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User:Stevenarntson/group spaces/2009summeranalytical/group 3

Group members

 * Flynn Joffray
 * Amanda Vanpoucke
 * Josh Maldonado
 * Elena Toteva
 * Harry Caldwell

sign in here with ":Stevenarntson" (a colon and three tildes).

Overview

 * Reflective assessment

 * 1.successes

Our group was very successful due to several factors. Our early and aggressive research efforts benefited us greatly throughout the process. Our group started with a clear goal of personally researching topics of interest to peak individual interests. During weeks two and three we collectively compared notes and developed a theme that we could all agree to. Writing was greatly assisted by the wiki format, while the fervor of utilizing it to its full potential. We steadfastly stayed after class week after week discussing our groups collective goals.

 * 2.failures

Apart from suffering form multiple sick members missing class our greatest failure was the loss of a very energetic member of the group. Our dear friend and partner Flynn was researching so aggressively that we think he was kidnapped and tortured by the corporate juggernaut Comcast. His research was fulled by a personal interest in privacy issues and informational greed. We believe this was his undoing, he has not reported back to us for several weeks and we fear the worst. He will be missed, however, the remaining members of the group have stepped up to this challenge and made the best out of the situation.

 * 3.future strategies

Upon reflecting, we feel that additional meetings out of class to achieve mid-week updates and strategies could have proved useful. Refining our format into diverse categories rather than individual case studies also could have benefited our paper. We feel that there were several untouched aspects of this topic in addition to what we covered. Several members expressed an interest in speculative writing on the future of corporations.

=Morals of the Artificial person =

My name is Elena Toteva and I was born and raised in Kazanlak, a small town located in central Bulgaria. Historically the region had three major industries: Gun manufacturing, pharmaceutical manufacturing and Rose oil distillation. Their contrast in product was big, but what all those industries have in common is that they were bought by big foreign corporations.

My mother worked in the pharmaceutical industry for 10 years, before it was bought by an international corporation. Her work day started at 8am as was completed at 5pm not unlike many jobs in the united states. The eight hour work shift was exhausting for my mother but since she was a marketing manager with a lot of responsibilities, however it wasn't as draining as the line worker's shift. When the company was bought out she and dozens of workers lost their jobs as a result of "corporate restructuring". No compensation was given and the result was a huge influx of out of work skilled labor.

I remember our neighbor worked in Arsenal, the maker of Kalishnikovs (AK-47's), as a general line worker. He amassed a gun collection that he formed by stealing individual pieces from the plant and assembling them together at home to build whole gun. Stealing was necessary for the employees to compensate for the inadequate wages. All employees were searched every time they entered and exited buildings and smaller pieces were harder to detect than whole weapons. Probably 75% of the people who worked there got guns the same way, of course stealing one gun can't pay for 8 hours of exposure to toxic gases combined with unsafe working conditions, but it was a start.

My hometown has always been known as the Rose Valley, not as the Gun Valley. The rose oil business is very important to the region because the particular rose used for oil, grows only in select number of places on Earth. The town still smells like roses in May, when the roses are in full bloom and are ready for harvest. Due to the labor-intensive production process and the low content of oil in the individual rose blooms, rose oil commands a very high price. Harvesting of flowers is done by hand in the morning before sunrise and is distilled the same day.

My grandfather use to be an independent rose oil distiller. He produced small quantities of the essential oils but like most farmers the roses would often get sick and die before harvest. His operation failed not because of the hardships faced as a farmer, but because of an international corporation purchasing the land he rented from the government.

When international corporations bought the only three industries keeping the town alive, a drastic drop in the economy resulted throughout the town. This situation happening not only in Bulgaria but all around the world. Foreign corporations are buying our business and our land for a fraction of the real value. In a way, we, the people, are being slaved by the lust for corporate greed. People are being enslaved by profits, and that's just sad. Big corporations are exploiting small countries just like Bulgaria and most of the profit and natural resources get removed from the country. I think of corporations as blood sucking leeches. Leeches attach to their hosts and remain there until they become full without any thought to the well being of the host. Whenever a corporation has exploited all the resources of the country, it moves to another country, I consider corporations the lowest of the lowest profit seeking organizations.

Introduction
Human nature is composed of tendencies, drives, essential powers, and instincts all of which act together to satisfy our individual basic human needs. We tool around this planet fulfilling ourselves with whatever we see fit, in essence, to sustain life however possible. Conceivably, levels of human life vary given specific resources rewarded at birth. In certain areas of the world, human nature and behavior is apropos the basic of human needs, such as eating, drinking, and procreating, providing a cycle of essentials in order to reach maximum longevity. The levels move up from here integrating depth and meaning adding behaviors evoking self-preservation, fulfillment, comfort, and prosperity.

Free will is innate to all humans, though social aspects may persuade and tug and push at what we are to become as a singular being. These social aspects can drive our motivations or provide parameters, and fundamentally shape our human experience. Morality in behavior play greatly in the daily lives of human beings, to know simply what is right and what is wrong exists prevalently in our daily lives. In our research we must question feelings of guilt and regret, if they cause an effect of behavior should an individual cross the socially unacceptable norm. The French novelist Albert Camus quotes "A man without ethics is a wild beast loose upon this world." It is uncertain whether society has integrated these morals through ancestral history, or whether ethical judgment is a part of the human condition. As far as living an honest moral abiding life, one must know what an honest life is. Most cultures and societies can generally agree on just a few common immoral behaviors, like inflicting harm on others, and theft. The problems lies herein, causing the moral guidelines to fade and form privy to said individual, social group, company, or governing system.

As individuals, we make our own choices on how we behave based on how we predict our personal sense of repercussion, will we be positively enforced or negatively enforced by our actions? Feelings of guilt, shame, regret, pride or satisfaction, all of which are part of the human condition, become behavior reinforcers. For any reason an individual expresses no sense of ill consequence for his/her action based on a common moral value, a last stitch effort; the common law, established to prevent such ill behavior and keep the public from doing 'wrong,' in retribution labeling the individual as a criminal.

According to Marx's theory of human nature,"It is true that eating, drinking, and procreating, etc., are ... genuine human functions. However, when abstracted from other aspects of human activity, and turned into final and exclusive ends, they are animal."

So if by law, the 'Corporation' has the same rights of a person albeit 'artificial person-hood', then shouldn't they behave as a singular person and suffer from the same 'real' person repercussions? If a person can be put in jail for  burglary, isn't that the same as a corporation withholding accurate profit gain, in essence, robbing from peoples and the government? IBM, Exxon, Kodak, Enron, Bechtel, Tyco International, WorldCom, Mitsubishi, Halliburton, Sears, Odwalla, Tyson and Pfizer are just a few of the thousands of corporations that have criminal files against them. How has criminal corporate offence become so commonly tolerated? There seems to be no legal implementation of regulations that were put in place to keep these corporations from breaking these laws, for them it is a simple business decision. These multi-million dollar corporations view law breaking activity as cost effective and is more often worth the financial risk to partake in any such criminal activity.

History - Corporate Social Responsibility Definition
Peter Thayer Robbins, author of “Greening the Corporation: Management Strategy and the Environmental Challenge” describes the corporation as a “social invention of the state” (Robbins: p.98) When, a state grants a corporate license, permitting private financial resources being used for public purposes. The advantage of having a corporation over being an individual investing in trade journey is that an individual’s debts could be present at birth by descendants.

The debate over corporate person hood started as a result of a statement issued by the Supreme Court in 1886, that a private corporation is a natural person under the U.S. Constitution, and consequently has the same rights and protection extended to persons by the Bill of Rights, including the right to free speech. Furthermore, corporations were given the same “rights” to influence the government in their own interests as to individual citizens, and to use their wealth to dominate public opinions. Whenever questioned this view has been considered common precedent by the courts, however its origins are written only as a brief in opening arguments to a case rather than part of the ruling. This is odd because typically it is the result or ruling of a case that sets a precedent.(Tom Stites)

In the book, Capitalism and Freedom, the author argues that “there is one and only one social responsibility of business—to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits” even if that contradict with the social good. This theory is appealing for many companies; larger ones in particular are often involved in exploitative practices of some sort, sometimes through sub-contractors. With companies increasing financial influence, come increasing financial powers in the political arena and influence politicians in their favor. Corporate bodies can “donate” millions of dollars to political candidates and parties, in the form of sponsorship. In some countries is called corruption, in The United States it's considered business as usual. Corporations, in the form of "Artificial persons,” are free to lobby legislatures, and use the mass media to exercise their right of free speech. The average citizen or "natural person" on the other hand cannot muster anywhere near the cash resources necessary to buy the same access and media coverage.

A common analysis is that advanced economies have often moved their “more dirty industries” to other parts of the world where there are less severe environmental and social standards. As a result, other countries may be polluting on their behalf. Now more and more corporations are turning “green”, which means are more environmentally cautions. Microsoft Corporation for example, are developing new software to reduce the energy consumption and reducing the need of business travel with the help of virtual meetings and safe document transfer.All these factors are part of the so-called Corporate Social Responsibility.

The Corporate Social Responsibility Initiative is an organization to Harvard Kennedy School, which seeks to study and enhance the effectiveness of corporate social responsibility. That organization defines the Corporate Social Responsibility strategically. “Corporate social responsibility encompasses not only what companies do with their profits, but also how they make them. It goes beyond philanthropy and compliance and addresses how companies manage their economic, social, and environmental impacts, as well as their relationships in all key spheres of influence: the workplace, the marketplace, the supply chain, the community, and the public policy realm”.(Jonathan Borck,Jennifer Nash, Cary Coglianze)

Failures
In this brainwashed society we know not what we can't see or hear, looking the other way as these modern day vikings pillage and plunder. So what makes it OK for these Corporations to carry out some of the most horrific human rights abuses of modern time if they see a decline in profits on the horizon? Not to mention the global extraction, trickery, level of waste, extreme pollution, exploitation seen in current models of the industry today. Our research shows the criminal acts within the behavior of corporations today, and the level of negligence in corporate social responsibility. We have listed a few cases that illustrate the moral disregard in corporate behavior.

Case one - Pollution, extraction, harm to human health and well-being for profit
Red flags are rising in many nations around the globe, whistles are blowing and people are angry. Turmoil seems running rampant in poverty-stricken nations as their resources are becoming privatized and exploited by corporate global superpowers. In Goa India, Iron mining companies are now digging below the water table extracting Iron-ore, a valuable mineral used in steel manufacturing, most of which is getting exported. The level of waste has been reported at three tons for every ton of ore produced. Since the mining began, the farmers haven't been able to cultivate their land due to the destruction of the irrigation system, in fact Goa's entire eco-system is being destroyed. "The situation will definitely get worse over the next five years, particularly as far as water supply is concerned," warns Ramesh Gaune, a teacher from Bicholim in North Goa. The people who live nearby are suffering from tuberculosis that has been linked to the spike in air-pollution since the mining began. It has been reported that these companies are given the opportunity to "self-claim" their production levels, which adds profit for the companies and prevents added revenue for the state. Sesa Goa and Dempo Mining are the two largest mining companies of the many exploiting the mineral, together they report a post-tax profit of $530 million each year.

Case two - Exploitation and environmental recklessness for profit
Another Case that illustrates corporate lack of values can be seen when looking to the multinational mining group known as Barrick Gold. This Canadian firm has vast open pit mines on five continents with a long history of pollution and corruption associated with each site. The most current site we wish to highlight is know as the Pascua Lama Project located on the border of Chile and Argentina. This is a cross-border operation located high in the Andean mountain range. the project represents one the largest foreign investments in Chile in recent years, totaling $1.5 billion. However, some 70,000 downstream farmers backed by international environmental organizations and activists around the world waged a campaign against the proposed mine. Protests outside the local headquarters of Santiago dumped crushed ice and passed out nuggets of fools gold with the words ”oro sucio” or “dirty gold” printed on the surface.

The protests are in opposition to the planned melting of three prominent glaciers at the site of the mine, all to extract the ore located beneath them via open pit mining. According to Barrick, the water from the glaciers would have been held for refreezing in the following winters, if you can imagine. This plan is in serious doubt as the process of gold extraction uses vast amounts of water laden with arsenic to dissolve the gold bearing deposits. In a region that is already prone to drought, natural sources of water for crop irrigation and human consumption are at a minimum. As seen in the past, this mining process would leave high concentrations of heavy metals and arsenic in the water used by the locals due to waste release in their rivers and streams.

“The mine will cause severe damage to the local ecosystem because it will pollute the Huasco River as well as underground water sources,” said Antonia Fortt, an environmental engineer with the Oceana Ecological Organization. Barrick Gold has been accused of burying fifty miners in Tanzania and blatantly disregarding environmental concerns all over the world. This corporation is focused only on the bottom line no matter the destruction caused to its employees or the environment surrounding their mines. Considering the $2.3 billion dollars in profit the company made from gold sales in 2005, there is no doubt that they can afford legal fights and fines arising from their poor environmental and human rights record.

"In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs it is the rule." -Friedrich Nietzsche

Case three - Predatorial righteousness over property of others, and murder for profit
Economist John Perkins has told his story to millions in the book "Confessions of an Economic Hit man." His argument is that of which corporations are becoming empires, he calls them "Corporatocracy's." Perkin's worked for Chas. T. Main (who has since changed their name to Parsons Main, Inc,) a global engineering company that provided world-wide utility and engineering services. John Perkins explains what his job entailed, "we would search out valuable resources in third world countries that the company coveted." Perkins and his company would then formulate a plan and he would fly abroad to meet with these nation's leaders. Perkins would wine and dine them, finally pitching the idea to the government officials. He offered financial security and a life of green and gold for them and their families. Such natural resources like minerals, water, oil, even the Panama canal were bargained over. Perkins was personally responsible for convincing the countries leaders to go along with the plan, with the ultimate goal of having ownership over whatever the sought-after resource was. The plan involved taking out a loan in order to develop certain villages in order to improve the lives of the people, but the outcome was on the contrary.

After a loan was taken out from the world bank, Chas. T. Main would go into these areas and build an industrial infrastructure. His company would build power plants, roads, ports; only commodities that would benefit the rich, completely unnecessary to that of the general impoverished population. The majority of the people don't have cars or live on a power grid, how could highways and electricity be beneficial? In the end, the country would be left with an unimaginable debt owed to said corporation. These nations were bought into the mercy of the corporation, hence hailing to the empire, as Perkins, the Chas.T.Main Corporation, and the involved government officials walked away with millions.

When Perkin's traveled to other countries to carry out these missions, he would entice the officials with women and power. He would "give them a taste of big money in hopes that there would be no problems bringing them aboard," the money did the talking. At this point corporate morale was nonexistent, whether it ever existed is impossible to know. Over the years Perkins began to realize the vast financial advantages he and his company were taking from entire villages and cities and countries.

He spoke of his greatest fear as an economic hit man. If Perkin's was not able to convince the countries leaders of taking a loan out, if they weren't as selfish as they needed to be, Chas. T. Main would send in CIA sponsored "Jackal's" to assassin leaders that wouldn't participate. One example Perkins spoke of was Omar Torrijos, the commander of the Panamanian National Guard from the year 1968 to 1981. Three decades ago there was a plan to nationalize the Panama canal, this was against the wishes of General Torrijos. He could see financial gain and opportunity for himself and the people close to him, but more importantly understood that taking out a loan could have dire consequences for the people of the nation, causing a decline in living quality due to basic living costs. General Torrijos died in a plane crash just before Panama gained sovereignty of the canal. Three months prior, the President of Ecuador also died in a plane crash, it was publicly known that he also opposed US companies and government tactics. John Perkins quotes in his book, "Their deaths were not accidental, they were assassinated because they opposed that fraternity of corporate, government and banking heads whose goal is global empire."

Case four - Lying and cunning in advertising for profit
Corporations, or any sort of business for that matter, need to advertise in order to create acquisition. It is obvious that certain companies plan their advertising in a negative fashion, by taking advantage of the consumer or such tactics, in order to gain profit. In many cases, unfortunately, it’s out of control. However, to qualify this argument against negative advertising tactics, it’s important to note the benefits of advertising in general.

Back in the early 1980’s (which we are going to call “the old days” and by that we mean pre-internet advertising,) an experiment was conducted to test the effects of public price in advertising on beer sales. A few areas in the lower Michigan were considered and the month the advertising took place the companies units grew, and sold close to one hundred thousand gallons in each area. (Lee, 522) There are many situations in which companies will advertise positive messages; like lower prices, reliability and hidden needs, that which target benefits for the company and the consumer. Our nation has spent about $412 billion on advertising annually, according to an article by Outsell Inc. And now with the internet, advertisers have much more access to the nation. To push things even further, the mobile revolution has hit the streets and $1.4 billion dollars have been spent on display and message advertising on cell phones. It can be overwhelming, but in a cutthroat, super competitive society it is the only way that many companies are staying afloat. But where does the social responsibility come in for Corporate America? We know that corporations need advertising to survive, but at what cost to the nation?

In the United States, the APA (American Psychological Association,) created a task force to focus on young children and how advertising affects them. They discovered that children around the age of 8 and under are not able to comprehend the fact that advertisements are not always “truthful, accurate and unbiased” (apa.org). Furthermore, the average kid watches more than 40,000 TV commercials a year. Steven Manning, a writer who focuses on schoolhouse commercialism, states that "by the time your kid is between fourteen and eighteen months they will be nagging you for toys or snack foods every four hours." Large corporations have always targeted youth as a huge source for profitable gain. How can you say no to those beautiful little eyes? “He alone who owns the youth, gains the future,” Adolf Hitler. Greenpeace, Truth and other organizations have always targeted college and high school students for their passion and energy. But at what age does their comprehension begin to decide whether or not to support a certain organization or buy a certain product. “40% of sales of jeans, burgers and other products occur because a child asks for the product.”(Willis, 27)

Women are another prime target for negative advertising. The most common way that advertisers use to target women is their sex appeal. There is a growing demand for women to be super sexy and super thin. In order to achieve these high demands they must buy the most expensive makeup and get on the latest diet trends. The dietary industry brings over $33 million annually. Women are exposed to about 400-600 ads every day. What’s worse is the fact that most people in marketing do not directly insult the female image. These messages are designed to slip under the normal limits of our minds perception and land directly into our subconscious. Unfortunately, this form of advertising is much more obvious and effective than a direct message. Young women and even adolescents are frequently targeted the most. (Suite101.com)

One of the worst marketing tactics is that of Planned Obsolescence. Planned Obsolescence is “A manufacturing decision by a company to make consumer products in such a way that they become out-of-date or useless within a known time period. The main goal of this type of production is to ensure that consumers will have to buy the product multiple times, rather than only once. This naturally stimulates demand for an industry's products because consumers have to keep coming back again and again.” Two huge industries that focus on this type of marketing and design are the electronics and fashion industry, and sadly enough the electronic industry has become a fashion industry. (Investopedia.com)

Sony is one of the world’s leading designers and manufacturers of digital cameras. They will update a particular camera in a series normally once a year. Some of their more popular models are the T-Series cameras which are Sony’s touch screen, point and shoot models. Last year’s low-end touch screen model was the Sony T77 which was a 10 megapixel camera with a 4X optical zoom. It was a super “hi-tech” model with a clean smooth interface which is controlled by a touch screen, and because it's Carl-Zeiss lens, it shoots pretty nice pictures for a consumer grade, point and shoot model. This year’s model is the Sony T90 which only significant upgrades include a 12 megapixel sensor and the ability to shoot high definition-720 movies. Sony portrays hype in their advertising claiming hi-definition and more mega-pixels is better, while consumers prove ignorant to the fact that only 3 things control the quality of the camera, the lens, the processor and the size of the sensor. As a result, most people will upgrade to a “better” model to keep up with the hi-tech trends and not realize that there will be no noticeable difference of the quality of the pictures between their current model and the one they are about to spend $300 on. (dpReview.com)

Case five - Exploiting customer rights for profit
"We make use of a service already existing without paying for what could be dirt-cheap if it wasn't run by profiteering gluttons, and you call us criminals." - The Mentor, 1986

It has long been know that large corporations view their customers as money. When you buy a service from a company, it is common business practice to make sure that money isn't being lost from the service/product that is being sold.

This practice is usually a legitimate one when it is in the spectrum of small business. However, line is crossed when the consumer and his/her experience becomes less important that making a profit.

Many large companies use a method of evaluating their customers present and long term cash potential with customer life cycle management techniques. One of the most popular customer life cycle management systems in place right now is called the LTV (lifetime value) rating system. In this example, we will use a large cellphone company (AT&T) as the example to how the LTV system works:

From the day you sign up for service, you are under observation by T-Mobile to see how much money they will make off of you. LTV is calculated by a number of different factors. The normal system is rated on a scale between 0 and 5. 0 being a brand new customer with no contract, and 5 being a customer that has been with the company for 15 years and never missed a bill. AT&T uses a lot of different ways calculate this number. Here are some of the basic ways they do this:

 * 1) Churn rate The percentage of customers who end their relationship with a company in a given period. One minus the churn rate is the retention rate. Most models can be written using either churn rate or retention rate. If the model uses only one churn rate, the assumption is that the churn rate is constant across the life of the customer relationship.
 * 2) Discount rate The cost of capital used to discount future revenue from a customer. Discounting is an advanced topic that is frequently ignored in customer lifetime value calculations. The current interest rate is sometimes used as a simple (but incorrect) proxy for discount rate.
 * 3) Retention cost The amount of money a company has to spend in a given period to retain an existing customer. Retention costs include customer support, billing, promotional incentives, etc.
 * 4) Period The unit of time into which a customer relationship is divided for analysis. A year is the most commonly used period. Customer lifetime value is a multi-period calculation, usually stretching 3-7 years into the future. In practice, analysis beyond this point is viewed as too speculative to be reliable. The number of periods used in the calculation is sometimes referred to as the model horizon.
 * 5) Periodic Revenue The amount of revenue collected from a customer in the period.
 * 6) Profit Margin Profit as a percentage of revenue. Depending on circumstances this may be reflected as a percentage of gross or net profit. For incremental marketing that does not incur any incremental overhead that would be allocated against profit, gross profit margins are acceptable.

These might seem like standard things that any legitimate corporation would use to give their shareholders a percentage number and tell the CEO how much XXX or ZZZ is costing them, but these are not the factors that go into rating a customer. Corporations are designed to make money, and to do so, ANYTHING that costs them money is cut, even consumer rights. There is no arguing it, this is priority number one for them.

We can take hints from this |leaked AT&T customer service manual back in 2007.

Situations:

 * "I want to stop my service" If you have just signed up for service at AT&T, you are an LTV1. It doesn't matter if you signed a 50 year contract. The customer service manual dictates that if you are an LTV1 or lower, AT&T will basically tell you, "Fuck you, pay us a huge ETF (early termination fee)". Of course this is because you aren't making them any money yet anyway, so why would they want to keep you? However, if you are of a higher LTV, AT&T will bend over backwards to get you to stay with the company.

 * "My service area is crappy" Again, if you are an LTV1 or lower, the service manual dictates that you are worthless to them, they are forced to give you the boilerplate rphone eason that they can't help you. However, if you call multiple times as a LTV4 or higher, they will immediately take steps to help you troubleshoot your area or send a technician out to service your area.

 * "Let me talk to your supervisor" Well this is interesting. There is a little known fact about supervisor calls. If you call a supervisor (as a customer rep), you are costing the company money for every minute you talk to that customer. Well what if the customer doesn't earn you any money? AT&T is notorious for lying and hanging up on their newly acquired customers.

The real kicker is, every single employee of AT&T is instructed NEVER to talk to the customer about their LTV rating, no matter what the situation.

So where is the line drawn. Many companies make the mistake of cutting their losses on customer service, but they forget that EVERY customer is paying for the same service. Any employee at a coffee shop would never tell a customer to fuck off if they had never stepped foot inside the establishment.

Solutions - Corporate Reform vs. Corporate Abolishment
Corporate responsibility is somewhat of an oxymoron to the ears and eyes of a significant portion of the population of Seattle. Corporate interests in most minds reside solely in profit for shareholders. The Ford vs. Dodge case in 1919 established a clear precedent to bolster this viewpoint. In this case the Dodge brothers argued that the company could not take any action that would harm the investors return from the company. Ford was prohibited from lowering prices on its product and reducing the profit margin, even though the effort was to bolster sales of the cars and drum up more business. Profit was the most important factor and needed to be fought for. This view that profit rules all decisions needs to change if our democracy is to flourish and lead by example in the rest of the world.

Corporate person-hood has perpetuated the mass accumulation of wealth of very few allowing less than 1% of the worlds people control most of the worlds resources. This power used improperly allows for the exploitation of communities and whole regions of the planet. But not all corporations use their powers to fuel immoral actions and some are quite the contrary.

The question is; would it be better to abolish corporate person-hood altogether or is is possible to reform the bad apples?

Reform could take many paths. One option is 'Corporate Punishment' of the corporate body as a criminal or psychological needs patient. Could the governing body send Exxon staff members to the site of the next major oil spill and make them participate in a hands on cleanup effort, perhaps as a community service punishment? What about sending the mercenary group involved in Blackwater to anger management counseling? Perhaps making a new precedent for a feasible corporate goal, legislating the 'triple bottom line' for instance. The triple bottom line is broken into three sections people, planet, profit. It captures an expanded spectrum of values and criteria for measuring organizational and societal success: economic, ecological and social. Implementation on a widespread basis, including increased transparency that would give consumers a way to see how a company performs on social and environmental levels.

Reform of the corporate person cannot occur without new consequences and punishments that parallel the consequences faced by real people. Corporate serial criminals such as Phizer, who bribed doctors to recommend drugs even after they were knowingly under investigation should face consequences greater than a $2.3 billion fine. The fine equates to a mere 3 weeks of sales and is easily written off as a business expense. The proper consequence should have been the corporate death penalty: revocation of the charter and a sell off of all assets. Rebuilding a corporation after revocation of the charter is possible, however, new rules could assist in refining the business model of such reemerging businesses. Perhaps requiring the use of the triple bottom line as a reference to track and record how the company interacts with it's environment and the people working for them. If faced with the real risk of their business being dissolved, corporate persons might think twice before acting out of line.

Our second suggested solution is to abolish corporate person-hood altogether. So how would that change our lives? Corporations are with us indefinitely. They're on our plates, in our bedroom closets, and teaching our children. A life void of commodities untouched by a corporate hand is unfathomable, who would sign your paycheck?

The abolishment of corporate person-hood would result in increased supervision within highly detailed corporate charters that could provide explicit regulations about what a corporation can do, how they conduct business, for how long, with whom, where, and when. Corporations would be prohibited to buy and own stock in other corporations, and would be prohibited from any affiliation with any political process. Individual stockholders could be held personally liable for any harms done in the name of the corporation, therefor suffering from real person consequences. But most importantly, in order to receive the profit-making privileges sought by shareholders, their corporations would have to represent a clear benefit for the public good, such as building a road, canal, or bridge. If any of these terms are violated by a corporation, their charters could be revoked by the state legislatures.

Would it be possible to live the American dream without corporate affiliation? Isn't that what our country stands for? Freedom and opportunity to live our lives under the means of which we choose.

While we ponder the options, let us take a look at the good moral corporate individuals that currently lead the way by focusing on a triple bottom line.

Case Study 1 - Business as a moral issue
Still there are examples of corporations that are leading the way with high moral and social values. Companies where environmental protection and sustainability trump the pursuit revenue. One such corporation is Herman Miller furniture in Zeeland Michigan. Herman miller has been a household name for the family of one of our writers since its founding in 1923. As residents of Zeeland, Harry's family members went to work on the assembly line and played a role in the companies very beginnings. Working for Herman Miller they would witness a clear vision of business that was decades ahead of its time.

Herman Miller was founded by D.J. De Pree, who bought the Michigan Star Furniture Company in 1923 with his father-in-law, Herman Miller. The company was located in Zeeland, a town in western Michigan near the city of Grand Rapids. In 1931, Herman Miller was primarily producing traditional home furnishings and was struggling to avoid bankruptcy. That year, Mr. De Pree was approached by the industrial designer Gilbert Rohde. De Pree, a profoundly religious man, began to regard furniture design as a moral issue, and he admired the simplicity, high quality, and utilitarianism of Rohde's modern designs. This sense of moral responsibility also pervaded De Pree's management style. In an often-repeated anecdote regarding the origins of the company's commitment to its employees, De Pree visited the home of a millwright who had died on the job at Herman Miller in 1927. At the request of the widow, De Pree remained to hear some poetry that she read aloud. Profoundly moved by the poems, he inquired as to the author's identity and was told that the millwright had written them. De Pree became intrigued by the question of whether he had employed a millwright who happened to write poetry, or a poet who worked as a millwright, after that he sought to realize and encourage the hidden strengths and talents of all of his employees. He treated them as family, and fostered that growth of potential and backed it up with a supportive and healthy environment.

He drew upon the talents of George nelson, Charles and Rae Eames, Isamu Nagouchi, Alexander Girard and many others who benefited from an environment that encouraged them to work to their highest potential.

Herman Miller's environmental awareness can be traced back to D.J. De Pree. In the early 1950's he penned a statement of corporate values that declared Herman Miller "will be a good corporate neighbor by being a good steward of the environment."

Mr. De Pree introduced several corporate practices that are regarded as environmentally sensible today. They include the mandate that windows be included in all Herman Miller buildings, including manufacturing sites, so that employees can benefit from natural light. He also declared that 50 percent of any Herman Miller corporate site be set aside as "green space."

In 1993, Herman Miller helped fund the start-up of the United States Green Building Council-USGBC. This non-profit organization is dedicated to understanding and promoting sound environmental building practices.

During the launch of USGBC, Herman Miller hired renowned environmental architect William McDonough to design their next manufacturing facility. It was to be located next to an existing HMI warehouse on more than 45 acres of rolling prairie. In 1995, the USGBC selected the building, which was named the "Greenhouse," as a pilot for the development of its Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design-LEED certification process. The USGBC cited the Greenhouse as a model of what was possible, and awarded it "Pioneer" status. The building today stands as proof that using green design not only can be aesthetically pleasing but also environmentally sound and financially beneficial to a company. Further confirmation came from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which funded a study that validated the Greenhouse's financial and environmental performance.

LEED Certification is the current standard that new “green Buildings” are judged by. Herman Miller took it upon themselves to research and develop innovations and in this way the corporation was self aware and responsible for its impacts and made all of the findings public in an attempt to lead by example. Instead of lobbying for less rules and fighting regulation this corporation decided to help establish the precedents and provide a working example of how innovating to exceed expectations can be profitable.

Herman Miller’s corporate plan to be environmental stewards and above all honest with the products that they produce, created a vision of the corporation that Harry's family and many others hold on to. Unfortunately, this corporate model is not widespread and yet Harry's family finds it difficult to believe that other companies would behave contrary to this model. They see big business as a beneficial entity that need not be regulated because the company they relate to most regulates itself very well. My grandmother asks “Why add regulations or increase taxes on a business for doing the right thing?”. Her view is that one should be rewarded with less taxes if the company is strong and doing its part by helping others in becoming self-aware. In a perfect world everyone would do the right thing for the benefit of the many. Unfortunately, we do not live in a perfect world.

Case Study 2 - Rise up good people!
As we delve deeper in our searches to expose dirty corporate behavior, we must remember to equally suss out the good apples, and forget not to look for hope and inspiration. We search for environmentally and morally responsible leaders, 'real' people working within the 'artificial' archetype that have the innate moral sense to do what is right, not what fattens their pocketbook. We search for honest people who can't bear the thought of being ring-leader to a mass criminal aggregation that damages the planet, sickens its peoples, and brushes it under a rug. We're on the hunt for individuals and organizations that comprehend the damage big business' are fathom that they could very well be the end of our future.

Enter, Ray Anderson. Time Magazine has named him a "Hero of the Environment," he has also been called "America's Greenest Executive." His story begins much like many others we have mentioned, the story of a corporate execs dream-come-true. He founded a flooring and carpet manufacturing company in 1981 that grew rapidly, finally going global. His company has since become a billion-dollar corporation, now called Interface Global. In the mid 80's, Anderson pulled off a first-of-its-kind 180 degree turn in business practice strategies, a 'mid-course correction,' he calls it. Now here is a man with a good conscience and the guts to resist his very powerful colleagues for the sake of the planet and people, his goal to design a business model that can lead the way in the next industrial revolution.

His epiphany came to him via book that one day appeared on his desk, called 'The Ecology of Commerce,' by Paul Hawken's. Customers simply wanted to know what Interface Global was doing for the environment, and the answer at that time was absolutely nothing. Ray Anderson quotes in the documentary 'The Corporation,' "It dawned on me that the way I have been running Interface is the way of the plunderer, plundering something that is not mine, something that belongs to every creature on Earth...The day must come when this is illegal...Someday people like me will end up in jail." It was as if someone turned on a light; he vowed to change the way things were getting extracted and manufactured, the 'take-make-and waste system' that would eventually leave us with nothing. He vowed to attain sustainability without jeopardizing business profit, to protect the planet however possible and stop environmental decline.

Anderson has since re-strategized Interface's triple bottom line introducing two more business considerations making it; people, process, product, place and profits. 'Process' would add emphasis on green manufacturing, integrating renewable energy and use of non-toxic materials, things that don't "compromise the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” With 'Place' considered, there is added security and protection of areas around the planet that are currently being destroyed by industrial practices like mining and clear cutting.

The questionable aspect of Anderson's business agenda lies in the certainty of the shareholders, "The status quo is an opiate." After diligent research on sustainable business practices, Interface has reaped several benefits since the up-grade. Business has grown by two-thirds and the company is saving over $300 million dollars each year. Anderson is excited to say costs are down due to renewable energy systems, and on the green side, waste and pollution levels have declined. He's convinced that Interface is producing the best products they have ever produced using recyclable and renewable raw materials. There is goodwill in the marketplace, and people are happier in the workplace. "For a business such as Interface, sustainability is a process, a journey we have often likened to climbing a mountain higher than Mount Everest. Our climb up “Mount Sustainability” is a way that we guide our business decisions on a daily basis..." In 10 years Interface has achieved half of their ultimate goal, they are halfway up 'Mt. Sustainability' and hope to have zero carbon footprint by the year 2020.

People, are indeed, uniting and forming companies, like 'Saze Research' and 'BSR' that consult member companies and assist in developing socially and environmentally responsible business strategies. There is also the 'Business and Human Rights Resource Center,' designed to track and publicize the positive and negative occurrences involving companies around the globe. We have found several websites providing information on news and current events regarding corporations, check out csrwire.com or corpwatch.com where people unite with cause promoting corporate social responsibility. MissionZero.org, organized by Ray Anderson himself designed to share information and resources with the goal of "enlisting the support and energy of millions of people who can help correct the world's environmental course."

Case Study 3 - A refreshing advertising solution
Among the plethora of advertising that have negative influence and messages are some of the good guys. One agency that really stands out as far as a company that hasn't sold out is Urban Influence. Peter Wright the principal of the company started UI after 6 cups of coffee at 2 in the morning. One of our group members got the chance to talk to Peter about his Seattle based Branding firm. Peter grew weary of all of the nonsense in the corporate world. After working most of his young life as a leader in huge companies all over the West Coast he decided to take a stand. His somewhat new company has landed respectable clients nationwide. However, Peter talked about how he would never let the company get so huge that it became “corporate” and lost its values. UI has had offers to work on big clients such as Microsoft but they have turned them down because of the huge corporate ladder chain they would have to adhere to. This would cause for the company to limit themselves creatively and that is exactly what they are against. Their clients include: Queen City Grill, The Arctic Club Hotel, Cloud Rock, EcoHaus and many more both locally and nationally. (urbaninfluence.com)

The problem with many ad agencies is the fact that when they get so big they lose control over which clients they want to pitch or what ideas and messages they are sending out to the masses. For example: a hypothetical Chicago copywriter and a creative director go into a meeting with a new client. The client is a company who has a reputation for bad business practices and the use of unfair child labor. This meeting was set up by their boss, who's boss is the district boss who's boss is the national boss who's boss is the CEO who heard about this new client. This client was leftovers from their rival agency when they went out of business. To save their own skin in a cutthroat industry he decides to add this client for huge profitable gain. Despite how the copywriter and creative director of the small branch in Chicago feel, they are pitching this client and their future in the agency depends on it.

When Peter goes into a meeting with a client, he brings his favorite UI coffee cup and his 6 company values with him. In the back of his mind he can choose to not work with a client and would still have plenty of work to do when he got back to the office.

If you went to Urban Influence’s website you would expect huge budgets from their clients and a great deal of professionalism. Although they mainly focus on branding strategy they also work in the advertising side of things. UI is very design oriented and they also have a powerful interactive team to work with their branding and advertising strategies. For such a successful company you would expect they may be tempted to sell out and be caught up in the “Beefy, Cheesy Glory” of these huge corporate controlled ad firms but Urban Influence is a refreshing counterpart to this situation. (Interview)

Conclusion - Comparison in punishment of natural and artificial persons
Most natural persons obey the law because the majority of the populous has been raised to know right from wrong. Reasonable and sometimes severe punishments are in place to deter and inflict consequences for those who act contrary to basic human moral code. Murder, rape, incest, theft, battery, and invasion of privacy all have consequences for "natural" people. But for "artificial" people, the rules are far less strict. The super-wealthy have the power to hire the best assistance available to make their dreams a reality or to erase mistakes. Corporations do the same, however, the havoc they cause in search of greater profits is far greater then any individual could hope to achieve.

Murder for instance, jail sentence, and possible death row for the natural person. If the interests of a corporation requires such that have seen, "economic hit men" can be hired and if they fail Jackals and mercenaries can be called in to "solve the problem." If ever tracked back to a business entity, the company can fight in court for years if not decades until a settlement can be reached or until jurisdiction issues fail to resolve. Hiring mercenaries to do the dirty work is what the CIA has done with Blackwater. Outsourcing war crimes to a private corporation whose continued operations are claimed to be outside of the rules of war. In a severe corporate case one "natural" individual may take a fall and serve prison time but the "Artificial" person, AKA the corporation, is still in business and is relatively unaffected.

Health insurance agencies are a prime example of a business that saved millions of dollars by denying a life saving operation to a paying client of health insurance. The individual adjuster who made the choice to deny the claim was promoted and received a sizable bonus for her work. Years later racked with guilt, she faced congress and admitted to murder. She faced no consequences aside from a tarnished corporate image for one nights news broadcast and a dark spot on her conscience.

Rape sends a natural person to jail, rape of the environment gets 'artificial' persons fined in amounts that, in some cases, are literal 'drops in the bucket' of profit the company makes. Barrick Gold is a great example of simply being able to afford to pillage and pollute every exploitable acre no matter of its location in the world. Environmental rape or resource exploitation is hardly frowned upon in the corporate world, it is seen as a viable way to increase the bottom line profits. Corporate leaders of oil, coal and gas industries have repeatedly raped our earth and rarely ever suffered consequences to take note of.

Exxon is a prime example of destroying an environment and getting off with a pittance of a fine that they, to this day, are still fighting to have to pay at all. A jury decided Exxon should pay $5 billion in punitive damages for the residents of Prince William sound, site of the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster. Several years later, a federal appeals court cut that verdict in half, to $250 billion, and even more recently, The Supreme Court cut that $250 billion down to $500 million. Exxon claimed it had already spent $3.4 billion on court fees and that the remainder would be excessive. At a glance this sum of money may seem exuberant, but in context, $5 billion in fines was hardly a slap on the wrist considering Exxon posted a $45.2 billion profit in 2008.

Incest (abuse of children) results in especially rough treatment if a natural person should go to prison. But Corporations can't have kids you say? You are wrong. Corporations run schools like the one you are enrolled in right now. The student body represents the children, and the corporate employee are the teachers and effectively "the parent" for several hours every week. While individual instructors may agree or disagree with the situation, the truth is the bureaucratic policy makers ultimate goal is to swoon as many students into the doors as possible. It is obvious they are not interested in the capabilities and preparedness of students and the tasks ahead. A decent credit check is all that is needed. Got the money? You get an acceptance letter, Congratulations!

Many former students and graduates of the Art Institute feel they have been taken advantage of repeatedly. Students are subjected to very high tuition's and encouraged to rush though the system at a breakneck speed. If they stumble there is very little help in getting back up. With very little support the student body is ground down to a quivering heap of nerves and tears. That cannot be considered moral treatment of a dependent. The admissions counselors polish the image of the school and sell the institution as a quick ticket to success. This may be possible for a select few who have the resources to fund themselves without incredible amounts of debt looming on the horizon. If only the counseling staff was as well funded as the recruiting staff. Physical abuse and Battery is a trifle to corporations like Shell oil and Coca Cola, both have been accused of abusing organisers of trade unions and workers within their ranks. Beating the life out of a worker is the basic rule when you are a slave driver, so shy should it change because the slave driver was replaced by a corporate corny. Strong-arm tactics go way back and business is booming. The prison industrial complex is an example of an entire industry beating individuals down to nothing. Originally, prisons were meant to be a place of rehabilitation and conscious reflection on the acts committed in the past. Now it is an industry that no longer rehabilitates, but instead, creates its own culture of fear and retribution.

If a natural person gives a large sum of money to an individual or perhaps a politician it is called bribery. Corporations sponsor events and political parties by sending tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars to charm an individual and have their ear for a small amount of time. Better yet, corporations send their own officials to Washington to work as the heads of the regulatory boards overseeing their adherence to the law. Don't worry about breaking laws if those enforcing them are on your payroll or have stock options.

Paying the police to look the other way is illegal and results in jail time for the "naturals." Artificial persons, on the other hand, pay off officials all the time. So who pays the consequences? The individual within the "artificial" person that committed the act will most likely be charged, but not without the help of corporate lawyers and funding to pay bails and fight for appeal. It must be nice to be able to pay your way out of almost any situation.

Corporate person-hood is a status that cannot be left unchecked. These global empires are undermining the democracy that this country stands for. The insurmountable resources at their disposal outweighs the GNP of smaller nations; and this huge resource of money equals power. Power to pay off officials, as they look aside while entire ecosystems are devastated. Power to hire mercenaries to fight illegal wars and overthrow uncooperative government leaders. The power to put officials in office by funding campaigns, all the while threatening to remove them just as easily by denying repeat funds during the next election cycle.

Personal support of only companies with a better business view, it's important to spend your money effectively. Boycott producers that pollute and pillage, and frequent local business' that meet your approval on how they conduct business. Think before you shop and don't buy into the advertising and constant debasement for your own good. Break out of that zombie-like mentality, question things and educate yourself. Get corporations out of schools, support unions, put people before profit, 3 strikes law for corporations and most of all take care of yourself and your family, and if it doesn't sit well in your gut, it's probably bad for you. You are worthy of better.


text:
User:Stevenarntson/group spaces/2009summeranalytical/group 4

Group members
sign in here with ":" (a colon and three tildes).
 * XinaDeMoss
 * SuzanneZimmer
 * Kimaule
 * MerrisaShepherd

=Group Analysis=

Problems: We started off with choosing a subject that was not very clear but very narrow. From that point we broadened our subject to encompass Freespeech and Censorship, two very large, even impossing subjects. We did not focus on spacific problems/solutions very well as a group, more we just left it open for each individual to research and write about. We could have been much tougher on eachother and just assigned spacific subjects to write a paragraph or two each week thus delegating the work out more evenly. But, we instead seemed to lose focus for a few weeks and not get as much done as we could have. We felt that the class did not have enough structure in it from the teacher's side of things and this made it difficult to organize when and how things were going from early on. Later as there was more structure and due dates coming up our habits, plus missing a week due to Labor Day, made us skip doing extra subjects and just shorten the length of the paper.

Successes: We got along as a group. The paper did get written and turned out fairly interesting.

Future strategy: One thing as a group we might do better in the future is perhaps giving ourselves mini "duedates" with assignments on spacific subjects such as; week 4 each of us write a whole paper (problems and solutions) about one example of censorship, be it government, media, personal, etc. It would not matter if we all ellected to do government examples. It might have better focused us as a group. One thing that did work well for our group was us not stepping on eachothers toes very much. We have left this class still very amiable toward eachother.

=Introduction= My friend once told me a story about when he was young. He never tried spicy food until he was in college. As a child his mother wouldn't let him try it. Whenever he asked she would just says "It's too spicy, you wouldn't like it!". Years later, he tried and loves it. Only then did he realized that his mother wouldn't let him ate spicy food because she didn't like it herself. This is how he realized that what is right for one person may not be right for someone else.

The desire to protect people from harmful ideas is a very basic one. Parents have to decide what to expose their children to from the day they are born. In all forms of communication, people try to put themselves in a positive light. On a human level, this is natural. But when people control forms of mass communication, this natural tendency has a different term: censorship. Whether it's to protect a populace from offensive ideas, or to suppress opinions which may weaken a corporation or government's position, censorship is common in all societies.

=Definition of Free Speech and Censorship=

When I was in elementary school they were teaching the class United States history as well as the history of Washington State, as was typical of public school students I was given a standard text book and that were all the information available on the subject in class. I learned about early American history and about the Native Americans. Then I went home to my dad and asked him why the story seemed to be so one sided, why did it seem more like a story then real history. He told me that the victors of wars write the history books. The losers, meaning the side that died, did not get to have their say in the books. My dad is part Osage, which was a tribe that migrated across the Midwestern parts of northern America. The Osage were a warrior tribe, competing for space with the Cherokee and other tribes of the area. They were almost completely wiped out by smallpox after the Europeans came to America after thousands of years of being great warriors they were completely wiped out by disease. I had never read about or heard anything about the tribe do to the fact that the people who wrote the history books completely just omitted them and hundreds of other small tribes that were wiped out by the diseases and other massacres of the Native Americans. I learned that by omission the government was not showing a darker side of its history and that was a form of censoring.

Censoring is just another word for banning or forbidding people to read, hear, or see what others have to say. Freedom of speech has been challenged and censored all throughout history of human society and organized governments. The ancient Greeks persecuted Socrates and put him to death for publicizing ideas outside of the religious beliefs of the time in 399BC. Instead of a willingness to listen to a new idea they silenced a single voice. In early Chinese history as well as many other countries it was believed that censorship was a legitimate way to control moral and political movements and ideas of the populous. Government control of information is still accepted today in many parts of the world.

=Types of Censorship= "Beeping" out "bad words" on the radio or on a television show. Or blocking out innapropriate things on a commercial.

Government censorship and propaganda
Censorship is often used as a form of control by many governments. Government censorship blocks differing opinions to keep people from questioning what the government does.

Not only are conflicting ideas censored, but any negative events or occurrences within those countries. The Tiananmen Square events produced a large stir in 1989 when the Chinese government ordered the suppression of a peaceful protest movement that had been carried out by students and civilians in one of China's major cities over two months in the spring of 1989. The center of the protest movement was Tiananmen Square, Beijing, where tens of thousands of students camped out to press their demands for democratic reform and a halt to China’s escalating corruption problem. More than one million people marched carrying banners and shouting slogans. On the night of June 3, 1989, the government ordered the Army to clear the square. In the afternoon, martial law troops moved into Beijing and clashed with civilians trying to block their way to Tiananmen Square. The troops cleared the square and opened fire on unarmed students and civilians in the surrounding area who resisted the suppression. More than 2,000 people died in various Chinese cities, 182 victims, including three who died at Tiananmen Square. More than 500 people were imprisoned in Beijing, and an unknown number were imprisoned in other cities. An additional unknown number were executed. Therefore, Tiananmen Square event became a warning to those who dared to go against the government’s law.

In the 1990s, the Internet gave people a new way to communicate and exchange information. Since the commercialization of the Internet in China in 1995, China has become one of the fastest-growing Internet markets in the world. The number of domestic Internet users is doubling every six months. With the development of the Internet, news reaches China from a multiplicity of sources enabling people to form opinions, analyze and share information and to communicate in ways previously unknown in China.

Lively on-line debates characterized the start of the Internet in China. However, the potential of the Internet to spread new ideas has led the authorities to take measures to control its use. In 1998, the government of China began work on the Golden Shield Project, designed "to construct a communication network and computer information system for police to improve their capability and efficiency." This project has become known outside China as The Great Firewall of China, a pun on the ancient Great Wall of China.

The preliminary work on the Golden Shield Project alone cost up to $800 million US dollars. The project includes a wide range of provisions that limit how information can be disseminated. Chinese web sites cannot show news from outside media without approval. Only licensed publishers can run news sites; other sites may only publish information already released by other sources. All sites must get approval from government offices. The project is estimated to use 30,000 police officers to monitor for illegal content. Unacceptable messages from online forums are often deleted within minutes of being posted.

Many outside websites are completely blocked from access. Other sites must follow strict guidelines in order to be available in China. Many companies provided pre-censored versions of their services for Chinese customers. This has led to criticism in other countries, who claim that these companies are helping the Chinese government to continue suppressing free speech.

One of the latest censorship events is the argument around Internet access during Beijing Olympics in 2008. China has branded the Beijing Olympics as the "High Tech Olympics!" and the "People’s Olympics!". Despite this, use of the Internet remains highly restricted in China. According to the International Olympic Committee for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, the Chinese government guarantees that the accredited media would have unrestricted Internet access during the games. However, journalists soon found that sites containing politically sensitive material were inaccessible.

Obviously, when it comes to free communication, it will be censored. Perhaps the government has a good purpose in mind; maybe they genuinely want to give their people the understanding that everything their country does is good. But instead of making people "harmonious", the censorship has the opposite effect. Skepticism, denial, and infuriation are the usual results.

Propaganda
Propaganda is a specific type of message presentation, aimed at serving an agenda. Even if the message conveys true information, it may be partisan and fail to paint a complete picture. Some people define propaganda as the deliberate, systematic attempt to shape perceptions, manipulate cognition, and direct behavior to achieve a response that furthers the desired intent of the propagandist. Propaganda is used by governments hand-in-hand with censorship to shape the opinions of people. At the same time that opponents' ideas are made unavailable, the government's ideas are pushed strongly.

There are two major types of propaganda. The first type is aimed at making the propagandist look good. The other is aimed at making the enemy look bad. The first type usually shows an authority figure, beautiful scene or a positive role-model. The idea is to associate the propagandist with beauty or strength. The second type often involves ugly caricatures or portrays negative acts done by the enemy.

An example which contains both types of propaganda is the WWII-era cartoon "Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips". Bugs Bunny meets a Japanese soldier on a Pacific island. The soldier shows many stereotypes of Japanese from that era: slanty eyes, buck teeth and a monkey-like body. These stereotypes go so far as to suggest that the Japanese aren't even human. Bugs defeats him using his wits and ingenuity. (Interestingly, partway through the cartoon the soldier recognizes Bugs, suggesting that even though they are enemies, the Japanese secretly admired American culture.) He also defeats a stereotypical sumo wrestler, suggesting that Americans can use their brains and prevail even against an enemy who has more physical power. Finally, the enemies are stupid. Even after being blown up by ice-cream bars hiding grenades, one Japanese soldier comes back for a free second bar.

Just as censorship attempts to remove the ability for people to choose based on their own intellect, propaganda is usually designed to appeal to peoples' emotions. In the long term, this can result in a populace that is not trained to think, but merely to react. The ultimate result is a populace that doesn't know where it stands in the world, and is easy to control.

After the Vietnam war, a lot people who worked for the losing government fled from the country, and the Communist party become the only political system. This has created a conflict between the people that still live in Vietnam and those that live overseas. The current government uses propaganda to create nationalistic pride to the point that the government is never wrong, and everything it does is good. Nationalistic pride, mixed with a feeling of racial superiority and with the idea that the government is never wrong creates a dangerous situation in Vietnam. Most issues are turned into “black or white”, within the political party and most people only support one side. Furthermore, people have become so used to the way the government works that they won't listen to outside opinions. They will continue to follow the government until it's too late. This process is known as "boiling the frog by warming the water." If the water is warmed up gradually, the frog may not feel it, and adapts. By the time the frog feels the heat, it won't be able to jump out of the boiling water.

Censorship is a way to control differing opinions; it shields the truth, and allows the people who support the government to come forward without hindrance. Even if someone might have a different view, they would rather not go against their culture, government, people, or race. Censorship is not just a way of controlling the people; it is there to make it easier on the people to be right no matter what. It is much easier to just magically make things go away, than to address them and possibly find an error. When self-censorship happens, it is not the government controlling the people. Self-censorship is millions of people putting their fingers in their ears and saying “I can’t hear you and I don’t want to hear you!!!'

Dangerous Information
Proponents of censorship often talk about dangerous information that should be controlled. They say that some information can be used to commit crimes and hurt people. In 1971, William Powell published the Anarchist Cookbook, a book that contains recipes and instructions for the manufacture of explosives, rudimentary telecommunications phreaking devices and other dangerous and illegal items. Many people were outraged and frightened that it would be used to encourage terrorist acts. In fact, the Anarchist Cookbook was mostly compiled from other sources of information which were already freely available. Also, over the years, it has been updated, expanded and even moved online with new information, by a large number of other contributors. In some ways it can be considered to be an early version of a Wiki!

This shows how difficult it can be to censor something. Even if a government decided that some information should be censored, where would they start? If the Anarchist Cookbook is illegal, what about the sources that Powell used to create it? Furthermore, what about good use for the information? For example, the Anarchist Cookbook includes sections on lock picking. While lock picking can be used in crime, it can also be used to rescue people or even just to open things when their keys have been lost.

Even now, the book is maintaining a remarkably high sales rate on Amazon. Few people seem to care that some of the "recipes" were quickly discovered to be dangerously, even mortally inaccurate, although several of the readers offering reviews of the book did revile it as "The Disgruntled Idiot's Guide to Rebellion" or, worse, as a catalyst for school shootings.

Ultimately, the book itself serves as a history lesson. This period in history was a very difficult one, and reading the book can help give us a perspective on what people thought at the time. In fact, it can show us how people's perspectives can themselves change. William Powell has changed his mind about the book. "The book, in many respects, was a misguided product of my adolescent anger at the prospect of being drafted and sent to Vietnam to fight in a war that I did not believe in. The central idea to the book was that violence is an acceptable means to bring about political change. I no longer agree with this." (He explains that the book was copyrighted under the publisher's name, not his, so he has no control over its continued dissemination.)

But fans of The Anarchist Cookbook are not so sympathetic to the author's aged retraction. As one of the readers reviews: "It is unfortunate that we lose our sense of outrage and angst as we grow into adulthood. Such is the case of William Powell. The Anarchist's Cookbook is a masterpiece and a perfect example of what the freedoms of the Constitution gives us to speak what we wish."

Censorship of the Arts
In many ways art can be considered to represent the culture it comes from. Art can also be used to communicate ideas that are unpopular or offensive to some. Therefore, it is a natural target for censors who wish to control the culture. Throughout history, art has been subject to censorship and controversy.

In the past, much of the censorship of the arts revolved around religious issues. The Bible has been banned in different times in history from England in the 1400s, any bible translated from the original text was forbidden. During Queen Mary’s reign she put forth a proclamation "that no manners of persons presume to bring into this real any messages, books, paper, etc. in the name of Martin Luther, John Calvin, Miles Cover dale, Erasmus, Tyndale etc. or any like books containing false doctrines against the Catholic faith". More recently in history in the Soviet Union banned all religious texts including the Koran, Bible and Talmud.

Another target for censorship is politically motivated. Before and during WWII Nazi-Germany banned several books including all publications by Karl Marx, this banning was included in all occupied countries as well. All works by Jewish authors were similarly banned even Bambi, by Felix Salten. An example of society banning a book is in Germany and many countries in Europe Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf is still banned today, all but the English and Dutch versions are owned and controlled by the government of Bavaria, when it was found that German citizens were able to purchase the books through amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com there was a public outcry from the German populous, both companies agreed to stop selling this book.

Much of the current arguments about censorship revolve around popular culture and morality. In the 1920s, Hollywood had acquired a reputation as "Sin City". Because the Supreme Court had earlier ruled that movies were a business, not an art form, the industry was worried that federal censorship might soon arrive. So they created the Motion Pictures Producers and Distributors Association, headed by Will H. Hays. The "Hays Office" came up with a code of acceptable and unacceptable content, primarily based on Catholic theology. The code was very strict; in addition to portrayals of unacceptable behavior, movies were also forbidden to even mention topics such as people sleeping together, ridiculing religion, foul language or disrespect of the US flag. Furthermore, films could not depict anyone succeeding in a crime or otherwise antisocial behavior.

By 1934 the Production Code Administration gained the power to control all content produced by the major movie studios. As a result of the code, most local censorship boards were dissolved, and federal censorship never became an issue, but many people felt restricted by the limitations on stories they could tell.

The studios followed the rules of the Hays Office for 30 years. But several things happened in the 1950s that weakened the power of the Code, including the invention of television, growing popularity of foreign films which were not bound by the Code, and the Supreme Court overturning its 1915 decision, now saying that movies were entitled to protection under the First Amendment. By the mid-1960s, the Code was abandoned in favor of a rating system. Under the new system, no movies could be banned, but the industry hoped the rating system would keep morality groups satisfied.

In the 1950s, comic books had a similar problem as the movies had had 30 years before. Fredric Wertham published Seduction of the Innocent, a book claiming that comics caused juvenile delinquency, leading to government scrutiny of the industry. Again, in fear of potential federal censorship, the industry moved to create its own censorship code. The Comics Code Authority was created in 1954.

The CCA was even more restrictive than the movies' Production Code. In addition to rules banning depictions of excessive violence and sex, it limited the kinds of advertising that could appear in comics and included a rigid code of acceptable moral behavior. Interestingly, Fredric Wertham didn't feel like the Code went far enough, although later, comics writer Scott McCloud described it as "the list of requirements a film needs to receive a G rating was doubled, and there were no other acceptable ratings!"

Several provisions of the Code were very specific. It banned any depictions of zombies, ghouls, vampires and werewolves, as well as titles of comics that included the words "horror" or "terror". William Gaines, publisher of EC Comics, claimed that these rules were specifically aimed at damaging his company. EC Comics was one of the most popular publishers at the time, and its most popular titles were science fiction and horror comics, which often portrayed the proscribed characters. One of its most popular titles was "Vault of Horror", and a new title was in the works named "Crypt of Terror". After the Code was put in place, EC Comics had to stop publishing its most popular stories. With the exception of "Mad", which switched to magazine format to avoid the Code, EC shortly went out of business. This shows a very dangerous issue with censorship: once the tools to control expression exist, they can be used for selfish reasons, to help the censor profit at the expense of his competitors.

Censorship of the arts is an ongoing problem. It seems like each time a new form of artistic expression becomes popular, it becomes subject to censorship. Movies became popular in the 1920s, and were censored in the 1930s. Comic books began being censored after their popularity rose in the 1950s. Currently, video games are skyrocketing in popularity, and many people are attempting to restrict or remove their ability to be distributed. Even though there is currently a rating system for video games in place, people like Jack Thompson continue to call for outright bans.

The biggest danger of censorship of the arts is that all portrayals of illegal material are banned, no matter what merit they may have. No matter how one might define a code, it can include material that is valuable to society. For example, pornography has been under fire for all of history. But if pornography were to be banned, what would happen to works which educate people on safe sex? Furthermore, what is offensive varies from culture to culture, and even from person to person. Any time someone tries to define the choices available to everyone, it will eliminate some choices desirable by some. Instead of censorship, people must use their own judgment to choose the art that is suitable for them, and not try to dictate what is appropriate for others.

Corporate Censorship
In today world, corporation can own many companies, including media or Information Company. These companies want to present a good face in the public so they don’t want to say anything bad about themselves. Therefore, they may use censorship in the media that they own to suppress the unfavorable information, both media that they own and in media that they spent the advertising dollar.

Corporations use money and power to influence the media throughout the world. If a report is going to hurt a company's bottom line, then that report will not be shown on the nightly news. Reporters fear reporting the complete news because their jobs and position will be threatened. One example of corporations controlling the news was at the beginning of this summer. Two reporters from competing channels were in the midst of a rivalry that involved one slamming the other continuously with facts and information regarding the habits of the parent company who owned the station that they worked for, MSNBC and Fox. This was in June of 2009 between MSNBC's Keith Olbermann and Fox's Bill O'Reilly. GE owns both MSNBC and Fox so having both of these reporters slanders the other were causing GE to lose money. It was later revealed that the two were “reconciled” by order of the CEO of GE. But at the end of this one of the parties involved was quoted saying, “I promise you, CBS News and ABC News and NBC News are not influenced by the corporations that may own those companies.” a quote by Charlie Rose (Greenwald). Yet, after this reconciliation anything that negatively portrayed GE was no longer reported on either of these very popular news shows. A viewer responded to the change,”In my personal opinion, this was one of the rare useful pieces of information O'Reilly ever presented to his audience, and Olbermann was there to show how lousy the rest of O'Reilly's information was. Though it was in the context of a bitter feud, the two men were actually engaging in real journalism, at least in this case.”(Greenwald)

Maybe the biggest concern with corporate censorship is in conjunction with media conglomeration. After the Television Act of 1996, the FCC allows companies to own many more media outlet. As the result of this, a small number of companies own almost all the media in the United States. Many people are concerned that this will lead to an oligarchy, in which the media company that come together and decide what will be covered in the entire major news outlet.

=The big problem: Who decides what and how much?=

How can the people, media, and governments come up with solutions to this argument? Who are the ones that will be speaking for the masses, and how do they decide what and how much censorship or lack thereof is appropriate? And why can’t the masses decide for themselves?

With the United States government, we elect into office representatives that are suppose to stand up for our beliefs; be it the laws we put into place to detour crime, what programs we want run to help those that cannot help themselves and even how we interact with other governments.

The United States government was put into place by the people for the people so that the people could live free without restrictions or dictatorships. Over the decades the masses with the controlling voice has become more complacent, allowing someone else to "make up the rules" for them. The people need to stand up again and hold those accountable that were voted into office to protect our freedoms. The people can do this by not re-electing those that go against the public’s wishes.

The media were meant to report the news, both sides of it, and not be biased, have an agenda or censor what is reported. It was set up as a way to inform the people of all the events. Good or bad. The people should boycott the major controlling media that are not standing to those original values.

People should stand together to be heard, take back the freedoms they have given up over the years by becoming complacent, and rejecting the officials and media that hinder these ideals and have agendas that hinder these freedoms.

Possible solutions
When the United States was formed The Bill of rights was ratified into the constitution. The First Amendment stated, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances." (US Bill of Rights) This became a large step toward freedom of speech for the former colony and because of this amendment many people throughout history have been able to fight for their right to be and say what they want to. This showed a government opens to the idea of limiting censorship in favor of allowing the people to express themselves freely.

Another example of governments becoming more open to the idea of freedom of speech is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The document was adopted and proclaimed by the United Nations on December 10, 1948. This was a historic event that was encouraged by the UN to be publicized and spread throughout the member countries and one of the basic things it says is, “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”(Universal Declaration of Human Rights) This document however, is not very well publicized today nor is it discussed in most classrooms to young students so the power of the document is lost. It was an effort of the United Nations to suggest a way for all the countries that are part of the United Nations to give all people a sense of freedom of self.

Alternatives to Censorship
People are always learning and copying from each other so by seeing scenes of people consuming alcohol or smoking, it gives a bad influence on the society. Hence censoring such scenes serves a useful purpose. In the past, many young teenagers were influenced by the media to think that smoking cigarettes made them look cool. This made widespread smoking among the youth a big problem because it was illegal to smoke at under 18, but the rules were being broken by "rebels". Instead of censoring depictions of smoking, today commercials warn people that smoking is bad and even highly hazardous to a person's health. The website www.thetruth.com has a series of commercials illustrating what could happen if you smoke, such as having your larynx removed due to cancer. A lot of teenagers changed their minds about how smoking made them look and now are more likely to try being healthier. Instead of restricting information via censorship, publicizing the "other side of the issue" gives people more options to make up their own minds.

Censorship is often started with good intentions, but because of the problems outlined above, it can have bad results. Often people do not wish to be exposed to things that they find offensive, but censorship takes control away from people. One alternative to censorship is a system of rating content. Perhaps the most well known attempt at self regulation is conducted by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), which rates motion pictures for particular audiences. For example, the contents of "G" rated movies are considered suitable for all audiences, "GP" requires parental guidance, "R," "X," and NC17 are considered appropriate for adults. These standards are offered as a guide to audiences and have never been strictly enforced. Parents may take children to see X-rated movies if they so desire. This approach retains the filmmakers' freedom to create any kind of movie they wish, and also the people's freedom to choose what kind of material they wish to see.

Many people argue that rating systems are just another form of censorship. In some cases, such as with comics, where the distribution system refused to carry non-rated material, this is true. But in the best case, non-rated material is still available, giving customers a choice. An example of this is in the music industry. After the Parents Music Resource Center created the "Parental Advisory - Explicit Lyrics" sticker in 1985, the record labels started releasing multiple versions of many albums, one with the label, and a "cleaned up" version without. Some people have even claimed that the warning labels have increased sales for affected albums, saying that kids are more interested in "forbidden" media. In fact, many youth buy stickers and t-shirts portraying the warning label, as a badge of defiance.

=Conclusion= The discussion of freedom of speech and freedom of expression is a long hard road. It is true that people have the right to their speech and expression and everyone has a widely different point of view, which makes this topic a very passionate one. Who is to say what should or shouldn’t be censored? Who is to say what is right or wrong, because to each individual this changes. The question is; should there be censorship in the Medias? If so who are the ones that make these choices and what lines are to be drawn. Does censoring freedom of speech and expression aid or hinder mankind?

Governments have stepped in for many generations to try and tell its peoples what is right or wrong for them, albeit some with good intentions; most have tried to hide the truth from their peoples as a means of control. There is a big difference from trying to censor say porn versus governments trying to keep the truth of an issue from the people.

When a Government does something, that can and will affect the peoples of its nation, be it good or bad, and hides it from them, they are effectively telling its people they have no rights, that they do not know what is best for them. Each government and the peoples of that nation are very different with different points of view and thoughts on what is considered right and wrong. And this should be respected. But governments are supposed to be there for the people, to protect the people from harm. Not harm of what they watch, hear, learn, speak or even do, but to keep them safe from the harm of enemies. Governments should not be allowed or feel they have the total control over what the people chose to say, think, believe, watch, hear or do. It is the peoples right to self censorship not the governments.

Beings that the topic of what should be censored or not in our Medias is an ongoing, passionate topic that will not go away anytime soon and there will always be people on both sides of this issue, there should be some guides to help people make their own choices. Knowledge, of all kinds, helps people to evolve. Some of this knowledge may be hard to deal with or comprehend, but it shows us what works and what doesn’t. The people make choices for themselves, with these freedoms, what is right or wrong for each one.

=Works Cited= Elgin, Ben, and Bruce Einhorn. "The Great Firewall of China." BusinessWeek's. 16 Jan. 2006. Web. 10 Sept. 2009. .

"Censorship in China." Anesty International. Web. 14 Sept. 2009. .

James Madison, "The United States Bill of Rights", 1789.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights, United Nations, 1948.

Greenwald, Glenn. Salon.com 1 Aug. 2009: n. pag. Web. 17 Sept. 2009. .

"Amazon.com: Customer Reviews: The Anarchist Cookbook." Amazon.com: Online Shopping for Electronics, Apparel, Computers, Books, DVDs & more. Web. 17 Sept. 2009. .

Powell, William. "Amazon.com: The Anarchist Cookbook (9780974458908): William Powell: Books." Amazon.com: Online Shopping for Electronics, Apparel, Computers, Books, DVDs & more. Web. 17 Sept. 2009. .

"Motion Picture Production Code." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Web. 20 Sept. 2009. .

Schlesinger, Leon. "YouTube - Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips (1944)." YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. Web. 20 Sept. 2009. .

"Comics Code Authority." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Web. 20 Sept. 2009. .

McCloud, Scott (2000). Reinventing Comics: How Imagination and Technology Are Revolutionizing an Art Form. New York: Perennial. ISBN 0060953500.

"Jack Thompson (activist)." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Web. 20 Sept. 2009. .

"Parents Music Resource Center." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Web. 20 Sept. 2009. .

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


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User:Ourfalli

بدء مشروع لمصدر شامل للرياضيات باللغة العربية يتم تطويره و تحديثه من قبل حاملي الشهادات في البلدان العربية و المهجر.

الهدف من هذا المشروع هو إرساء لغة موحدة للرياضيات يتم اعتمادها من المشرق إلى المغرب و تفتح المجال إلى مصدر معرفي حر متماسك البنيان في هذه المادة الهامة و تتيح المجال لتبادل و لبحث علمي باللغة العربية يتجاوز الحدود. من أهداف هذا المشروع تطوير اللغة الرمزية العربية لتشمل القطاع الجامعي ذلك لأن الكتابة العربية بسلاستها تعطي للرياضي ميزة السرعة في الحساب و الإنشاء اللغوي.

title: User:Ourfalli


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User talk:Writerinres

Writerinres is a (you guessed it) writer -- working from my own residence, which happens to be in Toronto.--Writerinres 21:04, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

title: User talk:Writerinres


text:
User:Writerinres

Writerinres is a (you guessed it) writer -- working from my own residence, which happens to be in Toronto.--Writerinres 21:05, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

title: User:Writerinres


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User talk:Ourfalli

 Hello Ourfalli, and welcome to Wikiversity! If you need help, feel free to visit my talk page, or contact us and ask questions. After you leave a comment on a talk page, remember to sign and date; it helps everyone follow the threads of the discussion. The signature icon in the edit window makes it simple. To get started, you may

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And don't forget to explore Wikiversity with the links to your left. Be bold to contribute and to experiment with the sandbox or your userpage, and see you around Wikiversity! --mikeu talk 23:07, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

mathematics project
From what I can understand of your user page the project you are forming sounds very interesting. You might want to visit مرحبا بكم في ويكي الجامعة بيتا --mikeu talk 23:07, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

title: User talk:Ourfalli


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User:Starchaaser

Just made my account, will add more information later.

title: User:Starchaaser


text:
User talk:Starchaaser

 Hello Starchaaser, and welcome to Wikiversity! If you need help, feel free to visit my talk page, or contact us and ask questions. After you leave a comment on a talk page, remember to sign and date; it helps everyone follow the threads of the discussion. The signature icon in the edit window makes it simple. To get started, you may

 * Take a guided tour and learn to edit.
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 * Read an introduction for teachers and find out how to write an educational resource for Wikiversity.
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And don't forget to explore Wikiversity with the links to your left. Be bold to contribute and to experiment with the sandbox or your userpage, and see you around Wikiversity! --mikeu talk 23:40, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

title: User talk:Starchaaser


text:
User:Jtneill/Assessment/Moodle activity

 * 1) Moodle activity: 5%: Marks will be allocated by the unit convener at the end of semester based on Moodle activity during semester (up to the end of Week 15) - based on active, meaningful, regular participation in the unit's discussion forums, as follows:

title: User:Jtneill/Assessment/Moodle activity


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User talk:Belongilot

 Hello Belongilot, and welcome to Wikiversity! If you need help, feel free to visit my talk page, or contact us and ask questions. After you leave a comment on a talk page, remember to sign and date; it helps everyone follow the threads of the discussion. The signature icon in the edit window makes it simple. To get started, you may

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And don't forget to explore Wikiversity with the links to your left. Be bold to contribute and to experiment with the sandbox or your userpage, and see you around Wikiversity! --Juan de Vojníkov 06:43, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Images
I see you had some problems with images on the page. Can I help you?--Juan de Vojníkov 06:43, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

title: User talk:Belongilot