<nettime> Corporations as living entities (conference)

[Steve Cisler <cisler@pobox.com>]

I am forwarding this notice for a free discussion on a timely topic. I
have no connection with this conference, except as a possible observer.
Signups will begin March 1. -Steve Cisler

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Please accept (and spread) this invitation to a free on-line
conference on Corporate Being and Life on Earth :

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
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TO PREVIEW OR JOIN THE CONFERENCE, VISIT:
http://www.nancho.net/bigmed2000/bbonline.html

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

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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 << )
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"A fascinating conceptual breakthrough."
- - David Korten
"Extraordinarily imaginative and important ideas."
- -  Howard Zinn
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DATES: March 3~20, 2000
LOCATION: The computer nearest you
(See access page 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...
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TO PREVIEW OR JOIN THE CONFERENCE, VISIT:
http://www.nancho.net/bigmed2000/bbonline.html

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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

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