I’d thought about calling
this post “General Motors and the Quest for Corporate Communism” but somehow
that seemed just a bit premature given the evidence at hand. The evidence against General Motors and John
Deere is still a bit, ummm, suspect shall we say but the ramifications of any
major corporation succeeding at what they’re accused of attempting are profound
to say the least. This one is important,
it deserves a dedicated microscope and a crew on duty 24/7 to keep an eye on
what transpires, with appropriate counter measures ready to launch on a moments
notice.
It is alleged that General Motors
and John Deere are petitioning the Federal Patent and Copyright folks to invoke
provisions of legislation passed in support of international copyright treaties
(intended to protect the intellectual property rights of those producing software
and entertainment) in such a manner as to allow them to revoke and render
meaningless the very concept of ownership of any modern machine incorporating “computerized”
control systems (yes, that means your automobile) and substitute in the place
of “ownership” a “life of the device” lease agreement similar to that found in
the EULA (End User License Agreement) of say a modern computer operating
system.
So what’s the big deal you
ask? In a word, the maintenance and
upkeep of such machines. The intent of
their petition is to by law deny the general public (which means any
mechanic not specifically employed by GM) access to the specific technical information
needed to maintain such machines, effectively
establishing a monopoly not based on exclusive production but rather on
an exclusive ability to maintain such machinery. Since it is already well known by those who
work with such machines that they incorporate very sophisticated engineering guaranteeing
device failure within well known and quite deliberate time spans the potentials
for blatant abuse are obvious.
The focus of their claim is
the firmware incorporated into their new “drive by wire” offerings. In case you didn't know drive by wire is the
severing of all mechanical connection between the operator and the various
subsystems of the machine… for example, lose power steering on your way home
from work and you don’t have difficult steering, you have NO steering… a massively
dangerous concept so utterly idiotic it can’t even be blamed on Al Gore! And
that’s saying something. They are
attempting to claim that the necessary diagnostic devices for performing
effective maintenance on such machines constitute a violation of their
copyright protection on such firmware programming, and therefore all such
devices should be illegal unless specifically owned by a GM sanctioned shop
(read that as extortion city far beyond any Mafia protection racket!).
Having invested in such
lunacy General Motors is now attempting to protect themselves from the obvious
legal liabilities of such stupidity by establishing a system whereby they can financially
entrap anyone naive enough to invest in such a machine into a situation where
they MUST pay whatever General
Motors demands to maintain the machine or purchase a new machine at intervals
determined by General Motors (such that to protect their initial investment
they must return to GM or forfeit any accrued equity!) when GM is no longer
able or willing to counter and contradict their own built in failure modes!
(just a heads up for those
who know their ass from a hole in the ground… in the late ‘90’s GM took to
wiring their ever more electronic dependent offerings with wire where the
physical properties of the insulation of that wire degrade to unusable in a
matter of ten years or so… boy howdy, random cross circuiting just does
wonderful things for reliability!)
I’m not even gonna get
started, in this post anyway, on the human travesty of utterly destroying the
livelihood of every independent mechanic in the nation, nor will I speak to the
ultimate social consequences of being denied by law the right to
be personally and fully competent in any part of such a primal function of
modern life as the operation of an automobile!
Folks, this one? This one isn’t the American way. Not even close. I’m sure somewhere Lenin and Chairman Mao are
sharing a drink and laughing their asses off.
The Americans, so stupid as to think that only government can inflict
and enforce communism on the masses.
Without government, our freedoms will be stolen one by one, because humans are generally too tribal, ideological, self-serving and greedy to be left unfettered In their mindless drive to eliminate government, the libertarians and tea partiers shoot all of us, including themselves in the foot. We need rules to control 'all of the above', and enough well trained government employees to run things, including to enforce the rules.
ReplyDeleteFor that to happen, our three branches of government must be free of corporate influence. That influence includes the direct moneyed coercion exerted on elections, as well as the manipulation of voters personal ideologies and paranoias.
We have an orchestrated web of interwoven systems which we must begin to untangle,
but for now, as we struggle it only seems to ensnare us further.
Where do we begin? Or must we demand of our fourth estate, that all forms of media tell the complete story simultaneously, so we might tackle the whole mess simultaneously?
IMO - :) pip
Pip, I see government as the problem, not the solution. It is laws legitimate in the one context being bastardized into the other context that are creating more than just this threat.
DeleteI’ll agree with the idea that the headwaters of any serious cure will involve if not revolve around election reform, structuring an election process where gross amounts of money are not the power players they are now; and, equally, establishing a system where those who sit to encode ethics into law can be protected from manipulation by limited groups with limited agendas. How? Damn good question. Perhaps return to the example of the ancient Greeks, essentially candidacy by lottery where Massachusetts might get to vote for, and be represented by, say folks chosen by random lot from among the good folks of Kansas. It might work better to have representation a bit ignorant of local needs (ignorance can be cured fairly quickly) than to have representation wide open to being manipulated by power players within any given local economy. If just the House of Representatives (the short term folks) were elected in such a manner it would go a long, long way to erasing regional issues, and even further in breaking the lobbyists stranglehold… bastards would never know who they needed to bribe!
I don't think we actually disagree much, nos, my not just wanting more government, but government that will be allowed to work. We desperately need infrastructure spending, for the sake of the roads, bridges, electrical grid and all the rest, and the good jobs and increased demand those jobs would engender - an upward spiral - jobs - demand - jobs - demand.
ReplyDeleteIn the blind drive for 'less government,' ["drown it in a bathtub" - Norquist is supposedly intelligent, but he does not comprehend 'thinking in systems', nor cause and effect],.they have taken away valuable services and controls, so that what government is left is too powerless to be effective and of service to us - the stagnant and discouraged middle class, and the vast number of discouraged poor. I blame Grover and the Tea Party, [sounds like a rock group], along with the usual greedy bastards for most of the recent obstructionism and resultant national gridlock. And we must not forget the incompetent, money grubbing media.
if the public were to become truly informed, we might stand a chance. There's more of course, but I'm probably getting too repetitive.
:) pip.
Over the years I've come to the conclusion the only real hope for democracy as a system of government resides in the ability of the population to maintain as distinct a separation between government and market as between government and religion/faith... needed functions, all three, and from a functional standpoint almost mutually exclusive to each other... they can't be mixed and work properly for what they're intended to accomplish.
DeleteThat sounds good, 'nos, except of course government does need to set the rules for the behaviors of the religions and markets to protect us citizens, and need also to enforce those rules. It would need to have the power which one party in particular is trying to eliminate in the interest of their commingled ideologies. Too many religious leaders, corporations, the NRA and others want the freedoms necessary for them to behave unfairly and predatorily. Unmitigated greed, blind near fundamentalism and mindless paranoia have partnered up to make pragmatic governance unworkable, They have Cruz, Paul, et al, so in thrall to their respective forests they can't see the very obvious trees.
ReplyDeletenote: I'm not saying that all Republicans cannot be trusted, just that so very many are playing by Tea Party rules to get into and stay in office. And, a half dozen Democrats are rather doing the same. And, the Tea Party writ large are too ideological to know when they're being cynically manipulated. We have become the laughing stock of all the nations who used to envy us.
In truth, our vaunted nation has never lived up to it's Constitution. 'All men' here have never been treated as equals. We white men have always abused our advantages, even when we supposedly, very belatedly, addressed the continued inequities. We should not try to deny that the dregs of genocide and slavery still persist on reservations and in inner cities, never Really, without denial and delusion, addressed by us white folks. A couple of Kennedys tried and got murdered for it.
Am i too harsh? ;) pip
That’s the whole problem Pip… it is a logical contradiction to expect government to protect anything based on or in an ethical value. It cannot be done, not in a free society. Only in absolute proactive tyranny can a government even attempt to protect a matter of morality. Government is of the same nature as Sauron’s ring… the most basic properties of the structure compel it to distort any and every intention or ambition towards the degradation of freedom and the enhancement of injustice.
DeleteDo the consequences of religious fanaticism and unbridled greed need to be restrained? Absolutely they do. But government cannot do the job. Only the consistent, moment by moment ethical judgment of every individual applied to any and every action contemplated by that individual can accomplish the task, and for this reason: the law can only act retroactively! Only after there has been a transgression can the law act. The transgression remains inscribed on the scroll of history, once there nothing can remove it. Only an individual’s ethical judgment can act in advance of some foul deed and prevent the deed from becoming history. The law can enact revenge on the transgressor on behalf of those wronged, on behalf of the society, but the law cannot prevent the transgression. That must, by the most basic logic of causality, remain the responsibility of the individual(s). Equally, since the active mechanism of government is law, and the law is enforced by fallible humans then any error in the enforcement of law becomes a new transgression written to history (ask the folks of Baltimore about that one, to cite the most recent of many sad examples).
The law, as a functional output of government where government represents a consensus of the citizens, can establish a code of acceptable behavior within the society, but… it is each and every citizen who must accept, internalize and enforce that code first and foremost upon themselves or accept that the price of negligence will ultimately be their freedom. For myself I will take freedom over protection every time. That’s what being an American is all about where I come from.
The problem, 'nos, is that people are rarely "logical".
ReplyDeleteThat people cannot be trusted to do what's right when the opposite serves their psychic needs for self-gratification/advancement/enrichment/delusions of every sort - the world is fucked...
...unless the bulk of global society can be viralized into an inspired change in behavior, and the remaining sociopathic dregs shamed into cooperation. Our 'fourth estate', if somehow initially convinced of the personal benefits to themselves by participating, 'could' spread the necessary 'cooperative virus' - or a common threat 'could' overcome tribalisms that now continually separate us into suspicious factions.
My thoughts go back to the universal inspirations that an Alexandra archetype could spread worldwide. Well funded, well scripted, well crafted to enter psyches to embed the necessary memes, and override those that inhibit cooperative behavior. All of our
reactive behaviors are initiated from within our contaminated psyches, after all. We must 'decontaminate' using the endorphin rushes of awe.
Your descriptions of the problems involved have been arguably accurate, i think, but
what would You suggest as tactics to overcome or circumvent those problems, 'nos?
One size must fit most all...
:) pip
Hmm... upon reading this - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-polman/reframing-the-game_b_7290890.html?utm_hp_ref=homepage - 'nos, maybe I've been too dismissal of corporate leadership as being so focused on lining their own pockets that they'll never be responsible citizens in any way. If they can be led toward a positive tipping point, maybe we're not fucked after all.
ReplyDeletew00t! pip
Semper Fi, soulmarine...
DeleteThat's what Occupy Wall Street was all about: to try to call attention to just how thoroughly the big corporations rule is, not just the United States but the world. And while it's possible for corporate executives to be good people, I find it highly unlikely; too many rears to kiss on the way up. I'm not sure even Superman, James Bond and Mahatma Gandhi working together can defeat what faces us now...
ReplyDeleteDid you read the article, Jo? I took it for what it's worth, and in seeing 'some' decent leaders, see the possibility that many more can be led out of their wilderness of delusional greed. I say "delusional", because if one were seeing with a clear vision would one allow oneself to do the harm they do? Most people need to see themselves as good and caring about the world and their fellow man.
ReplyDelete'Truth and conscience', as Ralph Linkletter almost said...
;) pip
I haven't had a chance to read that article yet, pip. But I will ...
DeleteFinally got to the article.
Delete1. What this CEO says is very good! But is Unilever following through in verifiable ways?
2. Even if Unilever does this, and works with a few other companies to begin this sustainable approach, there are still a lot of companies whose practices tend to destroy rather than sustain. There is also a lot of corporate "greenwashing" going on. The whole "natural foods" labeling system, for example, means basically nothing; one can label meat "natural" even when it has come from a factory farm, since there is no labeling standard fo the word "natural" (unlike the word "organic," which has to be approved by the USDA before it can be used on food labels).
I can only pray that more corporate executives begin to see that sustainability is not just a noble ideal but good for business.
If, [big 'if' Jo], it begins to become monetarily acceptable for corporate execs to look further ahead than the next quarter or two, [maybe even 10 or 20 years?], then maybe more will begin to consider the lives of the people of future generations, [perhaps even his own children and grandchildren?].
DeleteOf course, the actions of Unilever may only give the proponents of totally unfettered uncontrolled capitalism to say, "see, it works", as you can bet they will. That is the reputed 'reasoning' behind the refusal to fund infrastructure maintenance - that it be turned over to capital investment and the profit motive, [govt small enough to drown...].
Recently, in a commencement speech, Joe Biden said for us to question the decision-making, not the motivations of the decision makers - that we all sincerely want what is actually best for everyone. We just have different ways of viewing life. Based upon this - http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/Njg1WDUwOQ==/z/L2QAAOSwqu9VNOLW/$_12.JPG - which i believe, and from personal experience and observation, I think our VP is right.
So, I've, [just yesterday], newly committed to try to remember what he said. As more of us, hopefully, learn this, it might perforate the partition that has arisen between dems and repubs.
As I argue for pragmatic factual decision making, I shall consider the sincere feelings behind the arguments of the other side, and respect them.
And, I'll continue to hope, with some optimism, that all this will resolve much better than it now looks.
If we lose hope, then things surely will be hopeless.
:) pip