeal battles must
certainly continue, for there are real and immediate corporate harms to be addressed for people and communities. But
it's time for our strategic emphasis to shift to the offensive, raising what I believe to be the central political issue
for the new century: Who the hell is in charge here?" - - Jim Hightower
**********************
PLEASE PASS THIS INVITATION ALONG to any friends, news groups, mailing lists or media outlets whom you think would
either benefit or simply enrich the demographic brew...