From: levine@symcom.math.uiuc.edu (Lenore Levine)
Subject: Re: Boycotts (was Re: Why are many low-income women fat?)
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Sat, 2 Jan 1993 18:05:15 GMT

gazit@duke.cs.duke.edu (Hillel Gazit) writes:

>In article <C058Cu.Fnv@news.cso.uiuc.edu> 
>levine@symcom.math.uiuc.edu (Lenore Levine) writes:

>>A clear definition works very well in more stable societies,
>>but doesn't seem to work as well in more quickly changing
>>societies. 

>Has the changes, in your life time, been so quick?

Hell, yes!!! (Of course, remember I'm 43 years old.) I don't think
I would have believed, in 1960, that the culture would change
as fast as it did.

(Discussion on corrupt politicians.)

Me:
>>I actually see the problem (or some great component of it) as
>>television...

Hillel:
>Would you mind to elaborate?

Television tends to inordinately increase the role that appearance
plays in voting choices. For example, I doubt if Lincoln, Churchill or
Roosevelt could have been elected today.

>(BTW was it the television fault that the dead people kept
>voting for mayor Daley of Chicago...?)

Well, they chose better than many living people today!

Seriously, the old-style political bosses may have not been that
bad, as leaders... 

>>>In my opinion, part of "social justice" is reducing the power of the
>>>government.  Do you reject this approach?  Can you give an example
>>>where a powerful government stayed (more or less) "clean handed"?

>>Hillel, can you give an example of any government which has
>>stayed "clean handed"? 

>\begin{sarcasm}
>Feminists keep telling us about the "good" female-dominated societies
>that were around 4,000-5,000 years ago; do you think that those 
>societies had not "clean handed" governments?!
>\end{sarcasm}

Please do not attribute to me opinions I don't hold. 

>>I have mixed feelings about reducing the power of the government.
>>I think it is often a good thing, in general. I am not in favor
>>of it as a fixed ideology; 

>A strong government is sometimes needed, especially in
>emergency times, but I don't like that.

>>and I also note that sometimes the
>>government acts as a check and balance to the quasi-governmental
>>power of big, bureaucratic corporations.

>For that the government should be stronger than the big, bureaucratic 
>corporations, but not much stronger.  The current situation where 
>pushing the "right" tax laws, and getting government contracts, are 
>the best ways for big companies to increase their profit actually 
>helps those "big, bureaucratic corporations" at the expense of 
>the smaller and younger ones.

>There were in this country two very large monopolies.  The larger of
>the two had the following record: the Vietnam War, Watergate, double-
>digit inflation, fuel and energy shortages, bankrupt airlines, and the
>8-cent postcard.  The second was responsible for such things as the
>transistor, the solar cell, lasers, synthetic crystals, high fidelity
>stereo recording, sound motion pictures, radio astronomy, negative
>feedback, magnetic tape, magnetic "bubbles", electronic switching
>systems, microwave radio and TV relay systems, information theory, the
>first electrical digital computer, and the first communications
>satellite.  Guess which one got to tell the other how to run the
>telephone business?

As I understand it, the telephone company welcomed the deregulation
it obtained.

I don't think most people who have direct experience with big
corporations are rosy about their current abilities to enhance
scientific creativity. And, of the institutions I've had direct
experience with, both the most successful and the least were nonprofit
in their essential purpose; the profit-making organizations tend to fall
in the middle.

Lenore Levine
 
Newsgroups: alt.feminism