The real reason Dow is upset (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 01, @12:38PM (#4994035)

It wasn't some "cosmic storm" that made them that way, it was living next door to the Dow chemical plant. Reed Richards used to work there as a scientist. (But he was a good scientist who only tested on evil animals... like cats.)

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Re:The real reason Dow is upset (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 01, @02:09PM (#4994381)

cats are not evil! They are interdimensional travelers here to observe humans.

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Re:Have you seen The Thing? (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 05, @01:03PM (#5020313)

But what about The Thing's thing? Is it also made of rock? Does the fire guy have a fire schlong? How do they deal with a stiffie? Can they masturbate? Can the invisible girl handle them?

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Well (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 01, @12:43PM (#4994049)

They obviously don't have any balls (testicular fortitude).

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uh, no (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 01, @12:44PM (#4994054)

I think most of us know how to read.

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Is this the best whoring you could do? (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 01, @12:47PM (#4994076)

Here I am fresh out of -1 stupids for you.

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Re:Is this the best whoring you could do? (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 01, @12:49PM (#4994084)

That's why you shouldn't use them on yourself.

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Re:I wonder if the framers of the constitution... (Score:1) by Twirlip of the Mists (615030) <twirlipofthemists@yahoo.com> on Wednesday January 01, @01:04PM (#4994144) (Last Journal: Friday December 27, @02:02PM)

I'm sure they would have. Probably something about how a free society naturally has consequences. Something like that. Always remember, guys. In a free society, you are allowed to do pretty much whatever you like, and the rest of us take responsibility for picking up the pieces afterwards. In a totalitarian society, you are told what you can and can't do from the outset so nobody has to pick up the pieces afterwards. Whether you would prefer to live in a totalitarian society or a free society is up to you, but be careful never to confuse the two.

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Re:I wonder if the framers of the constitution... (Score:5, Interesting) by UpLateDrinkingCoffee (605179) on Wednesday January 01, @01:22PM (#4994198)

Im talking about the trend these days to value corporate freedom above individual freedom. I mean, when did a *corporation* get the right to free speech? The people that make up and run that corporation certainly have that right, but this trend of treating corporate entities as individuals is getting out of hand. Forcing a number of (presumably) individuals with something to say off the web with the stroke of a pen doesn't seem totalitarian to you? Due process isn't even an option due to the cost.

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Re:I wonder if the framers of the constitution... (Score:1, Informative) by Twirlip of the Mists (615030) <twirlipofthemists@yahoo.com> on Wednesday January 01, @01:30PM (#4994226) (Last Journal: Friday December 27, @02:02PM)

I mean, when did a *corporation* get the right to free speech? You're asking that question backwards. There's nothing in US law that grants a right to free speech to anybody. The law just assumes that that right exists for all persons, individual and corporate alike. A better way to ask the question would be, why should corporate persons not enjoy free speech? Forcing a number of (presumably) individuals with something to say off the web with the stroke of a pen doesn't seem totalitarian to you? Nope, for two reasons. First, they didn't have the right to say what they said in the first place; false representation and defamation are illegal, and are not protected by free speech. (Parody is, of course, but this work was not a parody. It was fraud.) Second, this activity wasn't a government action at all; the government was never involved. Rather, Dow complained to Verio and asked that they enforce their AUP, and Verio complied. The rules were laid down right from the beginning; Thing.net chose to ignore them, so they lost their service.

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Re:I wonder if the framers of the constitution... (Score:1) by UpLateDrinkingCoffee (605179) on Wednesday January 01, @02:02PM (#4994344)

The right to free speech in the U.S. is granted to "persons" by the constitution. It transcends the law. You are right that the law assumes corporations have this right, but only because somewhere along the line the supreme court decided corporate entities were "persons".. I'm submitting that corporate persons have the same rights as individuals because of supreme court precident and *not* the intent of the framers of the constitution. As far as this not being a government action, wasn't the DMCA applied? Verio complied under threat of the consequences of the law, which is given power by the government. I agree with you that false accusation and defamation are not free speech. If they broke the law, then they should be held accountable. I'm just trying to point out how easy it is for corporate entities to steamroller the rights of individuals (in this case, the right to due process and possibly the right to free speech).

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Re:I wonder if the framers of the constitution... (Score:1) by hansroy (575558) on Wednesday January 01, @05:02PM (#4995178) (http://users.wpi.edu/~gaea | Last Journal: Wednesday October 09, @12:38AM)

I think I read this on K5 -- corporations don't really have the right to free speech. In the trial that is frequently cited on this matter, the judge explicitly told the reporter to make sure he wrote it down this way, but somehow its been mutated over the years, lawyers being what they are. I don't know how it became legally accepted, but its entrenched now. I also don't know why it hasn't been overturned.

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Re:I wonder if the framers of the constitution... (Score:1) by Capsaicin (412918) on Thursday January 02, @12:21AM (#4996912)

The right to free speech in the U.S. is granted to "persons" by the constitution. Wrong. It prohibits the legislature(s) from legislating away a presumed right. the law assumes corporations have this right, but only because somewhere along the line the supreme court decided corporate entities were "persons" Correct. However, having decided they are persons, the question is, as the previous poster pointed out, why in particular corporate persons should be denied a right which pertains to other legal persons?

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Re:I wonder if the framers of the constitution... (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 02, @08:40AM (#4997975)

If corporations are "persons" and corporations kill people who should get the death penalty? My vote is for summary executions of the top tier at Union Carbide / Dow, but I'm willing to have it applied to middle management as well...

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Re:I wonder if the framers of the constitution... (Score:2) by Twirlip of the Mists (615030) <twirlipofthemists@yahoo.com> on Thursday January 02, @08:58AM (#4998063) (Last Journal: Friday December 27, @02:02PM)

The right to free speech in the U.S. is granted to "persons" by the constitution. The right to free speech isn't granted at all by the Constitution, to anybody or anything. Rather, restrictions are placed on Congress to prevent, among other things, the abridging of it. So the presumption is clear: that free speech is an inherent right of all persons, groups, entities, what-have-you. As far as this not being a government action, wasn't the DMCA applied? Read the law. Title 17 provides for both civil and criminal remedies. Also, title 17 was only one of three laws cited in the complaint. I'm just trying to point out how easy it is for corporate entities to steamroller the rights of individuals (in this case, the right to due process and possibly the right to free speech). 1. Due process does not apply. This is not a criminal matter. The right to due process is a protection extended explicitly to prevent the government from keeping people in prison without a trial and that sort of thing. It has no application whatsoever in the civil arena. 2. These culprits were not exercising their right to free speech. They were (among other things, but this is the meat of the complaint) using Dow's trademarks without authorization. That is expressly not protected by free speech, in any way.

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Re:I wonder if the framers of the constitution... (Score:2) by Waffle Iron (339739) on Wednesday January 01, @02:03PM (#4994351)

A better way to ask the question would be, why should corporate persons not enjoy free speech? Mabye it's because the term "corporate person" is an oxymoron.

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Re:I wonder if the framers of the constitution... (Score:5, Insightful) by http://yro.slashdot.org/~www.sorehands.com on Wednesday January 01, @02:03PM (#4994354) (http://www.barbieslapp.com/)

Nope, for two reasons. First, they didn't have the right to say what they said in the first place; false representation and defamation are illegal...(Parody is, of course, but this work was not a parody. It was fraud.) To be defamation, or more precisely, libel Dow would have to show false facts. What are the false facts that have been published? Second it is not false representation. Parody by nature requires one to create an image of what you are making parody of. To be fraud, they must be attempting to get something of value. Second, this activity wasn't a government action at all; the government was never involved. Rather, Dow complained to Verio and asked that they enforce their AUP, and Verio complied. The rules were laid down right from the beginning; Thing.net chose to ignore them, so they lost their service. Asking a court to restrict someone's right or penalize someone for their speech is an infringment of the first amendment. Using the threat os this should also be considered the same.

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Re:I wonder if the framers of the constitution... (Score:2) by LostCluster (625375) on Wednesday January 01, @11:35PM (#4996795)

To be fraud, they must be attempting to get something of value. Ones good name is something of value.

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Re:I wonder if the framers of the constitution... (Score:2) by Twirlip of the Mists (615030) <twirlipofthemists@yahoo.com> on Thursday January 02, @09:04AM (#4998099) (Last Journal: Friday December 27, @02:02PM)

What are the false facts that have been published? These guys issued a press release claiming to be released by Dow Chemical. The press release was also featured on the web page. It contained quotes attributed to an apparently fictitious person and also falsified quotes attributed to a past president of Dow Chemical. How's that for false facts? To be fraud, they must be attempting to get something of value. Or deprive the rightful owners of something of value, namely their reputation. Asking a court to restrict someone's right or penalize someone for their speech is an infringment of the first amendment. Of course it's not. The first amendment says that Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech. I, as a private citizen, can abridge your free speech all I want, if I can get a court to agree that it should be so abridged. In this case, since the culprits were obviously committing fraud and defamation, convincing a court to compel them to stop would be trivial. Fortunately it never had to go to court, though, because Verio accepted responsibility for putting a stop to the most trivial of the offenses-- trademark infringement-- and shut the whole thing down themselves.

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Re:I wonder if the framers of the constitution... (Score:1) by dipipanone (570849) on Wednesday January 01, @02:58PM (#4994554)

Parody is, of course, but this work was not a parody. It was fraud Bullshit. Do you really believe that anyone would have been taken in and believed this website was really Dow's corporate website? Go look up the word 'fraud' in a dictionary -- right after you're done learning about what constitutes a free society.

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Re:I wonder if the framers of the constitution... (Score:2) by Twirlip of the Mists (615030) <twirlipofthemists@yahoo.com> on Thursday January 02, @09:07AM (#4998111) (Last Journal: Friday December 27, @02:02PM)

Do you really believe that anyone would have been taken in and believed this website was really Dow's corporate website? Absolutely. We've seen plenty of evidence of it right here, among a population that is arguably brighter (or at least more skeptical) than average.

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Re:I wonder if the framers of the constitution... (Score:5, Insightful) by uncoveror (570620) on Wednesday January 01, @03:52PM (#4994818) (http://www.uncoveror.com/)

Whether this was parody or fraud should have been a matter for the courts to decide. Thanks to the provisions of the DMCA, they didn't have to get involved for censorship to occur. This is what is meant by the term, "Chilling Effect." As for defamation, printing negative information is not libel if it is true, no matter how negative. A biting satire of the company that continues to ignore their responsibility for Bhopal, and is even suing Bhopal survivors, that appears at first glance to be Dow's real website is a valid exercise in free speech in my opinion. I think that the Supreme Court would eventually agree if they heard this case, as it did in the Larry Flynt vs. Jerry Falwell case. Dow deserves to have the screws put to them. I support the Yes Men, and Greenpeace for doing just that. Dow could have avoided a lot of negative publicity by ignoring the yes men. Now, more people than ever before are learning that Dow is Union Carbide, and people are still dying every day because of their irresponsibility.

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Re:I wonder if the framers of the constitution... (Score:2) by LostCluster (625375) on Wednesday January 01, @10:54PM (#4996622)

As for defamation, printing negative information is not libel if it is true... Sorry. That exemption doesn't apply here. They're posting press releases that sure look like they're real Dow press releases, but are things Dow never said and likely would never want to say in a press release. Drop that line of reasoning, it gets you nowhere. These "press releases" are certainly not the truth. They translate to "Dow Chemical announced today that 1+1=2." Even though it's a true math fact, Dow never made any announcement about it, so the statement is false.

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Re:I wonder if the framers of the constitution... (Score:2) by Twirlip of the Mists (615030) <twirlipofthemists@yahoo.com> on Thursday January 02, @09:24AM (#4998208) (Last Journal: Friday December 27, @02:02PM)

Thanks to the provisions of the DMCA, they didn't have to get involved for censorship to occur. This is what is meant by the term, "Chilling Effect." The term "chilling effect" is bogus, and here's why. Verio has an AUP for their service that says, "The following practices are not allowed." Even without invoking the DMCA, Dow could have gone to Verio and said, "Such-and-such a web site, which is fed by your Internet connection, is violating your AUP. We think you should cut them off." Verio, looking at what's happening on that web site, would have had no reasonable choice but to agree, and to pull the plug. So the exact same result would have occurred without even so much as a mention of the DMCA. So the so-called "chilling effect" is, in this case, neither chilling nor an effect. In fact, the DMCA was just one of three separate and unrelated laws cited in Dow's complaint to Verio, not counting the AUP citation. So for that reason as well, to say that the DMCA has a "chilling effect" here is completely wrong. As for defamation, printing negative information is not libel if it is true, no matter how negative. The web site and associated press release said (paraphrasing), "The president of Dow Chemical said, 'Something something.'" The person cited is not now the president of Dow Chemical, but rather a past president, and he never said anything like what he was quoted as saying on the web site. That's pretty untrue, making the claim that it can't be libel look cheap at best. A biting satire of the company that (irrelevant stuff) is a valid exercise in free speech in my opinion. Fortunately your opinion does not hold sway in this instance. You can't make up lies about somebody-- even in the name of satire-- just because you don't like them. If you want to create a web site that's critical of Dow, knock yourself out. But intentionally trying to mislead members of the press and the public is going way too far. Dow deserves to have the screws put to them. Nobody deserves to be the victim of illegal misrepresentation and defamation. That's why it's illegal. Now, more people than ever before are learning that Dow is Union Carbide, and people are still dying every day because of their irresponsibility. No offense, but blah blah blah blah. Bhopal was a bad thing. But that doesn't give anybody the excuse to break the law in retaliation without suffering the consequences.

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Re:I wonder if the framers of the constitution... (Score:2) by uncoveror (570620) on Thursday January 02, @11:17AM (#4998837) (http://www.uncoveror.com/)

So do you work for Verio, or Dow?

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Re:I wonder if the framers of the constitution... (Score:1) by Rary (566291) on Thursday January 02, @01:31PM (#4999927)

IANAL and don't ever want to be one, so I really don't know how libel and defamation and all that work. But this situation seems kind of odd. You state that it's libel because they quote someone as saying something that they did not actually say, even though the words they are putting in his mouth are true. However, I go over to "The Onion" and take a look at the articles there, and right away I come across a story about Bill Clinton which quotes him saying a number of silly things that he clearly never said. I also remember a story I read there once about Dell closing down because they had achieved the success they wanted, so there was no point continuing, and it quoted the CEO talking about how happy he was to have succeeded so he can now close down the company. Clearly, these stories are parody. As far as I know, The Onion has never been sued for them. So, why is it okay to write parodies in which people are quoted as saying things that are not true (like Dell closing), but it's not okay to write parodies in which people are quoted as saying things that are true?

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Re:I wonder if the framers of the constitution... (Score:2) by Twirlip of the Mists (615030) <twirlipofthemists@yahoo.com> on Thursday January 02, @01:58PM (#5000159) (Last Journal: Friday December 27, @02:02PM)

You state that it's libel because they quote someone as saying something that they did not actually say, even though the words they are putting in his mouth are true. However, I go over to "The Onion" and take a look at the articles there, and right away I come across a story about Bill Clinton which quotes him saying a number of silly things that he clearly never said. You've got to consider the intent. Letterman makes up stuff for his monologue every night, but he doesn't intent to inflict harm with it. These guys obviously intended to defame the character of Dow Chemical (such as it is) and to inflict harm on them. You have to take that into consideration. Basically, what these guys did was not parody. What they did was intended to cause harm, so it was defamation.

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Re:I wonder if the framers of the constitution... (Score:1) by plague3106 (71849) <ajj3085@@@comcast...net> on Wednesday January 01, @04:14PM (#4994891)

The law just assumes that that right exists for all persons, individual and corporate alike. A coroperation is not a person. They do not have rights.

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Re:I wonder if the framers of the constitution... (Score:2) by fatboy (6851) on Wednesday January 01, @07:01PM (#4995811)

The law just assumes that that right exists for all persons, individual and corporate alike. A coroperation is not a person. They do not have rights. A corporation is a group of people that do have individual rights. They can choose to exercise those rights as a group.

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Re:I wonder if the framers of the constitution... (Score:2) by bacchusrx (317059) on Wednesday January 01, @07:39PM (#4995943) (http://slashdot.org/)

A corporation is a group of people that do have individual rights. They can choose to exercise those rights as a group. That's not entirely true. A corporation is, under law, a "natural person" that has rights distinct from those of the persons who comprise it. Nothing in law requires that a corporation exist in order for groups of individuals to "exercise their rights together." bacchusrx.

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Groups are merely collections of people..... (Score:1) by Subspace (170864) on Wednesday January 01, @08:43PM (#4996215) (http://slashdot.org/)

A corporation is a group of people that do have individual rights. They can choose to exercise those rights as a group. True, but that doesn't imply that a group itself should have similar rights independent of the members. Show me in the Constitution - or in any amendment - where such an idea can be derived. In looking just at the amendments, I see many references to rights granted to person(s)/people: "...right of the people peaceably to assemble..." "The right of the people to be secure in their persons..." "No person shall be held to answer..." "...nor shall any person be subject..." "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people." "All persons born or naturalized...are citizens of the United States.... nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property...nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." Nothing much said in there nor implied about collections or groups of people. (Save the Senate and House.) Now I grant that we (the People) can grant collections... groups... businesses... corporations... certain rights and responsibilities - as well we should. But nothing in Constitutional Law states that the rights of a collection... group... business... etc.... trumps the rights of a person. The day that the Constitution acknowledges a corporation over an individual, I'll leave this land for a free country.

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Re:I wonder if the framers of the constitution... (Score:1) by plague3106 (71849) <ajj3085@@@comcast...net> on Wednesday January 01, @09:33PM (#4996384)

A corporation is a group of people that do have individual rights. They can choose to exercise those rights as a group. Doesn't really matter. You act like all 1000 employees are acting as a group, which is not the case. For a corporation, its a small group of the employees making decisions, which usually affect thier pocketbook as they are the higher ups. In effect, the higher ups have 2 votes in your system. Thats not how our system is supposed to work.

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Re:I wonder if the framers of the constitution... (Score:1) by tanner_andrews (234838) on Thursday January 02, @11:36AM (#4998923) (http://www.payer.org/)

A corporation is, under law, a "natural person" that has rights distinct from those of the persons who comprise it. In Florida, at least, a corporation is a body corporate, distinct from a natural person. A natural person is what we think of as a natural person, as opposed to an artificial construct. Note, by the way, that Pam Anderson would be considered a natural person, various modifications notwithstanding. In court documents, a corporate person will often be identified as ``a Florida corporation'' while a natural person is often identified as ``a Florida resident''. See filings at http://www.payer.org/wvha/suit/ for examples.

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Re:Groups are merely collections of people..... (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 02, @01:34PM (#4999950)

>> The day that the Constitution acknowledges a corporation over an individual, I'll leave this land for a free country. How about Disney's corporate ownership of a dead individual's creation (e.g. Walt's Mickey Mouse)?

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Re:Groups are merely collections of people..... (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 03, @01:05AM (#5004498)

The day that the Constitution acknowledges a corporation over an individual, I'll leave this land for a free country. Let me know when you find one.

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Re:I wonder if the framers of the constitution... (Score:2) by Twirlip of the Mists (615030) <twirlipofthemists@yahoo.com> on Thursday January 02, @09:47AM (#4998339) (Last Journal: Friday December 27, @02:02PM)

A coroperation is not a person. They do not have rights. A corporation's legal status is granted explicitly by the laws governing incorporation in your jurisdiction. A corporation can enter into contracts, for example, or sue or be sued. In other words, a corporation is empowered to carry out all the functions necessary for operating a business. Because a corporation is subject to the legal responsibilities of a person-- a corporation can be brought before a criminal court, or compelled (in the person of its representatives) to testify before a court or Congress; a corporation has to pay taxes; a corporation can be sued in civil court and assessed punitive damage-- it would be unreasonable not to grant it the legal protections enjoyed by a person. In other words, a corporation is a person, and a corporation does have rights.

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Re:I wonder if the framers of the constitution... (Score:1) by plague3106 (71849) <ajj3085@@@comcast...net> on Thursday January 02, @11:12AM (#4998811)

Because a corporation is subject to the legal responsibilities of a person-- a corporation can be brought before a criminal court, or compelled (in the person of its representatives) to testify before a court or Congress; a corporation has to pay taxes; a corporation can be sued in civil court and assessed punitive damage-- it would be unreasonable not to grant it the legal protections enjoyed by a person. You miss the point of incorporating. Its to sheild the owner of the buisness from financial harm. That means that the corporation takes financial responsibitity for its actions; ie, getting sued for destroying the enviroment and causing cancer in people that live in that enviroment. The CEO may be brought for criminal charges, because incorporating does not protect him from that (at least, it shouldn't). In other words, a corporation is a person, and a corporation does have rights. The coropration has a real, beating heart? Its an animal (or plant) of some kind? Note that a cat doesn't have rights either. Only human beings do. A virus can multiple and consume resources to keep it going, but it is not alive. Your arguement is obsurd. So what if a corporation can do all those things? It doesn't mean its a person (ie, human being) and doesn't have rights. To give it rights, you simply give top execs more power then everyone else.

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Re:I wonder if the framers of the constitution... (Score:2) by Twirlip of the Mists (615030) <twirlipofthemists@yahoo.com> on Thursday January 02, @12:41PM (#4999524) (Last Journal: Friday December 27, @02:02PM)

You miss the point of incorporating. Its to sheild the owner of the buisness from financial harm. That's not the only point. Your arguement is obsurd. I'm not making an argument. I'm telling you what the facts are. As far as the law is concerned, a corporation is a person, and it does have rights.

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Re:I wonder if the framers of the constitution... (Score:1) by plague3106 (71849) <ajj3085@@@comcast...net> on Thursday January 02, @03:24PM (#5000922)

That's not the only point. Actually, it is. I'm not making an argument. I'm telling you what the facts are. As far as the law is concerned, a corporation is a person, and it does have rights. The law is wrong. It certainly sounded like an arguement to me, with your giving reasons and all without meantioning that its the law. Otherwise wouldn't you have just said 'hey this is the law' without going into the reasoning?

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Re:I wonder if the framers of the constitution... (Score:2) by Twirlip of the Mists (615030) <twirlipofthemists@yahoo.com> on Thursday January 02, @03:44PM (#5001089) (Last Journal: Friday December 27, @02:02PM)

Actually, it is. So let me get this straight. You don't know enough about corporate law to recognize it when you hear it, and yet you understand all the pros and cons of incorporation, and have a good enough grasp on the whole issue to say, "The law is wrong?" Nothing personal, friend, but I suspect that you might be biting off a bit more than you can chew on this one.

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Re:I wonder if the framers of the constitution... (Score:1) by plague3106 (71849) <ajj3085@@@comcast...net> on Thursday January 02, @04:04PM (#5001300)

Yes, i know what the law says. yes, i know the same tired arguement you made previously is the same one used by corporations to be considered 'people.' I know the basics on incorporating. That said, it doesn't really matter how much i know about incorporating to decide that a law stating corporations have rights is an invalid law. For that all you need is an understanding of rights. Human beings have rights. Thats it. A group of ten people do not have more rights then an individual, nor do other things have rights.

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Re:I wonder if the framers of the constitution... (Score:2) by Twirlip of the Mists (615030) <twirlipofthemists@yahoo.com> on Thursday January 02, @04:25PM (#5001452) (Last Journal: Friday December 27, @02:02PM)

That said, it doesn't really matter how much i know about incorporating to decide that a law stating corporations have rights is an invalid law. Actually, I disagree. I would say that an in-depth understanding of corporate law is vital to making an informed judgment about whether the law is appropriate or not. Human beings have rights. Thats it. Oh, boy. Refer to this post [slashdot.org] to read my response to this.

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Re:I wonder if the framers of the constitution... (Score:1) by shepd (155729) on Wednesday January 01, @01:34PM (#4994238) (http://www.fitaymu.com/ | Last Journal: Tuesday December 10, @12:42AM)

>In a free society, you are allowed to do pretty much whatever you like, and the rest of us take responsibility for picking up the pieces afterwards. Isn't that the definition of an Anarchist society? In all free societies I know of, I always thought one's freedom extended up until you step on my property, or got within an arms length of my person.

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Re:I wonder if the framers of the constitution... (Score:1) by Kierthos (225954) on Wednesday January 01, @03:08PM (#4994598) (http://slashdot.org/)

*nod* We're all supposed to take responsibility for our actions. Anarchy, really, boils down to who can bully who and get away with it. In other words, it's 6th grade gym class for the rest of your life. Kierthos

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Re:I wonder if the framers of the constitution... (Score:1) by fucksl4shd0t (630000) on Thursday January 02, @07:15AM (#4997726)

*nod* We're all supposed to take responsibility for our actions. Anarchy, really, boils down to who can bully who and get away with it. In other words, it's 6th grade gym class for the rest of your life. This isn't true. *IF* we all take responsibility for our actions, then Anarchy is the most suitable form of government. Consider this: In an anarchist society, we would be free to kick the geek's ass. However, we would have the responsibility not to do so. As a check to help us NOT to kick his ass his family would have the freedom to retaliate. It is true that there are always people in the minority who would abuse their freedom by behaving irresponsibly. However, in an anarchist society the politicians and the criminals would be one and the same. I know, I know, how can there be criminals? Simple, some group of people would start a business to enforce laws. Simple enough, right? I might be one of them. :) Basically, some people decide that in this certain space (a neighborhood for example) there are certain behaviors which are unacceptable. In order to prevent the kinds of blood feuds that could occur if families and friends dealt directly with retaliation they would instead create a "police force" that would handle it for them. Similar to the Mafia in practice, but different in organization. It would actually be run as a service-oriented business that needs to satisfy its customers to stay in business. I realize the situation is very complex, and any society needs a basic set of rules to prevent the sort of stuff that anti-anarchists promise us will happen in a free society. That's why we have "manners". :) Also, I don't think a true anarchy would ever happen because people would still group together and establish rules and throw out those who break these rules. The fact that humans invented government in the first place is a result of this basic tendency. Therefore, in an anarchist society, there would still be rules. Anarchy only means that there should be no government to control us. It doesn't mean there would be no rules. I'll bet that if our country became a true anarchy then in Texas you would have all kinds of freedom as long as you were a Christian. In WA state there would be a people-elected fascist regime. In other places there would be different stuff. Many people have a misperception of anarchy and are afraid of it. We should try to understand something before we fear it, but if we fear something we should try to understand it better to eliminate our fear. Understanding is vital, and fear without understanding is unacceptable behavior in my world. :)

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Re:I wonder if the framers of the constitution... (Score:2) by Twirlip of the Mists (615030) <twirlipofthemists@yahoo.com> on Thursday January 02, @08:48AM (#4998016) (Last Journal: Friday December 27, @02:02PM)

Isn't that the definition of an Anarchist society? No. Those two magic words, "pretty much," make all the difference. In an anarchy, everybody can do whatever he wants. In a free society like ours, everybody can do pretty much whatever he wants, subject to the limits imposed by the law. In all free societies I know of, I always thought one's freedom extended up until you step on my property, or got within an arms length of my person. A common oversimplification. In fact, nothing like that is true.

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Re:I wonder if the framers of the constitution... (Score:1) by plague3106 (71849) <ajj3085@@@comcast...net> on Wednesday January 01, @04:12PM (#4994886)

In a free society, you are allowed to do pretty much whatever you like, and the rest of us take responsibility for picking up the pieces afterwards. I don't think so. In a free society, you must take responsibility for your own actions. Also, being in a free society does not mean i can do pretty much whatever i like; it means i can do what i like as long as i don't infringe upon another's rights.

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Re:I wonder if the framers of the constitution... (Score:2) by Twirlip of the Mists (615030) <twirlipofthemists@yahoo.com> on Thursday January 02, @09:37AM (#4998285) (Last Journal: Friday December 27, @02:02PM)

In a free society, you must take responsibility for your own actions. No. The thing that differentiates a free society from a police state is that in a police state the central authority (or authorities) make every effort possible to prevent bad things from happening. (Their definition of "bad" may differ from yours.) In a free society, on the other hand, we accept that bad things are going to happen sometimes right at the outset, and agree that it's better to suffer the consequences of them than to live under stricter control. Also, being in a free society does not mean i can do pretty much whatever i like; it means i can do what i like as long as i don't infringe upon another's rights. That's a common misconception. In a free society, you're allowed to do whatever you like as long as you don't violate the law. You can violate another person's "rights"* all you want as long as you don't break any laws. * There's really no such thing as a "right." In political discourse, "right" usually means one of three things. It can mean a freedom that is universally agreed to be inherent or divinely endowed. In the USA, it is universally agreed that people have inherent rights to life, liberty, and property; these ideas are laid down in our defining documents, and we accept them as axioms. But they're just a consensual hallucination. "Right" can also mean any freedom that is expressly granted or expressly protected by law. The Constitution says that Congress is not allowed to make a law abridging free speech; most people interpret that as meaning that everybody in the USA has a "right" to free speech, even though that's not even remotely true. Finally, and this meaning is most important, a lot of people use the word "right" to mean anything that they think should be universally agreed to be inherent, or expressly protected by law. When you hear somebody say (for example), "I have a right to determine how I treat my own body!" what he really means is, "I think everybody should agree that I can determine how I treat my own body, or barring that, I think that my freedom to decide how I treat my own body should be protected by law." This can get confusing because the other two definitions of "right" are based either on universal assent, or the force of law. Those kinds of rights are basically fixed in stone by the customs or laws of the society in which one lives. So when somebody says, "I have a right!" it's easy to be fooled into thinking that he's speaking literally, that whatever he's referring to is either inherent or protected by law. That puts people in an awkward position when they want to argue the point. But if you keep in mind that "I have a right!" can also mean "I want this thing to be accepted or protected by law," it makes the argument a lot more clear.

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Re:I wonder if the framers of the constitution... (Score:1) by plague3106 (71849) <ajj3085@@@comcast...net> on Thursday January 02, @03:52PM (#5001188)

That's a common misconception. In a free society, you're allowed to do whatever you like as long as you don't violate the law. You can violate another person's "rights"* all you want as long as you don't break any laws. That describes every society. Therefore, every society is a free society, including the former USSR, China, and Iran. Because there too you're allowed to do what you want without violating the law. As far as your footnote on rights go, you seem to be confused. Read the philosophy of Jefferson, Locke and Keyes, since this is the philosophy that our nation is founded on. Its pretty clear what a right is. When some says "i have the right to do whatever i want to my body", it means exactly that. That person is free to do anything to his or her body, and any law to the contrary is invalid. Laws against suicide are also wrong; if you truely have the right to live, you must be able to decide you do not want to live any longer. Its pretty clear what people mean when they say they have a right, and its pretty clear when they are misusing the term.

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Re:I wonder if the framers of the constitution... (Score:2) by Twirlip of the Mists (615030) <twirlipofthemists@yahoo.com> on Thursday January 02, @04:22PM (#5001435) (Last Journal: Friday December 27, @02:02PM)

That describes every society. Therefore, every society is a free society, including the former USSR, China, and Iran. Because there too you're allowed to do what you want without violating the law. You've never visited those places, huh? In some countries you can be arrested and imprisoned for absolutely no reason at all. You can be arrested and imprisoned because somebody thinks you should be. You can be arrested and imprisoned for personally offending a bureaucrat. What you are free to do has absolutely nothing to do with the law. What I said most certainly does not describe every society. In fact, you should consider yourself outstandingly lucky to live-- as a presume that you do-- in a country where everybody generally accepts the authority of the law, but also respects the strict limits placed on the law by the system of government. Read the philosophy of Jefferson, Locke and Keyes, since this is the philosophy that our nation is founded on. Its pretty clear what a right is. Philosophy is nothing but opinions, statements describing how one person thinks things oughta be. In the USA, certain fundamental assumptions are universally accepted. We call these "rights." Don't be confused, though, into thinking that what we call "rights" are in any way related to the natural world. They're purely a human invention, and an arbitrary one at that. When some says "i have the right to do whatever i want to my body", it means exactly that. That person is free to do anything to his or her body, and any law to the contrary is invalid. Ah, a libertarian. Well, friend, I hate to be the one to tell you that most of the human race does not agree with the statement in question. Since it's not universally accepted, it can't be a "right" of the first type. And the statement is not enacted as a law in any jurisdiction, so it also isn't a "right" of the second type. So it must be a "right" of the third type. In other words, when you say, "I have a right to this thing," what you really mean is, "I wish everybody would agree that I have a right to this thing, or at least that Congress would pass a law protecting this thing." Your statement of opinion therefore has no impact whatsoever, unfortunately, on whether a law abridging your "right" is a valid or just one.

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Re:I wonder if the framers of the constitution... (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 03, @01:54AM (#5004604)

Philosophy is nothing but opinions, statements describing how one person thinks things oughta be. In the USA, certain fundamental assumptions are universally accepted. We call these "rights." Don't be confused, though, into thinking that what we call "rights" are in any way related to the natural world. They're purely a human invention, and an arbitrary one at that. Well on that basis you would have happily returned escaped slaves who reached the North back to the South because that was law. You would also have no problem with most of what was done in Nazi Germany prior to 1938 because most of that was also done in a legal and proper manner. Hitler came to power through a legitimate democratic process. He legally stole property from certain targeted groups and eventually 'relocated' them. universally accepted most of the human race does not agree Jefferson called that the tyranny of the majority. The idea of a right is that it is something outside the scope of that which the government or a law can interfere with. It makes me laugh when I hear 'Americans' say that non-citizens in this country shouldn't or don't have rights. The fact is when they state this they accept the notion that their rights are privileges granted by government. They are most emphatically not. The problem with people who think like you appear to is that they happily follow the Pied Piper down any path as long as they are told that it is 'lawful' and that they are 'free'. In essence every decision becomes one based on general consensus, the whim of the legislature, or 9 largely confused judges. Without a moral compass, based on a sound philosophy (that which you so easily dismiss), you are basically a ship tossed at sea. Perhaps you need someone to lead you and tell you what is proper and improper, but many of us don't. We're actually smart enough to figure it out rationally. I guess sheeple like to be led.

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Re:I wonder if the framers of the constitution... (Score:2) by Twirlip of the Mists (615030) <twirlipofthemists@yahoo.com> on Friday January 03, @09:42AM (#5005845) (Last Journal: Friday December 27, @02:02PM)

Well on that basis... Huh? You didn't just jump to that conclusion, dude. You called a cab, drove to the airport, stood in line for an hour, bought a ticket, and flew halfway around the world to that conclusion. The idea of a right is that it is something outside the scope of that which the government or a law can interfere with. The idea of a right is that it is something everybody agrees is outside the scope of what the government can interfere with. Let me make this more clear. Let's say I were to make the statement that I believe I have a right to a free lunch one day per week. I'm being deliberately silly to make my point: I have a right to one free lunch per week. The only reasonable response to that assertion is, "No, you don't." Just because I say I have a right doesn't mean that I do have that right. If everybody disagrees with me, then I have neither the right to a free lunch, nor the free lunch itself. The right to bear arms is another great example. There are two reasons that we Americans have that right. One, because it's written down in our founding document. And two, because we all agree that we have it. It's not an inherent right; it's arbitrary. Free speech is exactly the same. It's not a natural right. A person can be deprived of the right to speak freely with great ease. But we Americans all agree that a person should have the right to speak freely, and we act accordingly, so for all practical purposes we do have that right. It makes me laugh when I hear 'Americans' say that non-citizens in this country shouldn't or don't have rights. The fact is when they state this they accept the notion that their rights are privileges granted by government. They are most emphatically not. Where do they come from, then? The rights you're referring to, where do they come from? Are they inherent? As I said, a person can be deprived of his rights very easily, so it's fair to say that they're not inherent. Are they granted by God? Well, some people think so, but not everyone agrees on that point, and even if everyone did it would be impossible to prove it. So it all boils down to the same thing: people only enjoy rights because other people agree that they should.

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Re:I wonder if the framers of the constitution... (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 03, @01:14PM (#5007590)

Huh? You didn't just jump to that conclusion, dude. You called a cab, drove to the airport, stood in line for an hour, bought a ticket, and flew halfway around the world to that conclusion. My conclusion flowed quite logically from what you wrote. Perhaps you don't see the logical consequences of the ideas you are esposing. I do. Let me make this more clear. Let's say I were to make the statement that I believe I have a right to a free lunch one day per week. I'm being deliberately silly to make my point: I have a right to one free lunch per week. That is not a right. That is a wish. In America it is called an entitlement. Like most Americans you are confused as to what a right is. Try this link: article on rights [worldnetdaily.com] One, because it's written down in our founding document. Many of the founders were reluctant to enumerate any specific rights out of concern that our government, in some future age, would try to check our rights by denying us those which were not enumerated but clearly ours. Here is a link on that subject. what some of our founders thought about this notion [worldnetdaily.com] And two, because we all agree that we have it Thanks, but no thanks. I don't let the mob do my thinking for me. I can assure you that I (and you) require certain rights whether you or the mob choose to recognize them or not. The fact that one can be imprisoned or killed, in some countries, for exercising those rights in no way means I (and you) don't require them. Why do we require them and how have I identified them? Because they are provably neccessary for our ability to survive and thrive as human beings. Their infringment by governments always leads to loss of life. Our founding documents were the first attempts, even made by man, to found a government based on these principles. Unfortunately, for many reasons, our founders were not entirely successful in binding the government to its, arguably proper, very limited role. It is evident that you don't understand what a right is. I also don't think you understand much about the nature of governments. Read some Lysander Spooner Lysander Spooner [lysanderspooner.org] Also interesting is this little booklet on amazon Hologram of Liberty [amazon.com] And of course all of the founding fathers writings, the philosophers who influenced them, as well as the prior history of England and English common law make for interesting and enlightening reading. And don't forget the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. But here I am in another pointless usenet discussion. Sort of like reading R.D. Laings' book Knots. Good luck to you.

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Re:I wonder if the framers of the constitution... (Score:2) by Twirlip of the Mists (615030) <twirlipofthemists@yahoo.com> on Friday January 03, @01:30PM (#5007731) (Last Journal: Friday December 27, @02:02PM)

I can assure you that I (and you) require certain rights whether you or the mob choose to recognize them or not. The fact that one can be imprisoned or killed, in some countries, for exercising those rights in no way means I (and you) don't require them. In other words, you want everybody to accept that you have these rights. No problem. That's a "type 3" usage of the word "right." Just like I've been saying.

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Re:I wonder if the framers of the constitution... (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 04, @02:12AM (#5013096)

In other words I don't give a flying fuck whether 'everybody' accepts it or not.

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Re:I wonder if the framers of the constitution... (Score:2) by Twirlip of the Mists (615030) <twirlipofthemists@yahoo.com> on Saturday January 04, @11:16AM (#5014153) (Last Journal: Friday December 27, @02:02PM)

In other words I don't give a flying fuck whether 'everybody' accepts it or not. That's fine, too. If nobody respects your alleged right to a free lunch, or whatever, then you can yell and scream about it all day but you're still not going to get your free lunch. People in this category include your garden variety libertarians, who appear (from their party platform) to believe they have a right to a whole bunch of stuff that they simply aren't going to get.

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Look up the history of. . . ` (Score:5, Interesting) by kfg (145172) on Wednesday January 01, @02:08PM (#4994374)

the Virgina Colony. The Hudson Bay Trading Company. The East Indian Trading Company. Etc. The framers of the Constitution knew damn well what corporations "would become." They had *already* become them. Provisions were made in the Constitution and legislative law to deal with this issue. Great essays were written on the subject by learned minds such as Thomas Jefferson. 50 years later such matters were still uppermost in the minds of America's great social philosopher's, such as Thoreau. Our forefather's weren't idiots, weren't ignorant and weren't "cavemen." Their world was, in many respects, "more like our own than our own." Stock markets, insurance companies, leveraged buyouts and hostile takeovers, all done on a global scale, were already a century or more of old news before the first shot of the revolution was fired on the green at Lexington. For God's sake man, Jefferson and Adams were *lawyers* and had actually participated in such actions. They learned their loathing of them first hand. So what went wrong? Well, let me put it to you this way. Do *you* still do business with these large corporations, giving them the money and power to buy law? Traded a little freedom for luxury items and security maybe? I forget who it was, but an ancient historian, commenting on the aculturation of the Britons under Roman rule, wrote something along these lines: "And so, the gullible natives, eventually came to call their slavery "culture."" Ring any bells close to home? That's the problem with republicanism, don't you see. The problems start at the top, more often than not, but *responsibiltiy* always, always, alway, falls to the bottom. People don't want responsibility. They want a Big Mac while bopping to the latest Brittney Spears "tune." KFG

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Re:Look up the history of. . . ` (Score:5, Interesting) by dazed-n-confused (140724) on Wednesday January 01, @03:03PM (#4994574)

I forget who it was, but an ancient historian, commenting on the aculturation of the Britons under Roman rule, wrote something along these lines: "And so, the gullible natives, eventually came to call their slavery "culture."" Tacitus, Agricola [aol.com] (hagiography of his father-in-law, a Roman governor of Britain), s.21. "To accustom to rest and repose through the charms of luxury a population scattered and barbarous and therefore inclined to war, Agricola gave private encouragement and public aid to the building of temples, courts of justice and dwelling-houses, praising the energetic, and reproving the indolent. Thus an honourable rivalry took the place of compulsion. He likewise provided a liberal education for the sons of the chiefs, and showed such a preference for the natural powers of the Britons over the industry of the Gauls that they who lately disdained the tongue of Rome now coveted its eloquence. Hence, too, a liking sprang up for our style of dress, and the “toga” became fashionable. Step by step they were led to things which dispose to vice, the lounge, the bath, the elegant banquet. All this in their ignorance they called civilisation, when it was but a part of their servitude."

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Thank you, that's the very passage. . . (Score:1) by kfg (145172) on Wednesday January 01, @03:15PM (#4994644)

I was indeed thinking of. Sounds rather distressingly like the state of the modern "wage earner," don'nit? KFG

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Re:Look up the history of. . . ` (Score:2) by dacarr (562277) <ke6isf@spamcop.net> on Wednesday January 01, @03:38PM (#4994753) (http://www.northarc.com/~ke6isf | Last Journal: Monday December 16, @12:06AM)

They want a Big Mac while bopping to the latest Brittney Spears "tune." Make sure you put a TM after that word "tune", lest you get in trouble by the RIAA.

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I was going to, but. . . (Score:3, Funny) by kfg (145172) on Wednesday January 01, @03:58PM (#4994840)

I was afraid the symbol might be trademarked and I'd get sued for using it in an unapproved fashion. KFG

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Re:Look up the history of. . . ` (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 01, @04:23PM (#4994929)

"People don't want responsibility. They want a Big Mac while bopping to the latest Brittney Spears "tune." Who are you to tell them different? As an U.S. citizen you are free to like any type of food, music, or OS that you want regardless of taste.

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Re:Look up the history of. . . ` (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 01, @05:15PM (#4995243)

Yes, you are absolutely free to like whatever you want. BUT just as you are completely free to buy these products, you are also completely responsible for the results. A person who eats meat is on the same moral level as the butcher.

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Re:Look up the history of. . . ` (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 01, @09:32PM (#4996380)

"A person who eats meat is on the same moral level as the butcher." What about the poor helpless plants? They can't even get up and walk. At night I can still hear the screams... Oh my God what have I done?

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Actually (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 02, @06:13AM (#4997615)

You are missing the point, ignorant fool. We are not telling you what to eat/listen to. We are trying to provide a wake up call for people (not unlike yourself) to think about who/what they are supporting when they buy a McDonalds hamburger, or a music album. For some reason (personal, i suspect) you think we want to insult someone for liking McDonalds and Brittany spears. LOL! I smell a liberal.

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good points, but not entirely true (Score:3, Insightful) by Stu Charlton (1311) on Wednesday January 01, @05:30PM (#4995344) (http://stucharlton.com/)

" leveraged buyouts and hostile takeovers , all done on a global scale, were already a century or more of old news before the first shot of the revolution was fired on the green at Lexington." This isn't entirely true. Large-scale corporations (the size of Hudson Bay or East Indian, which were exceptions) didn't really emerge until the late 1800's. Another note is the fundamental disconnect in power between management and shareholder. Certainly businesses started with owners that "hired hands" to run the place. But eventually (WW2 and beyond) management rose as a distinct discipline and practice. Management held a tremendous amount of what could be almost called "illegitimate" power.. that is, until the backlash of hostile takeovers of the 1970's and 80's. Hostile takeovers before this time were quite rare... and it's really what started the whole "maximize shareholder value" fad we hear about today -- if you don't keep your stock price up, you'll get raided.

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Re:Look up the history of. . . ` (Score:2) by fermion (181285) <mailto:lowt@big[%20]t.com%20['foo'%20in%20gap]> on Wednesday January 01, @06:10PM (#4995560) (Last Journal: Friday December 20, @12:24AM)

In general you are correct. All of us have the responsibility, and many have the opportunity, to make decisions that will help create the world we say we want. This is especially true in the somewhat capitalistic society in which many of us live. There ate two issues that you miss. First, income is generally distributed unevenly. The few who have the largest share of the income, and who could make the most difference, have a vested interest in continuing the policies that made them rich and minimizing policies that might make others rich at their expense. The very many at the bottom generally have no real choice. The can either eat at Burger King or McDonalds. For instance, many lower income neighborhoods do not have a big grocery store, but the do have several fast food places, within walking distance. As such, it is cheaper to go a fast food place than to pay the relatively high prices at the corner store. Second, the consequences of certain decisions are often purposely obfuscated to the consumer. For instance, parents feed McDonalds to their kids because the commercials equate taking your kids to McDonalds to love for your kid. Parents buy huge SUVs because they have been made so afraid of the outside world that destroying the environment seems to be the only way to save their kid from imminent death. We laugh at the folly of organic food while forgetting that so much or food is imported, and we really don't know what pesticides were used in foreign grown foods. There are many other reasons why the bulk of the responsibility should be placed on the powerful elite. Yes, it is true that we as customers should try very hard to make decisions that won't harm us. However, we as citizens also need to put pressure on out representatives not push the FUD that forces otherwise rational people to choose irrational things.

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Re:I wonder if the framers of the constitution... (Score:3, Informative) by kurt_cagle (410798) on Wednesday January 01, @02:16PM (#4994409) (http://www.kurtcagle.net/)

In the mid-1880s, at the (well-renumerated) insistence of the Railroad companies, corporations were given all of the rights that hitherto had been assigned only to individuals via the Bill of Rights. Until that time, the rights and abilities of corporations were highly restricted, in great part because Jefferson, Madison and Franklin were all quite aware of what would happen if corporations did gain these rights. In many ways the original Revolutionary war was a corporate war - much of the exploration of the American colonies was carried out by corporations that were looking for a cheaper source of raw materials and a captive market for their goods. When the American revolutionaries began to fight back, it was these same corporations that paid for the British troops, ships, and armaments, because they saw the actions as being harmful to their corporate interests.

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Re:I wonder if the framers of the constitution... (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 01, @03:13PM (#4994630)

Hamilton lost the duel, but certainly won the *war* for the shape the new nation would eventually take. While Jefferson was accused of dalliance with his female slaves, Hamilton gratified his own urges by taking hand-colored woodcut prints of the various 17 Lords of the Jan Compagnie (Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie) to the outhouse with him. This seems to have started a tradition which endures to the present administration, and as such traditions do modify with the passage of time, I fully expect to see all denominations of U.S. currency bear Hamilton's portrait before the next national election. This is the primary reason your mother cautioned you about putting money in your mouth. All loyal party members are welcomed to join with me in my next worshipful pilgrimage this coming April, when I lay the ritually completed 1040 at the feet of the Heroic Seven Foot Statue of Hamilton ensconced in the very rotunda of our Capitol, and warmly reflect on the number of years for which Microsoft paid no Federal Income Taxes.

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framers tried to do it in the failed 11th Amenment (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 03, @04:33AM (#5004947)

The complete story of how the corporations assumed legal status of human beings, with the 'right to lie' et al is given in http://www.thomhartmann.com http://www.reclaimdemocracy.org These are good reads. It tells of Nike's current court case over their lying PR blitz about cleaning up their sweat shops, and they are not trying to prove they are not lying, but are in fact saying they have a right to lie just like humans.

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Re:They keep going on about (Score:2, Insightful) by jwilcox154 (469038) on Wednesday January 01, @01:42PM (#4994262)

Shouldn't it work both ways? Shouldn't parodies be allowed? Not allowing parodies is a violation of invidual Free Speech, surely? Not According to G.W. Bush, he himself said "There ought to be limits to freedom" when he was talking about Parodies of his campaign website.

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Re:They keep going on about (Score:2) by arb (452787) on Thursday January 02, @01:00AM (#4997007) (http://slashdot.org/my/amigos | Last Journal: Wednesday December 18, @07:10PM)

Shouldn't parodies be allowed? Parodies should be allowed, but the supposed parody web site did not look like a parody to me. It was trying to pass itself off as the real Dow site, which is not allowed. Fraud. Deception. etc...

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Re:OMFG (Score:1) by spazoid12 (525450) on Wednesday January 01, @01:00PM (#4994126)

I thought this was pretty funny. So often it's the wrong stuff that scores 5:funny.

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Re:OMFG (Score:4, Funny) by Shalome (566988) on Wednesday January 01, @01:09PM (#4994165) (http://www.opentechsupport.net/ | Last Journal: Thursday January 02, @04:03PM)

Heh.. you forgot the "Oh, but wait, as I'm writing this I realized that the first half of my submission was utterly ridiculous and actually wrong, but I'm continuing anyway..." and the "Oh wait, we already said this" from the Slashdot editors. ;)

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Re:OMFG (Score:2) by Negadecimal (78403) on Wednesday January 01, @01:13PM (#4994172) (http://ryanroper.com/)

Coffee helps a little. But not enough.

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Re:OMFG (Score:1) by Threni (635302) on Wednesday January 01, @03:30PM (#4994706)

Not really - this is the sort of nonsense you produce when taking a big hit of caffeine first thing in the morning - especially on a hangover!

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Re:OMFG (Score:1) by Borealis (84417) on Wednesday January 01, @08:47PM (#4996232) (http://slashdot.org/)

I'm glad I'm not the only one that read that and ended up thinking "Um... huh?"

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RTFA (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 01, @12:46PM (#4994069)

"We did an earlier story on this." -- TFA

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Re:how is this different from the earlier story? (Score:2, Funny) by spazoid12 (525450) on Wednesday January 01, @12:55PM (#4994102)

I've noticed that lately all you need to do is read back-issues of Wired magazine, and in particular, PopSci magazine. And then hope that either Timothy or ChrisD is on duty. But, of course, I'm wrong and this is just trollish flamebait. And so in an effort not to get modded down let me add: I found this article to be insightful and informative. I particularly found the Greenpeace link inspiring and have made a mental note to someday, possibly, visit that link...if nothing else, just to see what a bunch of Zodiac owners are up to now.

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Re:how is this different from the earlier story? (Score:5, Insightful) by Zeinfeld (263942) on Wednesday January 01, @01:11PM (#4994168) (http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Monday October 07, @05:09PM)

There's really nothing new here, other than to say 'wired picked up a story that we did two weeks ago.' The news that Dow is suing the Bopahl survivors to try to silence their protests over Dows failure to clean up is news to me. The Union Carbide disaster at Bopahl was due to sheer negligence and greed. Dow still refuses to clean up the site of the disaster and has yet to pay compensation to most of the victims. Perhaps if students stopped and considered the wisdom of joining a company that could kill 800 people with its negligence and not care a damn Dow might have a lot more difficulty recruiting on campus. If you are choosing an employer in the chemical business their safety record should be your first concern. If you work for a company like Dow that is saying that they can kill 800 people, create pollution that will kill even more and they just don't care you are quite litteraly putting your own life on the line for their corporate profits. The same goes for communities that have Dow installations near them, or planned to be built near them. Make sure that your representatives are aware that Dow cannoit be trusted.

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Re:how is this different from the earlier story? (Score:1) by avi33 (116048) on Wednesday January 01, @01:43PM (#4994268) (http://www.usrnull.com/)

...actually if you check out all of the links on the first story, you would have discovered this lawsuit, and written your congressperson using the link (as I did). Again, my point is, it's just a better-linked version of the original post.

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Re:how is this different from the earlier story? (Score:2) by Zeinfeld (263942) on Wednesday January 01, @02:31PM (#4994458) (http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Monday October 07, @05:09PM)

Again, my point is, it's just a better-linked version of the original post. Two slashdot stories in 18 years on the deaths of 800 people caused by corporate negligence does not appear unreasonable to me. Unfortunately Slashdot is still stuck in a very limited niche despite the clear poitential to do more. I doubt that the majority of slashdot readers have such narrow interests as the editors. OK I can take the slashcode and put up my own slashdot to discuss political issues, but slashdot is not the code base it is the community. A way to address the repeated stories problem and the focus problem would be to create a kind of hybrid of slashdot and google news. Instead of the idiosyncratic and duplicative story selection by the slashcrew the stories could be choosen automatically in the same way as the google news stories are. This would also reduce the number of tedious 'Microsoft is ssooooooo evil' rants where a story that has nothing to do with Microsoft is posted but the editor feels obliged to tell us what he thinks Microsoft would do in that situation. This type of behavior was more acceptable when slashdot was independent rather than run by a Microsoft competitor. Another scheme which might be interesting would be to throw the editor queue open for inspection (but not comment) and moderation. Perhaps readers at karma cap or close could get moderation points for this purpose. Slashdot talks a great line about decentralization etc. but really when it comes down to it the whole thing is a corporate dictatorship, one with a friendly face but not something that meets the game they talk.

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Re:how is this different from the earlier story? (Score:1) by GalionTheElf (515869) <tim@@@electriccheese...com> on Wednesday January 01, @04:58PM (#4995157) (http://soulsucker.org/)

Two slashdot stories in 18 years on the deaths of 800 people caused by corporate negligence does not appear unreasonable to me. How long have you been visiting /. exactly? ;)

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Much more than 800... they were 2000 or 4000 ppl! (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 01, @05:37PM (#4995376)

I can't recall for sure if 2000 or 4000 were killed, but surely it was not "only" 800. The way things go one of these days Union Carbide will be invited to India again. And how, for God's sake, can someone be so stupid (not to mention other things) as to actually buy such installation? Ever since that terrible incident I've been avoiding Union Carbide (Eveready) products. Dow now has a fan, too. You know, the average American can be a very fair guy, very reasonable, well-intentioned, even non-belligerant... these corporations, though, create your image throughout the world. Think Ferenghi.

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Re:how is this different from the earlier story? (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 01, @09:12PM (#4996318)

I have lived about 3 miles away from DOW's main plant where it all got started my entire life, and they are not that bad. And why do you blame DOW for something that supposely Union Carbide did. I would say India is to blame for not having an EPA organization to set things straight soon after it happened.

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How is it written? (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 02, @12:39PM (#4999502)

O , man, remember you´re dust. And to dust you shall return. You, too, as white as you might be, are made out of mud. Silly!

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Re:These types of stories need MORE publicity (Score:1) by FearUncertaintyDoubt (578295) on Wednesday January 01, @02:16PM (#4994408)

There is, however, a place where the line should be drawn. When creators of parody sites or critical sites start publishing people's real life names, home addresses, and other personal information against their will, then they have gone to far. I don't agree with that in cases where the person's information is already public. If you can find that information on the public internet, then why would repeating it be illegal? And if repeating it in the context of a parody doesn't make it less legal. Using someone's real name always raises the spectre of libel, however. When you create a parody or critical web site, you do not know what kind of people will visit the site. Some of the people who visit the site may be very unstable individuals capable of all sorts of terrible things. For a host of reasons, they might decide to utilize the personal information in order to cause real physical harm to the person being criticised or that person's family. This is in the realm of good judgement, but not law. Is People Magazine responsible for all the stalkers who fall in love with celebrities? According to your logic, one could say that People "incited" some mentally unbalanced person to go after Jennifer Aniston (hey, I said they were unbalanced). Do I think People Magazine contributes to the cult of celebrity which is detrimental to society? Yes. Do I think they are legally culpable for that? No. And unstable people watch CNN, too. If they see coverage of an oil spill on CNN and then go kill an oil company CEO, is CNN liable? You can't know what effect your speech will have. And you can't make people responsible for how someone else might interpret that. Only when there is no room for interpretation, such as "kill him!" can you make a case for someone's words directly leading to a criminal act.

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Re:These types of stories need MORE publicity (Score:4, Interesting) by Rogerborg (306625) on Wednesday January 01, @03:04PM (#4994585) (http://slashdot.org/)

Isn't it James Parker's actions that put him and his family (THINK OF THE CHILDREN!) at risk? What you are suggesting is - effectively - that those with power and influence must be protected from the consequences of their own actions. Does anything strike you as wrong with that?

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Re:These types of stories need MORE publicity (Score:2) by harlows_monkeys (106428) on Wednesday January 01, @03:51PM (#4994806) (http://www.tzs.net/)

This is the kind of stuff that threatens to GUT one of the most important benefits of the internet. The ability to ridicule a company or government for things it has done to cause real harm to others is quite possibly one of the most important types of freedom of expression That ability is not threatened at all by this. What is threatened is the ability to try to deceive people so as to mislead them about a company or government. These sites were not parody sites. They were trying to confuse people into thinking they were Dow's site, and are using the claim of parody to try to hide their attempted identity theft.

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Re:These types of stories need MORE publicity (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 01, @06:21PM (#4995615)

Troll score: 2 of 10 Tired technique.

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Re:These types of stories need MORE publicity (Score:1) by k_stamour (544142) on Wednesday January 01, @06:32PM (#4995685) (http://thelostolive.net/)

Is there such a thing (no pun intended) as Distributed or P2P hosting? Not having a Single point of support for example. (With a sort of Permanence of NEWS Servers)

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Re:These types of stories need MORE publicity (Score:1) by ManxStef (469602) on Wednesday January 01, @06:56PM (#4995793)

It is absolutely vital to the continued existence of the internet as a medium of free speech that large corporations are NOT allowed to squelch opinions that do not cast them in a favorable light. In that case, can anyone tell me why this story doesn't seem to have got any press in the US, and limited coverage in the UK?: US wrecks cheap drugs deal [guardian.co.uk]- Cheney's intervention blocks pact to help poor countries after pharmaceutical firms lobby White House. This story also draws comment in the Guardian's Leaders column [guardian.co.uk]: "When pushed to do so, the Bush administration will feign concern for the world's poor. But its actions speak louder than its words. The intervention by vice-president Dick Cheney last week to torpedo a deal to get cheap drugs into poor countries whose populaces have been consumed by epidemics was a cold-hearted piece of realpolitik. Forget the honey-coated pledges of support for development and warm declarations that global prosperity must be shared. The United States was the only country out of 144 to oppose an agreement that would have relaxed global patent rules on treatments. The richest nation on the earth backed the arguments of the drug lobby over the cries of the weak and wasted. In doing so the US has emptied the current round of trade talks of a meaningful and substantial proof that globalisation could help the poor." (read more [guardian.co.uk]) And then Americans wonder why a vast proportion of the rest of the world hates their Government? Maybe it's because they continually let their large corporations get away with murder ... A corporation has no soul to damn; no body to kick.

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Re:These types of stories need MORE publicity (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 01, @07:17PM (#4995865)

A corporation has no soul to damn; no body to kick. And it's potentially immortal.

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Re:These types of stories need MORE publicity (Score:1) by kputnam (488584) <kyle&putnamcabinets,com> on Thursday January 02, @04:00AM (#4997406) (http://kyle.putnamcabinets.com/)

While I agree that parody and critism are important parts of our freedom of speech, home addresses and other information related to normal citizens are all available on www.whitepages.com and any phone book. While you can pay to have them removed (or hell, don't have a phone in the first place), the crime should not be publishing someone's home address or other mildy personal information. The crime would be someone stalking them or harassing or even harming them, by restricting speech that way it is analogous to not allowing publication of books about hacking networks, building bombs, or sneaking past airport security. And don't you think that maybe if James Parker's address was published inside of a praising article about how he cleaned up the mess in India he wouldn't feel so threatened? Since his actions were instead atrocious, he better feel threatened to have his address published and he better expect to face some kind of consequences for his actions too.

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Re:These types of stories need MORE publicity (Score:2) by herbierobinson (183222) on Thursday January 02, @04:30AM (#4997456) (http://www.curbside-recording.com/hrmusic/index.html)

You misquoted the story in a big way. They didn't mention James Parker in the hoax, they put him down as the owner of the domain name (i.e., the creator of the hoax). Of course, that was more than a little bit stupid (as they found out).

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Re:GO TO BED (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 01, @02:57PM (#4994549)

That is the most intelligent comment I have ever seen posted at /.

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Re:Do not pass go, do not collect $200 (Score:2) by Fastolfe (1470) <david@fastolfe.net> on Wednesday January 01, @12:55PM (#4994105) (http://fastolfe.net/)

I agree.. the parody site and press release were a little too convincing. They either needed to go a little further with the site and the release so that it was obvious, or add a disclaimer. While some (most?) of us could probably tell that it was a parody anyway (or at least be suspicious that it was), we're in the minority here. It needs to be obvious to the layperson.

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Re:Do not pass go, do not collect $200 (Score:1) by hansroy (575558) on Wednesday January 01, @05:05PM (#4995197) (http://users.wpi.edu/~gaea | Last Journal: Wednesday October 09, @12:38AM)

The first couple lines are convincing, but then its fairly easy to tell its humor.

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Re:Do not pass go, do not collect $200 (Score:5, Insightful) by Tom (822) on Wednesday January 01, @01:00PM (#4994122) (http://web.lemuria.org/)

The entire point of the Yes Man's actions has always been that it is confused with the real thing. They've done a couple things that make you really think about it, and they could only do it the way they did. If corporations have free speech, why can't the Yes Men? Honestly, what's the worse crime - poisoning a couple thousand people, or impersonating someone who isn't even a person?

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Re:Do not pass go, do not collect $200 (Score:3, Insightful) by Twirlip of the Mists (615030) <twirlipofthemists@yahoo.com> on Wednesday January 01, @01:14PM (#4994175) (Last Journal: Friday December 27, @02:02PM)

There is a line between parody and fraud. It's obvious that the group in question went out of their way to make their site look as much like an official Dow site as possible in order to defame Dow Chemical. That's not parody. That's intentional misrepresentation. Free speech does not give you the right to say whatever you want and damned be the consequences. It doesn't work that way. Honestly, what's the worse crime - poisoning a couple thousand people, or impersonating someone who isn't even a person? Ah, the classic "But they started it!" defense. That always works so well in the courts.

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Re:Do not pass go, do not collect $200 (Score:2) by rking (32070) on Wednesday January 01, @01:51PM (#4994291)

Agreed, they even put the kind of totally outrageous statements that only a corporation run by people with no sense of morality could make. How could anyone be expected to distinguish this from the real Dow Chemical?

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Re:Do not pass go, do not collect $200 (Score:1) by dipipanone (570849) on Wednesday January 01, @03:11PM (#4994619)

What I like best about these sort of scams is that nobody would ever have even *heard* of this lame-ass hippie parody website if the dumb arrogant fucks at Dow hadn't felt so affronted that they had to attempt to censor it. Haven't these captains of industry ever heard the old maxim about how the internet interprets censorship as damage and what happens then?

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Re:Do not pass go, do not collect $200 (Score:2) by Henry V .009 (518000) <marstrail AT hotmail DOT com> on Wednesday January 01, @01:55PM (#4994313) (http://slashdot.org/)

Have you ever seen "just kidding" notices on the Onion? Goddamn, but a lot of people get fooled by the Onion. I've seen articles about how the mainstream press picks up on it every now and then. So, since the Onion goes out of its way to make its articles look real (hint: that's why they're funny), the Onion should be sued? If you want the courts to step in here based on the "some people will be fooled" line, that is a very slippery slope.

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Re:Do not pass go, do not collect $200 (Score:2) by EvanED (569694) <mailto:evaned@netzeroEEE.net%20minus%20threevowels> on Wednesday January 01, @03:18PM (#4994661)

Then again, the Onion doesn't go around emailing journalists saying that they are a real news site. The Yes Men emailed journalists saying they represented Dow and were issuing a press release.

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A "just kidding" notice on The Onion (Score:2) by LostCluster (625375) on Wednesday January 01, @03:45PM (#4994789)

Their own FAQ starts off with... [theonion.com] "The Onion is a satirical weekly publication published 47 times a year on Thursdays." Also on the same page: "The Onion uses invented names in all its stories, except in cases where public figures are being satirized. Any other use of real names is accidental and coincidental."

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Re:Do not pass go, do not collect $200 (Score:2) by Twirlip of the Mists (615030) <twirlipofthemists@yahoo.com> on Thursday January 02, @08:51AM (#4998035) (Last Journal: Friday December 27, @02:02PM)

So, since the Onion goes out of its way to make its articles look real (hint: that's why they're funny), the Onion should be sued? If The Onion called their site The New York Times and went to great lengths to make their site look exactly like the Times's site, even going so far as to using special software to mirror the Times's site in real time... then yeah, they should sure as hell get sued. The issue here is that these morons-- yes, morons-- intentionally falsely represented themselves to be Dow Chemical. Not a parody of Dow Chemical, or a site critical of Dow Chemical, but rather Dow Chemical itself. That's against the rules.

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Re:Do not pass go, do not collect $200 (Score:3, Interesting) by MrHanky (141717) on Wednesday January 01, @01:57PM (#4994324) (http://www.google.com/)

There is a line between parody and fraud. It's obvious that the group in question went out of their way to make their site look as much like an official Dow site as possible in order to defame Dow Chemical. That's not parody. That's intentional misrepresentation. It might be argued that Dow are misrepresenting themselves, and that The Yes-Men are helping Dow to express more truthfully what they stand for. Not that this matters at all. All these pranks are meant to last for some time, then get a lot of attention as the corporation sends their army of lawyers, then closed down. But some still work, like gatt.org [wto.org], a parody of wto.org [gatt.org]. They are so alike that I almost don't see the difference myself. This one's been up for more than a year.

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Re:Do not pass go, do not collect $200 (Score:1) by nackrm (571581) <.moc.liam. .ta. .rekcan.> on Wednesday January 01, @07:12PM (#4995854) (http://blackhole.cs.uwec.edu/ | Last Journal: Monday October 28, @10:17PM)

good one.. mix up the links for gatt and wto... almost had me fooled...

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Re:Do not pass go, do not collect $200 (Score:2) by Tom (822) on Wednesday January 01, @03:01PM (#4994562) (http://web.lemuria.org/)

Ah, the classic "But they started it!" defense. That always works so well in the courts. Nope, you read that wrong. I don't care who did it first, what I care about is what is being done. Free speech does not give you the right to say whatever you want and damned be the consequences. It doesn't work that way. It doesn't? If it carries consequences, then it ain't free speech. If that were the definition of free speech, then hey, you have a lot of free speech in, say, china. You can say whatever you want. They might kill you for it, but that's just the consequences, so it's still free speech, right? Is that how you want it to work?

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Re:Do not pass go, do not collect $200 (Score:2) by EvanED (569694) <mailto:evaned@netzeroEEE.net%20minus%20threevowels> on Wednesday January 01, @03:27PM (#4994690)

"It doesn't? If it carries consequences, then it ain't free speech. If that were the definition of free speech, then hey, you have a lot of free speech in, say, china. You can say whatever you want. They might kill you for it, but that's just the consequences, so it's still free speech, right? Is that how you want it to work?" What the parent means is that you do not have the right to commit slander, libel, etc. Let's think of what absolute free speech means: -no perjury laws (or you wouldn't have free speech on the bench) -you can incite illegal actions--such as telling someone to kill someone--without reproach -you can shout 'fire' in a crowded theatre, probably leading to injuries an property damage and certainly leading to lost revenue for the theatre owner, and not be responsible even if it is just a prank This is not what the founding fathers and other governmental people intended when they wrote ratified the first amendment. They were trying to protect against censoring speech because of political messages. While parodies are of course protected, they cease to be protected when they cross the line to fradulent misrepresentation, and the Yes Men arguably did with their parody and certainly did when they sent links to journalists claiming that they represent Dow and were issuing a press release.

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Re:Do not pass go, do not collect $200 (Score:2) by Tom (822) on Thursday January 02, @08:29AM (#4997929) (http://web.lemuria.org/)

I'm well aware of the points you make. However, note that Dow has not (yet?) tried to sue the Yes Men. What they did do was shut them up. I don't mind if they drag them into a court and try to get damages. However, the Yes Men do have a right to say whatever they want to say, unless a court decides that they can't. The entire DMCA is a 1st Amendment violation, because it allows certain entities (copyright holders) to bar someone elses speech without a court trial.

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Re:Do not pass go, do not collect $200 (Score:2) by Twirlip of the Mists (615030) <twirlipofthemists@yahoo.com> on Thursday January 02, @09:16AM (#4998169) (Last Journal: Friday December 27, @02:02PM)

However, the Yes Men do have a right to say whatever they want to say, unless a court decides that they can't. Two things. First, no, they don't. As we've been repeating over and over in this discussion, there are lots of types of speech that are not lawful. Intentionally misrepresenting yourself to be something or someone that you are not for the purpose of defaming a third party is not lawful. They don't have the right to do that under any circumstance. Second, even if they did have a right to say what they said, nobody shut them up. What happened in this case is that Dow called on Verio to exercise their AUP to pull Thing.net's connection. Verio agreed that that was the right thing to do. Nobody went to Yes Men or Thing.net and said, "You can't say that." Rather, Verio went to them and said, "You can't say that using our connection because it's against our clearly defined AUP." There's nothing stopping any of these guys from getting their message out through another medium, until such time as Dow sues them for every last dime they have. Speech-- free or otherwise-- has not been impacted here at all. The entire DMCA is a 1st Amendment violation because it allows certain entities (copyright holders) to bar someone elses speech without a court trial. By that reasoning, libel laws are violations of the 1st amendment, because threatening a newspaper with a libel action can be enough to convince them to pull a reporter's story without a court trial. Your reasoning just doesn't hold up. Trademark and copyright violations are not lawful, even under the guise of free speech. The DMCA (now Title 17) provided remedies for people who are injured by a trademark or copyright violation. That's all.

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Re:Do not pass go, do not collect $200 (Score:2) by Tom (822) on Thursday January 02, @01:51PM (#5000088) (http://web.lemuria.org/)

here are lots of types of speech that are not lawful. And here I was thinking that it's the job of the courts to decide what's lawful and what not. By that reasoning, libel laws are violations of the 1st amendment, There is a fine difference here. The libel laws have, over time, been worked out so that they can be applied without what is called the "chilling effect". The DMCA has not. Verio did not have much of a choice in this matter. I work for an ISP, and I've been involved in our own DMCA discussions. The law is pretty clear that there is a definite procedure for the ISP to follow, and there is very little choice involved. You get a takedown notice, you take the site down. If your lawyers tell you anything else, please give me their number so I can put them in touch with our legal eagles (whom I'd love to convince otherwise). There is a "counter notification" option in the DMCA. However, from reading it my personal verdict is that it's a farce. There is a huge difference between DMCA takedown notices and harsh letters from a lawyer. The letter essentially says "if you do this, we will sue you". You still have a choice and can weigh your chances. A DMCA takedown notice requires you to do something, and with a deadline. You can ignore the lawyers letter. You can't ignore a DMCA takedown notice.

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Re:Do not pass go, do not collect $200 (Score:2) by Twirlip of the Mists (615030) <twirlipofthemists@yahoo.com> on Thursday January 02, @02:04PM (#5000213) (Last Journal: Friday December 27, @02:02PM)

And here I was thinking that it's the job of the courts to decide what's lawful and what not. Man, you need to do some remedial reading on how the US government works. The legislature decides what is and what is not lawful. They have, for example, decided that trademark infringement is against the law. The court, at the first level anyway, is only concerned with the facts of a case. The court will decide if what a person does is (again, for example) trademark infringement. The court will not express an opinion as to whether or not trademark infringement is against the law. To sum up: the legislature decides what the laws are, and the court decides whether a law has been broken based on the facts of the case. Okay? Verio did not have much of a choice in this matter. Of course not. What these guys were doing was clearly against Verio's AUP. Verio should not have had any choice in the matter. If they had, it would have made the whole AUP meaningless.

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Re:Do not pass go, do not collect $200 (Score:2) by Tom (822) on Friday January 03, @04:44AM (#5004967) (http://web.lemuria.org/)

I correct myself: The legislature writes the laws. However, in a civilized country, only a court can decide whether or not a specific event was against the law or not. That's the point: That you have the right to be heard by a court. No such luck with the DMCA. As for Verio: You missed the point by a mile. The AUP are something that Verio has written and that Verio can choose to enforce or not. Lots of choice there, and necessarily so. As I said, I work for an ISP. Our AUPs prohibit malicious activity. Part of my job is to decide which kind of attacks, hacking attempts and script-kiddie behaviour falls intot that category and which not. Lots of choice there. With a DMCA takedown notice, there is no such choice. I've been through the dance with our legal department. If you're an ISP in the USA, then the procedure is crystal clear and your choice is essentially reduced to whether you yank the site before or after lunch break.

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Re:Do not pass go, do not collect $200 (Score:2) by Twirlip of the Mists (615030) <twirlipofthemists@yahoo.com> on Friday January 03, @10:07AM (#5006094) (Last Journal: Friday December 27, @02:02PM)

However, in a civilized country, only a court can decide whether or not a specific event was against the law or not. Not exactly. In order to be valid, a law has to be specific. The law says which acts are prohibited. The purpose of a criminal trial is to determine facts: whether an event transpired as the prosecution alleges, or as the defense alleges. For example, let's say somebody ends up dead. Depending on the circumstances, the person responsible for the killing may or may not be a criminal. If the killer acted in self-defense, for example, then no crime was committed. For the different classes of criminal homicide, the law defines various criteria. If the killer did this, then the crime is first-degree murder. If the killer did that, then the crime is first-degree manslaughter. If the killer did the other thing, then the crime is criminally negligent homicide. And so on. The purpose of the trial will be to ascertain the facts of the case. The prosecution will say (for example) that the defendant killed the victim because he was sleeping with the defendant's wife. The defense will say that he defendant killed the victim in self defense because the defendant thought the victim was an intruder. (Or maybe they'll say that the defendant didn't do it at all. Whatever.) The jury, in the case of a jury trial, is responsible for deciding the facts. Did the defendant kill the victim or not? If so, did he intend to kill the victim? If so, did he plan the crime in advance? And so on. So the courts do not decide if a specific event was against the law; the law decides that in advance. The courts merely decide what happened, and apply the law accordingly. The AUP are something that Verio has written and that Verio can choose to enforce or not. Then what's the point of having an AUP? You can't choose whether or not to enforce a policy; that's arbitrary and unfair to your customers. You have to enforce a policy uniformly. Thing.net was violating Verio's AUP. Dow informed Verio of that, and so Verio had to pull the plug. Not because of the DMCA. Because of their own policy. Trying to make this about the DMCA is really stretching it. The complaint cited the DMCA, which simply says that ISP's can be liable in copyright infringement instances if they receive notice of an infringement and do not act on it. But the complaint also cited the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act and the Lanham Act. This isn't a DMCA case any more than it's a Lanham Act case. The important point is that Thing.net was violating Verio's AUP. Verio had no choice at all, and they did the right thing.

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Re:Do not pass go, do not collect $200 (Score:2) by LostCluster (625375) on Wednesday January 01, @03:33PM (#4994728)

If corporations have free speech, why can't the Yes Men? Honestly, what's the worse crime - poisoning a couple thousand people, or impersonating someone who isn't even a person? Clearly the poisoning is worse... but two wrongs never make a right.

[ Reply to This | Parent ]

Re:Do not pass go, do not collect $200 (Score:1) by hansroy (575558) on Wednesday January 01, @05:07PM (#4995205) (http://users.wpi.edu/~gaea | Last Journal: Wednesday October 09, @12:38AM)

The Yes Men are so good that they've even been mistakenly hired as real business speakers. One of them pretended to be from the WTO and at the end of his speech, inflated a 3 foot golden phallus from his zip-off suit, which he called an employee motivator.

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You have to be joking (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 01, @01:01PM (#4994128)

One needs to read only a few lines of "Dow's" response to realize that it's just a very well done frameup, and by the time you're into the 2nd and 3rd paragraphs it's hard to keep from gagging in hysterics. You can't be serious that anyone would really think that this geniunely came from Dow. Come on.

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Re:You have to be joking (Score:2) by EvanED (569694) <mailto:evaned@netzeroEEE.net%20minus%20threevowels> on Wednesday January 01, @01:46PM (#4994272)

Look over this site; I've seen easily half a dozen people who were taken *and posted the dowethics site as an actuial dow release*. I cannot claim innocence here; I was fooled as well. Now, I found it incredible that anyone--even Dow--would come up with that release seriously, but until someone replied saying it was the parody site, that didn't even cross my mind.

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Re:Do not pass go, do not collect $200 (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 01, @01:35PM (#4994246)

Possibly there should be two versions of the site, an American version with "THIS IS A PARODY" blinking across the screen, and with the references to DDT, to financial considerations outweighing taking responsibility for a disaster in which thousands die because of financial considerations etc. underlined, and an international verion for countries not populated by drooling imbeciles.

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Re:Another vote against "The Yes Men" (Score:2) by MacAndrew (463832) on Wednesday January 01, @02:27PM (#4994448) (http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/)

Not that Dow is squeaky clean ... but that's beside the point. You don't get a free pass to break whatever law no matter how good your cause, even for civil disobedience. Worst of all, it is so unnecessary. The "parody" site is deliberately misleading, and downright offensive. When I looked for at least a disclaimer, I find instead "Copyright © The Dow Company." The entire site appears to be structured similarly. This insults our intelligence. What, the critics' argument aren't good enough to stand alone? We won't appreciate it unless fooled? The only reason I was studying the site for hints was the warning I received in advance. Their domain name dowethics adds nicely to the fakery -- certainly it is a plausible name for a corporation to operate. Parody can be protected speech, but not automatically. Impersonation and falsehood are not protected -- else it would be impossible to prosecute con men. Here, it doesn't even matter if they're telling the truth -- they can't pretend to be Dow. No brainer.

[ Reply to This | Parent ]

Re:Another vote against "The Yes Men" (Score:1) by Grax (529699) on Wednesday January 01, @09:56PM (#4996447)

by putting Copyright The Dow Company haven't they turned over their rights to the "parody" to Dow, who I assume would want to exercise those rights by taking it offline?

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Re:Another vote against "The Yes Men" (Score:1) by MacAndrew (463832) on Wednesday January 01, @10:28PM (#4996554) (http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/)

Cute. :) Well, Dow did exercise their rights regardless.

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Re:Do not pass go, do not collect $200 (Score:2) by localman (111171) on Wednesday January 01, @09:55PM (#4996445) (http://www.binadopta.com/)

Interesting. I wonder how the killing and maiming of large groups of people, then sueing them further into poverty can be taken on the same level as libel. The people killed, maimed, and sued were real living breathing people. The victim of libel is a corporation - a piece of paper. In this case I would say a polite "puh-leez" to any concerns from the guilty corp, and be quite sympathetic to the illegal but well intentioned actions against them. Again: on one side you've got ongoing massive injury and death of real people that has gone unresolved, and on the other side you've got a corporation that was badmouthed. Cheers.

[ Reply to This | Parent ]

Re:Do not pass go, do not collect $200 (Score:2) by LostCluster (625375) on Wednesday January 01, @10:16PM (#4996511)

As I posted elsewhere, two wrongs still don't make a right.

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Re:Do not pass go, do not collect $200 (Score:2) by localman (111171) on Thursday January 02, @12:36AM (#4996956) (http://www.binadopta.com/)

Sure, in general two wrongs don't make a right, but the order of magnitude of the wrongs must be considered, don't you think? As well as the greater good. Would you apply the same logic to police gunning down an active killer? In this case we're talking about wrong#1: mass killing & continued damage vs. wrong#2: possible libel. I'm sorry, but those wrongs are on different planes. One is fundamental and the other is incendental to our social norms. Basically what has happened here is that it is illegal to point out that a company is killing people. Think about that: the law is serving to undermine itself. In cases like this (any case of law vs. law) two wrongs will have to happen and something has to give. So some people have decided to break the law to call attention to this injustice. It reminds me of Rosa Parks breaking the law... was that a case of "two wrongs don't make a right" as well? Please - when issues are this serious don't resort to trite answers like that. Cheers.

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Re:Do not pass go, do not collect $200 (Score:1) by Catamaran (106796) on Thursday January 02, @01:26AM (#4997093)

Well said.

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Re:Do not pass go, do not collect $200 (Score:2) by LostCluster (625375) on Thursday January 02, @03:54PM (#5001201)

Basically what has happened here is that it is illegal to point out that a company is killing people. No, it's illegal to pretend represent a company you're not a part of, even if that company is one that is killing people. The Yes Men could have written a site as themselves in which they talk about what Dow has done. However, since Dow's misdeads pale in comparision to the misdeads of other wrongdoers (such as the government of Iraq for one example) so that it'd be hard for them to get media attention when they have to compete on the same playing field as those stories. Instead, they're trying to jump to the top by impersonating the website of Dow, which breaks several copyright and trademark laws in the process. Yeah, that gets them attention, but it does so by doing something illegal. By the way, Rosa Parks went to jail for a time for doing what she did. If you're going to do civil disobedience, paying for your crime is part of the deal.

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Re:Do not pass go, do not collect $200 (Score:2) by localman (111171) on Friday January 03, @01:01AM (#5004488) (http://www.binadopta.com/)

No, it's illegal to pretend represent a company you're not a part of, even if that company is one that is killing people. Yes, that too. I was referring to the DMCA. In any case, I never questioned the legality of the moves. I agree with you: they were unquestionably illegal. However I was discussing the morality of it - because the original post indicated that you found yourself morally aligned with Dow: "I have to line up on the side of the big business." I was simply surprised that anyone would read this story of suffering and find themselves sympathetic with Dow. I can't see how anyone sane could feel that way. I am thankful these people broke the law to get this information to me. Sorry.

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Re:Do not pass go, do not collect $200 (Score:2) by mgblst (80109) on Wednesday January 01, @10:09PM (#4996487) (http://asmsource.cjb.com/)

Yeah, I side with Dow as well, I mean, sure they killed hundreds of people and poisoined the land around their plant, and the effects of the tragedy are still having effects 18 years later, but someone pretended to be them, and that is just not on. You do realise you sound like a complete dickhead, don't you?

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Yet according to Dow's press release, Corporate Freedom of Speech is one of our most precious Freedoms [dowethics.com].

Obviously it's one of those freedoms that nobody except Dow talks about. (In fact, many of the google links are about Dow.)

Of course, the troubling part is that obviously it's more important than `generic' Freedom of Speech. At least according to Dow.

Their press release alone reads like a parody. I really hope it is. And if it's not, I hope they get spanked hard for it.

Re:Corporate Freedom of Speech .... (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 01, @12:53PM (#4994096)

OMG. You don't see that it is a parody ? This means that in 10 years it could be real, you would probably not protest....

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Re:Corporate Freedom of Speech .... (Score:1) by delfstrom (205488) on Wednesday January 01, @12:56PM (#4994109) (http://www.buzz.ca/)

The entire dowethics.com [dowethics.com] website is a parody. The submitter of the slashdot story itself says that he got taken in by it. Obviously you did, too.

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Re:Corporate Freedom of Speech .... (Score:2) by dougmc (70836) on Wednesday January 01, @01:07PM (#4994159) (http://www.frenzy.com/~dougmc)

Obviously you did, too. Obviously I did. Had I just found it by itself, I'd have attributed it to parody (I did mention that it reads like a parody, after all), but the /. story *said* it was from Dow -- What really sent me into orbit was Dow's response to all of this and I took that at it's word. Perhaps I should have made a New Years Resolution to not take people I don't know at their word, especially when it just looks wrong. Which makes it a very good parody indeed -- not just from The Yes Men, but also from the user `michael' on Slashdot. He told us that this was from Dow, and since we're all ready (me too) to believe that the mighty Corporation is out to get us, I believed him, even though it was somewhat absurd. Let's hope that Dow doesn't get *too* sue-happy over this -- now they could go after michael too. I don't see where the DMCA comes into play here, but there's still plenty of other things that Dow could use to make The Yes Men and michael's life unpleasant.

[ Reply to This | Parent ]

Re:Corporate Freedom of Speech .... (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 01, @01:16PM (#4994184)

Dude, you really need to work on those reading comprehension skills.

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Re:Corporate Freedom of Speech .... (Score:2) by Doppleganger (66109) on Wednesday January 01, @01:18PM (#4994192) (Last Journal: Tuesday February 19, @08:36PM)

What really sent me into orbit was Dow's response to all of this. While writing this submission I noticed that I have become a victim of The Yes Men and "Dow's" response is actually one of their parodies! Perhaps you should have made a New Year's Resolution to raise your reading comprehension. Especially since you somehow think michael told you anything was from Dow, when the Slashdot article clearly states that tres3 was the writer... the only portion not quoted from tres3 is the last seven words: "We did an earlier story on this."

[ Reply to This | Parent ]

Re:Corporate Freedom of Speech .... (Score:2) by dougmc (70836) on Wednesday January 01, @01:29PM (#4994223) (http://www.frenzy.com/~dougmc)

Ok then ... Posted by michael [mailto] on Wednesday January 01, @11:31AM from the no-sense-of-humor dept. tres3 [mailto] writes "I stumbled across this (that didn't quite quote correctly. Oh well.) I went after the bold stuff. A simple enough mistake. Still, I'd suggest changing the format ... what's more important -- that michael posted this, or tres3 actually wrote it? My reading comprehension is fine, when I apply it properly. A better resolution would be to remember to double (and triple) check everything before I make silly mistakes in public. I've made a few so far, and the year is only a few hours old :)

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Re:Corporate Freedom of Speech .... (Score:2) by Doppleganger (66109) on Wednesday January 01, @02:12PM (#4994392) (Last Journal: Tuesday February 19, @08:36PM)

Personally, I was clued in by the 'tres3 writes "I stumbled across this.."' That's a fairly standard quotation format, attributing the quoted text to tres3. It's similiar to an article in a newspaper quoting things from a Associated Press article.. the newspaper writer didn't write the quoted bits. 'sides, your user number isn't all that far away from mine.. you should be used to the format around here by now! :)

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Re:Corporate Freedom of Speech .... (Score:1) by zcat_NZ (267672) <zcat@i4free.co.nz> on Wednesday January 01, @08:16PM (#4996108) (http://zcat.themall.co.nz/)

So what IS Dow's position on the original chemical spill? I couldn't find an official press release from them but clearly they don't want to take responsibility, and it's likely for much the same reasons that the 'dowethics' document says. I don't think The Yes Men have misrepresented Dow Chemical's position at all. They've just expressed it a little more bluntly than Dow's lawyers are comfortable with..

[ Reply to This | Parent ]

Re:Corporate Freedom of Speech .... (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 01, @01:49PM (#4994285)

A corporation is not a natural person. It is a legal fiction. A corporation should have none of the rights extended to real people. And this was true until 1886 when the US Supreme Court, using the fairly recently enacted 14th Amendment to the Constitution (the amendment that says any person is equal to any other person) decided for no apparent reason that a corporation is a person, too. This decision (Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company [118 U.S. 394 (1886)]) had no basis in precedent and, in fact, ran counter to previous rulings by the Court. Since that time corporations have gained the same rights as the rest of us but without the responsibilities. Corporations can commit crimes, but never go to jail (maybe an officer or two, but never the corporation). Corporations are immortal and never even have to think about paying inheritance taxes. Corporations can earn large incomes but not pay taxes (they get to write off things real persons can't). Corporations can avoid or minimize state taxes by incorporating in certain states (e.g. Delaware) or by simply moving their place of incorporation offshore (e.g. Bermuda). Would you like to be able to avoid taxes by simply erasing the place of birth on your birth certificate and changing it to Bermuda while retaining all the rights and privileges of US citizenship. Me too.

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Re:Corporate Freedom of Speech .... (Score:2) by sg_oneill (159032) on Thursday January 02, @02:18AM (#4997227) (http://guild.murdoch.edu.au/)

Its a parody. dowethics.com is a yes-man site.

[ Reply to This | Parent ]

The provider, Verio, graciously complied with our letter citing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Not only did they shut down Dow-Chemical.com, but as a good corporate citizen, they agreed to shut down an entire network (Thing.net) of websites many of which, while unrelated to dow-chemical.com, appear to serve no commercial purpose, being dedicated to the unproductive analysis and critique of society and corporate behaviour.

Re:But, did you know the net is only for commerce? (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 01, @12:59PM (#4994119)

that's from the parody web page you ...

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Re:But, did you know the net is only for commerce? (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 01, @01:03PM (#4994136)

Hence the problem. People that don't pay attention get confused easily.

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Re:But, did you know the net is only for commerce? (Score:5, Insightful) by outsider007 (115534) on Wednesday January 01, @01:07PM (#4994161)

basically this whole story is a troll and people will be falling for it for the next 24 hours or so. good times.

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Re:But, did you know the net is only for commerce? (Score:2, Informative) by PNut_Head (631216) on Wednesday January 01, @01:15PM (#4994179)

What gets me here is that, get this, from Dow's own web site: Actually, that is not from 'Dow's own web site'. It's from a site that is set up to look almost exactly like one sponsored, maintained or supported by DOW. It's not. It's an example of parody gone too far. There doesn't even seem to be a disclaimer about the entire site being parody. The original post does however mention that the submitter was fooled as you were. It seems you did a good job and RTFA, but should have spent a little more time to RTFP more carefully.

[ Reply to This | Parent ]

Re:But, did you know the net is only for commerce? (Score:5, Insightful) by mat catastrophe (105256) on Wednesday January 01, @01:47PM (#4994274) (http://matrophe.freeshell.org/)

Um, no. The above quotations are from DOW Ethics.com [dowethics.com], which is obviously one of the parody sites. I say obviously, because I do not for one hot second think that anyone here can or should defend DOW Chemical in this matter. Yes, The Onion is an obvious parody, but not because of the disclaimers or the site design, but because of the content. And don't pull out your tired and elitist "Joe Average" arguments, because Joe Average is probably not surfing the DOW chemical websites anyway. Those sites are for investors and business types and if they aren't smart enough to tell when they are being had, well, fuck 'em. These are very strange times we live in today, and strange times call for strange measures. Yes, the parody people took some extreme steps (ripping off corporate design, registering similar domain names) but that's what it might take to get attention. And it certainly did get some attention, now didn't it? How many of you would even be thinking about the policies and procedures of DOW chemicals today if it weren't for this story? Probably three of you. Certainly not me, I'm nursing a headache from lack of sleep.

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Re:But, did you know the net is only for commerce? (Score:2) by LostCluster (625375) on Wednesday January 01, @10:47PM (#4996597)

Congratulations... you just hammered another nail into The Yes Men's coffin. You just bought a statement that didn't come from Dow, but actually came from a parody site. You then turned around and reported it to the Slashdot audience as if it really was a position statement released by Dow. This is exactly what Dow has a right to protect itself against... from forgery that is so convincing it suckered you into thinking it was authentic. You now have a further damaged opinion of Dow Chemical. (Not that they're squeaky clean to begin with, but they're entitled to not have to get blamed for things other people claiming to be them do.) You've just proven why The Yes Men deserve to be in jail. They're nothing more than con men, just instead of taking money, they're taking away the credibility of companies they don't like.

[ Reply to This | Parent ]

Re:But, did you know the net is only for commerce? (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 01, @11:17PM (#4996723)

you are dummmmmbbbbbb if you didn't realize that is a parody.

[ Reply to This | Parent ]

• 1 reply beneath your current threshold.

Re:This is interesting... (Score:2) by Henry V .009 (518000) <marstrail AT hotmail DOT com> on Wednesday January 01, @01:31PM (#4994232) (http://slashdot.org/)

Should the government (or corporations maliciously using the legal system-->therefore government) be able to pressure ISP's about content?

[ Reply to This | Parent ]

Re:This is interesting... (Score:2) by craenor (623901) on Wednesday January 01, @01:47PM (#4994276)

They can certainly try. Bluffing is not against the law. Corporations, government, lobbyists, lawyers, churches, private individuals ... all of these groups will at times attempt to pressure others with legalize, bad press and the like.

[ Reply to This | Parent ]

Re:This is interesting... (Score:2) by Henry V .009 (518000) <marstrail AT hotmail DOT com> on Wednesday January 01, @01:59PM (#4994333) (http://slashdot.org/)

Ah, but what about frivilous law suits and spurious DMCA ceast and desist letters. You don't see how that might have a chilling effect [chillingeffects.org] on speech?

[ Reply to This | Parent ]

Re:This is interesting... (Score:2) by octalgirl (580949) on Wednesday January 01, @03:06PM (#4994592) (Last Journal: Tuesday October 01, @07:53AM)

Your ISP doesn't necessarily have to put up with that. They also have a right to decide what content they will host on their servers. You miss the point - they didn't take the site down (a customer of theirs for many years) because they wanted to, they took it down because they were forced to after being hit with the DMCA. The safe harbor provisions in the DMCA makes them take it down, or be sued themselves. To me this all equals web censorship. Whether the site is right or wrong, there were other ways Dow could have approached this - they went for the 'Let's silence our enemy' tactic.

[ Reply to This | Parent ]

Re:This is interesting... (Score:2) by HiThere (15173) <{ten.knilhtrae} {ta} {nsxihselrahc}> on Wednesday January 01, @04:41PM (#4995050)

The Parody site was a bit over the line. They were attempting to confuse the reader into believing that they were DOW. (I was confused. The author of the story was confused. etc. And I had been warned.) OTOH, the actions of the Yes Men were in no way as reprehensible as the response from DOW. This is similar to the protest at Bhophal. DOW had done what it was legally required to do, so the protest could be seen by DOW as unjust. But it doesn't even compare in magnitude with the response from DOW. Suing the protestors for 10 years income is vile beyond words. These are people that they (via their surrogate, Union Carbide) have already poisoned, and that happened to survive. There is no way to describe how viley malicious I believe the management and legal staff of DOW to be. They are good evidence that corporations should only be chartered for a limited period of time, and that the charters should NOT be renewable. They are good evidence that management of corporations should be held personally responsible for the deeds of the corporation. Probably also the members of the board, who, after all, are charged with oversight. Corporations that engage in acts as vile as that should have their charters revoked immediately, with forfeiture of all assets. The victims should be paid first (NOT the government, but the people who were injured), and then the stockholders. And this includes confiscating the wealth of the members of the board and the upper-management. Any "golden parachutes" should be included in the confiscation. Legal? Of couse what I'm proposing isn't legal. Who writes the *** laws that let vile *** get away with things like this? An accident is one thing, but this response is unconsciousable.

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Should ink manufacturers get in too? (Score:2) by abe ferlman (205607) <mailto:bgtrio%20@%20y%20a%20h%20o%20o%20.%20com> on Wednesday January 01, @04:39PM (#4995037) (http://www.geocities.com/bgtrio | Last Journal: Friday December 28, @11:38AM)

Just think of all the middle men who are critical to you saying anything in print, but who are being left out of the veto chain. Ink manufacturers, paper manufacturers, font foundries, phone companies, monitor manufacturers, disk manufacturers, etc. I didn't click the EULA on the fscking first amendment, so I'd appreciate it if the government would stop writing laws that give corporations the right to decide whether my speech is reasonable or not. If it's a business they're running, they should stick to their business and stay out of mine.

[ Reply to This | Parent ]

Re:Should ink manufacturers get in too? (Score:1) by antistuff (233076) on Wednesday January 01, @09:10PM (#4996306) (http://srpunk.tripod.com/)

can you please explain your sig

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Re:Should ink manufacturers get in too? (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 01, @11:01PM (#4996651)

can you please explain your sig Sure, but I'm posting anonymously since this is obviously off topic here. It's a response to the idea that the GPL (General Public License - see www.gnu.org for info) is "viral" so we should use a different license for free software - the one most often offered as an alternative is the BSD license, because it allows the creation of non-free derivative works (hence, the derivative works don't catch the "freedom virus", get it?) But the only difference between the GPL license and the BSD license is that with the BSD license, you are allowed to make a derivative work and stop others from redistributing the combined work, but with the GPL you are not. So the only advantage of the BSD license is that you are free to restrict the freedoms of others by making closed-source and patent-encumbered derivative works, but that this freedom is non-viral; that is, for any derivative work in question, once you've used the freedom, it's all gone- there's none left for anyone else.

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Re:Should ink manufacturers get in too? (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 02, @12:41AM (#4996973)

Now that youve explained it, its kinda funny.

[ Reply to This | Parent ]

Re:This is interesting... (Score:2) by ftobin (48814) on Wednesday January 01, @08:57PM (#4996260) (http://www.neverending.org/~ftobin/)

I take it you don't believe in the value of common carrier laws for telephone providers? Do you think that telephone companies should be able to filter what you talk about on the telephone? Granted, ISP's are not common carriers (yet; there is debate about this), but in my mind, there is great value in having conduits of information not allowed to discriminate based upon the content of the information.

[ Reply to This | Parent ]

In the case of the "Yes Men" the attempt seems to be using parody and satire to effect social activism. This, in itself, is not a bad or uncommon thing. However, if one is going to do this, one has to make sure the creation is actually satire.

The main tool that they use on the web appears to be 'Reamweaver', a tool to copy a website and modify in small ways. From the Reamweaver website we have
Reamweaver has everything you need to instantly "funhouse-mirror" anyone's website, copying the real-time "look and feel" but letting you change any words, images, etc. that you choose.
and
Use Reamweaver for fun, or, if you like, for lots of fun... by obtaining speaking opportunities on behalf of your adopted organization. Here's how to that:
1. (Optional) Register a domain not too different from your target's domain - e.g. we-forum.org, world-economic-forum.com, wtoo.org, rncommittee.org .
2. Put Reamweaver on your domain.
3. Tell search engines about your domain.
4. When invitations arrive, accept them!
This does not seem to a tool conducive to satire. This appears to be a tool that is to be used to misrepresent, decieve, and ultimately allow an individual to go into the community as the perceived representative of the company under attack.

Social activism is good. Trying to create a better world is good. However, when you invite a person from Dow Chemical to your office, one would expect that the person is actually from dow chemical. Furthermore, I am not sure I would equate the Reamweaver technique to a person who registers a slightly misspelled domain name and then puts up tons of pop ups and installs viruses when some unsuspecting visitors accidently hits the site.

I understand that the intention of the Yes Men are probably just. I understand that they are probably good people,. However, copying someone else's website and representing it as your own is not good. It is one thing to rip other artists CDs for personal use. It is another thing to rip those CDs and then sell the copies. It is yet another thing to rip those CDs change a few seconds, and then represent the tracks as your own. What they are doing might be peaceful disobendience. It does not seem to be satire

Re:The Yes Men could be at fault (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 01, @01:18PM (#4994189)

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Re:The Yes Men could be at fault (Score:2, Flamebait) by Henry V .009 (518000) <marstrail AT hotmail DOT com> on Wednesday January 01, @01:29PM (#4994221) (http://slashdot.org/)

Oh, God. Copying a website and changing it in small ways for humorous result. That wouldn't be something called parody would it? I've heard of parody. It sounds awful. I hope it's banned. I'm going to write my Congressman asking for a new division of the police force especially designed to break into people's houses looking for this thing called parody. I mean, a company could actually lose PROFIT over a thing like this!

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Re:The Yes Men could be at fault (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 01, @01:35PM (#4994247)

You must be the funny guy who ran the "parody" website http://www.paypaI.com right, which "parodied" the graphics and login of http://www.paypal.com ? Damn that was hilarious when you stole all those people's money. Ha ha ha. Information wants to be free!

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Re:The Yes Men could be at fault (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 01, @01:40PM (#4994256)

Oh, shit. Copying a website and changing it in small ways for silly result. That wouldn't be something called misrepresentaion would it? I've heard of misrepresentaion. It sounds bad. I hope it's outlawed. I'm going to write my Congressperson asking for a new division of the police force especially designed to bust into people's houses looking for this thing called misrepresentation. I mean, a company could actually lose PROFIT over a thing like this! -- ...in the Fox News-Wall Street Journal editorial page-Rush Limbaugh echo chamber.--Martin Peretz, New Repubic

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Re:The Yes Men could be at fault (Score:2) by Henry V .009 (518000) <marstrail AT hotmail DOT com> on Wednesday January 01, @01:49PM (#4994282) (http://slashdot.org/)

You, sir, have just found the root password to the first ammendment. I commend you. Let's outlaw parody just in case someone uses it for misrepresentation. In fact, hell, outlaw the internet too--I mean people use that for kiddie porn.

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Re:The Yes Men could be at fault (Score:2) by Psion (2244) on Wednesday January 01, @02:10PM (#4994384) (http://www.psidonia.org/)

Perhaps you could better understand the situation if someone put up the Henry V .009 Child Pornography Photo Archive Web Site. I'm sure everyone who visited would understand that you wouldn't possibly do anything like this and that it must therefore be parody itself! Or would it be something else...?

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Re:The Yes Men could be at fault (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 01, @02:18PM (#4994416)

Ummm no, not really. What makes this parody is the fact that they didn't commit any crime (like posting childporn) in Dow's name. What they DID was make a statement in the companies name that was so honest that anyone with two braincells should have realized that there was no way Dow would have said that. Okay, fuckedcompany.com fell for it but then we're talking about PUD here.

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Re:The Yes Men could be at fault (Score:2) by Henry V .009 (518000) <marstrail AT hotmail DOT com> on Wednesday January 01, @02:23PM (#4994434) (http://slashdot.org/)

The government should go after the people who put up a kiddie porn site, of course. As long as they can do it without stepping on my rights. On the other hand, the government would do more damage than good attempting to regulate misrepresentation. Who gets to decide what crosses the line and what doesn't? In most cases, the government is not competant to decide it. Outright fraud is slightly different, but that violates other laws.

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Re:The Yes Men could be at fault (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 02, @02:06PM (#5000231)

They would be fine if they put a disclaimer on the page somewhere that says "this is a parody". They didn't, because their hatred for DOW chemical led them to intentionally try to trick people into thinking that DOW chemical said the things in the press release. If you don't see how this is wrong, please send me your real name and address so I can start sending fraudulent letters to people signed with your name and company logo. I don't give a damn about DOW's profits, but I do think that they deserve to be afforded the same rights you and I possess.

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Re:The Yes Men could be at fault (Score:2) by Henry V .009 (518000) <marstrail AT hotmail DOT com> on Thursday January 02, @03:04PM (#5000755) (http://slashdot.org/)

Corporations deserve the same rights as human beings? But there is another problem with your reasoning. Where is the bright line between parody and misrepresentation? If there is only a gray area, you are going to have to wind up banning otherwise legal speech in order to protect Dow. That's not worth it.

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DMC eh? (Score:1) by jeeryg_flashaccess (456261) on Thursday January 02, @02:43AM (#4997276) (Last Journal: Wednesday November 27, @05:29PM)

So the dow-checmical.com website was put up only to be taken down a short time later. Hmmm, they could have planned THAT better...and they did! Reamweaver seems to serve a malicious purpose to those who use it for that. Consider that it may have been their intent to "violate" the DMCA just to get exposure (PRESS coverage). So what is the question that every activist should be asking themselves right now? It's... "How can the DMCA help my cause?"

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Re:The Yes Men could be at fault (Score:2) by herbierobinson (183222) on Thursday January 02, @04:41AM (#4997468) (http://www.curbside-recording.com/hrmusic/index.html)

But they didn't try to claim the web site was their own. They tried to make people think it was DOW's! Other posters have already pointed out that the Yes Men's descriptions of DOW's response to the Bhopal disaster appear to be much more accurate than DOW's own public statements.

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the mafioso mentality continues to spread. It must be nice as a stock holder, to have someone like this, who will make money for you without any heavy duty ethical pondering on you part.

Flush the toilet before it backs up ..... oops, too late.

Re:Didja all catch... (Score:2) by Lysol (11150) on Wednesday January 01, @01:25PM (#4994210)

Yah, and for compensation for the deaths, UC only paid out around $300-$400 each. Beyond sad. Of course, you have to wonder what part the Indian govt. had to do with all this. I mean, they closed the case in '91 or whenever it was and stated that they thought it was fair. Dow's corporate free speech thing is a load of garbage. However, one has to wonder, even tho they aren't the best, they bought someone else that did something and i'm not sure how i feel about them having to do deal with it. On the other hand, it only seems natural and a way to make them look like they really do care if they went in and pre-emptively made things better.. But of course, they is rarely the case for any global entity.

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Re:Didja all catch... (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 01, @02:00PM (#4994334)

I think the funny thing is that the world press went along with this eco-terrorist attack against the chemical industry. The evidence of sabotage, while quite clear, was supressed. The Bhopal plant was creating fertilizer. You know, the stuff used to prevent mass starvation by increasing food crops. However, mass starvation is a wonderfull tool for maintining power. Now let the slashtards reply.

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Re:Didja all catch... (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 01, @02:21PM (#4994429)

Any links to your statement of sabotage? It's the first time I heard about it. But even IF it was Sabotage the fact remains that the soil got contaminated and that people died. Dow (or UC) should have cleaned up the mess and stuck the bill to whoever did the sabotage (if there was one).

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Re:Didja all catch... (Score:3, Insightful) by MrResistor (120588) <mailto:petehoff@pac[%20]l.net%20['bel'%20in%20gap]> on Wednesday January 01, @02:01PM (#4994341) (http://slashdot.org/)

When Dow bought UC, they bought their messes too, just like if you marry someone with bad credit. Interesting point about the Indian government, though.

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Re:Didja all catch... (Score:2) by j3110 (193209) <sam AT techstacy DOT org> on Wednesday January 01, @01:58PM (#4994328) (http://slashdot.org/)

You can, and it doesn't have to be an American citizen that got it either. As long as the board members are in the US, you can bring them up on charges. They'll pin them on an Indian exec, but the company will have to hold it's head in shame from the publicity. That's why there are conspiracy crimes (conspiracy to commit murder etc.) and accessory crimes (even if they know what would happen, they are accessories since they have the power to stop it).

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Re:Didja all catch... (Score:2, Interesting) by sedmonds (94908) on Wednesday January 01, @02:52PM (#4994530)

1> Union Carbide plant suffers catastrophic incident, resulting in hundreds and thousands of injuries to employees and families. 2> Dow Chemical purchases Union Carbide plant. 3> Dow Chemical CEO should pe bunished for the accident. What are you smoking to get that conclusion from the first two events? Yes, its horrible that people were injured and died as a result of the industrial accident. Its pretty rotten to sue the victims and their families for disrupting work. Its disturbing that idiots will personal harm to the officers and representatives of Dow for an accident which occured at a plant BEFORE THEY OWNED IT. Even so, holding a CEO responsible for every occurance involving every job site is insane. In cases where the CEO had prior knowledge, sure, but making the assumption that every officer of every company knows every detail of business in a company employing tens of thousands worldwide is laughable. It may look a lot nicer on your 5 o'clock news to see corporate officer Joe hauled away in handcuffs, but it doesn't satisfy justice pinning everything on just the officers. Justice is satisfied by the prosecution of the offenders. Those who commited crimes, or exercised -unreasonable- negligence.

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Re:Didja all catch... (Score:1) by j h woodyatt (13108) <jhw@wetware.com> on Wednesday January 01, @04:14PM (#4994892) (http://www.wetware.com/jhw | Last Journal: Thursday December 05, @06:56PM)

| 1> Union Carbide plant suffers catastrophic incident, resulting in | hundreds and thousands of injuries to employees and families. | | 2> Dow Chemical purchases Union Carbide plant. | | 3> Dow Chemical CEO should pe bunished for the accident. | | What are you smoking to get that conclusion from the first two events? DOW Chemical didn't just purchase the plant. They purchased the entire company- including all its liabilities as well as its assets. Is this whole "corporate enterprise" thing a new concept to you? --

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Re:Didja all catch... (Score:1) by sedmonds (94908) on Wednesday January 01, @05:56PM (#4995471)

So by your thinking then any industrial accident would result in that company never being sold again? Who would purchase a company if doing so meant that it was legally their fault the accident happened in the first place? And would these companies never again have a CEO? Of course not, thats just plain stupid. If Joe Blow became the CEO of Ford tomorrow, would that mean that he should be prosecuted for exploding pinto's? Of course not, thats fucking ridiculus. Joe blow had nothing to do with any phase of the exploding pinto. It happened before he became CEO. If Chrysler purchased Ford tomorrow, should Jurgen E Schrempp be personally prosecuted, either criminally or civilly, for the exploding pinto's? Of course not, no sane human being would claim he should. So why is it you seem to think that the CEO of Dow should be punished for an accident which occured before Dow purchased Union Carbide? I truly don't understand how he had any involvement whatsoever in the incident. Yes, Dow did sign on for the liabilities of the former Union Carbide. But that does absolutely nothing for justifying why the CEO of Dow should be held personally responsible for the Union Carbide accident.

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Re:Didja all catch... (Score:1) by snol (175626) on Wednesday January 01, @08:15PM (#4996105)

Perhaps what you're missing is that it's rare for ANY person to be civilly or criminally prosecuted for the actions of a corporation. The disincentive for corporations to do illegal things is almost always a fine or lawsuit against the corporation itself - part of the miracle called "limited liability." Owners' (shareholders') and only consequence when their company behaves badly is that their stock is devalued; CEOs stand to lose their jobs if the consequences to the shareholders are bad enough. I believe what the original poster was getting at was that this system of punishment for misbehaving corporations is often an ineffective deterrent to bad behavior; it would be better if those responsible for the bad decisions were punished as individuals more often. btw I don't think he specifically said it was the CEO of Dow that should be punished.

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Re:Didja all catch... (Score:2) by FFFish (7567) on Wednesday January 01, @08:44PM (#4996216) (http://slashdot.org/)

Indeed, I meant the CEO of UC should be in the clink. But, noooo, the bastard got away with mass murder.

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Re:Didja all catch... (Score:1) by Mike A. (19999) on Wednesday January 01, @09:08PM (#4996299) (http://tharkun.dyndns.org/)

Mass manslaughter, actually. Murder requires the specific intent to kill - negligence that results in death is called manslaughter.

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Unfortunately for him... (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 01, @04:15PM (#4994896)

The CEO of DOW is probably the same bloke that was CEO of Union Carbide..! Well, maybe not, but don't you think that the CEO of DOW didn't know of it? And, knowing of these actions, did he reduce compensation/fire the ass of the CEO of Union Carbide? No? then he's still culpable. Remember, CEOs get post of money, because the buck stops there, and he's in a demanding job. Correct?

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Re:Didja all catch... (Score:2) by HiThere (15173) <{ten.knilhtrae} {ta} {nsxihselrahc}> on Wednesday January 01, @04:20PM (#4994909)

Who sued the survivors because they protested? That b*d should be hung by his feet. Low over an anthill.

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Re:Didja all catch... (Score:2) by Black Copter Control (464012) <samuel-local AT bcgreen DOT com> on Wednesday January 01, @09:46PM (#4996419) (http://www.bcgreen.com/)

3> Dow Chemical CEO should pe bunished for the accident. What are you smoking to get that conclusion from the first two events? Yes, its horrible that people were injured and died as a result of the industrial accident. Its pretty rotten to sue the victims and their families for disrupting work...... First of all: The victims didn't disrupt work .. other than for the one employee who came out to talk to them (his choice). It's not the accident that I consider Dow to be responsible for: It's their continuing refusal to scoop the poo resulting from their industrial 'accident'. People are still dying by the chemicals released at Bhopal. Dow inherited responsibility for those continuing deaths. In suing the survivers, they are now wilfully adding to the woes of the victims of Bhopal. I am not my dog, but if my dog dumps shit on my neighbour's property, and I refuse to pick it up, then I'm the one who's going to get the ticket, not my dog. Union Carbide refused to clean up their mess. Dow, in merging with UC, also absorbed UC's responsibility. The CEO of Dow gets millions of dollars a year to take responsibility for the actions of the company. It's time for him to earn his keep.

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Re:Didja all catch... (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 01, @02:52PM (#4994534)

I'm glad some people are actually reading the news behind this and rather than getting all involved with the lawyer speak and usual slashdotter obession with DMCA, actually getting annoyed about this companies disgracefull actions. One thing you should all be doing if this shocks you is emailing your finance guys at work and asking them to check that your pension fund doesnt invest in this company, and if you cant be bothered to do that, its no good complaining about the excesses of corporate america...

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Re:Didja all catch... (Score:2) by FFFish (7567) on Wednesday January 01, @03:12PM (#4994628) (http://slashdot.org/)

Good plan. Mod this feller up!

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Re:Didja all catch... (Score:4, Interesting) by kaphka (50736) <1nv7b001@sneakemail.com> on Wednesday January 01, @04:51PM (#4995106)

...that bit about DOW suing the families that were destroyed/hurt by their Bhopal disaster? How do we know that that story isn't another "parody"? I can find no reference [google.com] to it outside of Greenpeace [greenpeace.org] (which is not high on my list of reliable news sources,) and it seems even more absurd than The Yes Men's original forged press release. Half of the "informative" posts on this article cite anti-Dow hoaxes as "facts," and use them to justify their opposition to Dow's attempts to suppress hoaxes. If that doesn't prove libel, I don't know what could. (Having said that, I can't see what any of this has to do with the DMCA. But hey, libel cases are expensive. Why bother suing, when you can just say the magic words and make any website dissappear?)

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Re:Didja all catch... (Score:1) by code shady (637051) on Wednesday January 01, @10:43PM (#4996584)

You [bhopal.com] must [bhopal.net] not [google.com] have [bhopal.org] looked [ucaqld.com.au] very [american.edu] hard [chemsafety.gov]. The bhopal disater is a well documented, widley known example of a horrible environmental disater. --

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Re:Didja all catch... (Score:1) by TheMidget (512188) on Thursday January 02, @07:22AM (#4997749)

(Having said that, I can't see what any of this has to do with the DMCA. But hey, libel cases are expensive. Why bother suing, when you can just say the magic words and make any website dissappear?) Next hoax: send a fake DMCA letter to the provider of the real dow site. If spun right, this could be mucho fun (just pretend that dow-chemical.com is the real site, and dow is the forgery...). Caution: Use an open proxy [rosinstrument.com] when pulling this off. Indeed impersonating a lawyer is a serious crime in most jurisdictions...

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Re:Something is up here... (Score:1) by GigsVT (208848) on Wednesday January 01, @02:42PM (#4994494) (http://www.electronicschat.org/ | Last Journal: Saturday December 21, @07:32PM)

You apparently haven't read the DMCA. If your ISP gets a DMCA complaint, to avoid liability, they must take your site down, until you respond to the complaint. The anti-circumvention clause isn't the only part people don't like about the DMCA.

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Re:"peaceful protest" (Score:3, Insightful) by phorm (591458) on Wednesday January 01, @01:58PM (#4994325) (http://www.phormix.com/ | Last Journal: Friday September 27, @05:10PM)

If someone showed up at my company's door with deadly chemicals, we'd have to shut the place down for security reasons, at a cost to the business. However, Dow is dumping those same chemicals on somebody else's doorstep. They're just being nice enough to return them for analysis...

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DOW didn't do anything wrong; however... (Score:2) by StupidKatz (467476) on Wednesday January 01, @02:46PM (#4994509)

In truth, DOW did nothing wrong. They should, however, clean up the messes that Union Carbide left behind. Frankly, I'd hardly call delivering TOXIC WASTE to a public place a "peaceful protest". I never really liked Greenpeace, and this reminds me why.

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Re:DOW didn't do anything wrong; however... (Score:1) by phorm (591458) on Wednesday January 01, @04:00PM (#4994842) (http://www.phormix.com/ | Last Journal: Friday September 27, @05:10PM)

Depends on how it was delivered I suppose. I don't think they were throwing at anyone... if they calmly handed it over in a radiation-sealed container it wouldn't be a huge deal (I'm hoping they didn't just carry the stuff bare handed over there).

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Re:DOW didn't do anything wrong; however... (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 01, @04:19PM (#4994904)

DOW *did* buy the company (all it's assets, and all it's liabilities). Or didn't the CEO of DOW know about this?

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Re:DOW didn't do anything wrong; however... (Score:1) by Platinum Dragon (34829) on Wednesday January 01, @06:29PM (#4995667) (http://platinumdragon.ca/ | Last Journal: Friday February 08, @03:10AM)

I never really liked Greenpeace, and this reminds me why. Except this wasn't a Greenpeace action. This was 200 women, who live on the land contaminated by the Union Carbide accident, trying to get someone, anyone (preferably the company that purchased the polluter, and thus took up its liabilities and responsibilities) to put in some money and help clean up the land. The government clearly failed to do it, despite getting money from Dow already according to some other posters. What else are they supposed to do? I don't think this is the first protest that has taken place, and if that land is still toxic waste, someone has clearly failed in their responsibility to clean it up. Why should the Indian government have to do it, when Union Carbide made the mess? Since Dow bought Union Carbide, isn't Dow responsible? Milton Friedman forbid we hold corporations responsible for anything but making money...

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Re:"peaceful protest" (Score:1) by eyeball (17206) on Wednesday January 01, @04:54PM (#4995124) (http://www.spacehaven.com/ | Last Journal: Thursday November 14, @03:08PM)

However, Dow is dumping those same chemicals on somebody else's doorstep. They're just being nice enough to return them for analysis... My mom always taught me that two wrongs don't make a right.

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Two wrongs, three wrongs? (Score:1) by phorm (591458) on Wednesday January 01, @05:14PM (#4995239) (http://www.phormix.com/ | Last Journal: Friday September 27, @05:10PM)

But three lefts make a right... and vise versa. I guess 3 wrong turns would make a right also? :-)

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Re:"peaceful protest" (Score:1) by bheerssen (534014) on Wednesday January 01, @02:01PM (#4994339) (about:mozilla)

You shouldn't anthropomorphize corporations so much. It only encourages them ;) But seriously, what other way is there to get a corporation's attention? Corporations, by their very nature, are only interested in making money. Sometimes by every means available, however nefarious, as is the case regarding Union Carbide in Bhopal. In order to effect social justice and corporate responsibilty, the corporation must be penalized fiscally or they will never change. The profit motive is lacking otherwise. And that, sadly, is the only motive that corporations respond to.

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How does it feel to be sheep? (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 01, @03:40PM (#4994764)

Why do you think that people have less rights than corporations? Corporate US can breathe easier knowing people like you are there to jerk their knees to defend them. Why don't you say "Baaa Baaa" after every post just to remind yourself of what you do and why?

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Re:"peaceful protest" (Score:0) by nsuccorso (41169) on Wednesday January 01, @03:50PM (#4994802)

Dow may be wrong or negligent in compensating the survivors, but protesters causing a business to loose money to gain their attention or try and get them to change their action is about as effective as spanking a child when they don't eat their peas. Actually, they were completely unsuccessfuly at getting the business to loose money from their coffers to clean up the mess caused by Union Carbide. The money remained securely where it was before. Therefore, the basis for you criticism seems to be voided!

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So let me get this straight... (Score:2) by Newer Guy (520108) on Wednesday January 01, @03:52PM (#4994820)

1 Dow contaminates the soil. 2 The women scoop up the souil that DOW HAS CONTAMINATED and brings it back to Dow. 3 Dow sues the women for returing the soil that THEY (Dow) contaminated. And you think that Dow's right here? Expect to get a call form ther president offering you a job, 'cause you're no better then him!

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Re:So let me get this straight... (Score:2) by the eric conspiracy (20178) <slashNO@SPAMehlarson.com> on Wednesday January 01, @04:31PM (#4994979)

And you think that Dow's right here? Yes, I do. The waste was not delivered to Dow as a corporation in some abstract sense - it wss delivered to a bunch of poor working stiffs trying to make a living. The fact that they work for Dow does NOT make them a free target for an assualt like this.

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Troll Alert! (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 01, @04:46PM (#4995086)

I think you're trolling at this point, but: (1) You're saying that Dow employees are not representatives of Dow because they're "poor working stiffs"? (2) What "assault"? Returning Dow property (spilled chemicals) to a Dow office? What the fuck? Do you as a person expect to be able to walk down the street, randomly shooting pedestrians - and when the police turn up claim to be a "poor working stiff"? ("Oh! well, that's alright then, carry on shooting people".) No. This would not happen. So why should Dow have the manufactured freedom to kill thousands of people and escape any responsibility for their actions?

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Re:Troll Alert! (Score:2) by MWoody (222806) on Wednesday January 01, @08:15PM (#4996101) (http://mwoody.com/)

(I hesitate to respond, as I suspect this is some sort of weird reverse-psychology troll, but WTF) OK, so when you, as an American (I'm assuming), are assassinated for our actions overseas by a random terrorist, I certainly hope your relatives feel the same way. We certainly hope they won't go crying that you were just an innocent civilian/working stiff who just happened to belong to the organization/country with which the killers had a problem. After all, if you had problems with the conduct of the organization as a whole, you'd have moved/quit. The simple fact is that corporations the size of DOW employ tens of thousands of people, the vast majority of which are not only innocent, but most likely completely unaware of any corporate misconduct. There are people here who deserve to have biological waste shoveled down their pants, but the chance of them being the same people who have to accept this crap when it's dropped on their workplace doorstep are very slim.

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Re:Troll Alert! (Score:2) by the eric conspiracy (20178) <slashNO@SPAMehlarson.com> on Wednesday January 01, @09:39PM (#4996396)

After all, if you had problems with the conduct of the organization as a whole, you'd have moved/quit. So if some terrorist decides that my country has offended him in some gross way, and kills me because I happen to be a citizen of that country, it is my fault for not leaving that country? Are you totally cracked? Insane? Nuts? Sure, there are plenty of things I don't agree with in the way my country conducts itself. But does that mean I must leave the country? What a crock! Haven't you ever heard of the concept of trying to change things as a constructive member of society? The fact of the matter is that there will ALWAYS be somebody that has an axe to grind against any large organization. There is no country on Earth that is satisfactory to every human on the face of the planet. So if you feel this action is ok, then we are consigned to random violence and anarchy forever. The question is how are you going to resolve the problem. Is killing randown citizens (and yes children who have no say in where they live) the answer? If you think yes, then you have eschewed every civilized principle that seperates modern man from primitive.

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Re:Troll Alert! (Score:1) by MWoody (222806) on Thursday January 02, @02:02AM (#4997187) (http://mwoody.com/)

It was sarcasm. Read the parent (by Anonymous Coward, unless I've screwed up my reply). Read my reply. Take an English class. Realize we agree.

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Re:Troll Alert! (Score:2) by the eric conspiracy (20178) <slashNO@SPAMehlarson.com> on Wednesday January 01, @09:27PM (#4996368)

(1) You're saying that Dow employees are not representatives of Dow because they're "poor working stiffs"? Yup. They had NOTHING to do with the decisions made by Union Carbide some 25-30 years ago when this Bhopal facility was being planned. Making some low level employee of one company accountable for the actions of another company acquired in a financial transaction is the most perverse, twisted notion I have ever encountered. (2) What "assault"? Returning Dow property (spilled chemicals) to a Dow office? Yup. Somebody dropping chemical waste into my immediate environment surely qualifies as an assault on me. Do you as a person expect to be able to walk down the street, randomly shooting pedestrians Nope. Now please explain to me how this has anything with a receptionist working for Dow in India. So why should Dow have the manufactured freedom to kill thousands of people and escape any responsibility for their actions? Dow didn't kill any of these people. A company that Dow acquired 2 years ago in a financial transaction made some mistakes - and Dow now inherits the liabilities associated with those mistakes. That does not justify criminal acts against Dow in any way.

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Re:Troll Alert! (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 01, @11:17PM (#4996725)

You probably missed some of the back story of why the protestors delived the contaminated dirt to Dow so let me fill you in. Dow chemical has held the position that the soil was perfectly safe for living on and growing things on so they refused to pay for the clean up of the soil, The people who live in the affected area are too poor to fight Dow in the legal arena so they think, "hey, if Dow thinks this soil is perfectly fine and safe they won't mind if we give them some of it." Now cut to where Dow is sueing the people who delivered the dirt for trying to poison them with the contaminated dirt, now try to notice the comical irony.

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Re:Troll Alert! (Score:1) by ReaperOfSouls (523060) on Thursday January 02, @12:02AM (#4996859)

Yup. They had NOTHING to do with the decisions made by Union Carbide some 25-30 years ago when this Bhopal facility was being planned. Correct, but they are now responsible for the enviornmental impact, that the plant has caused. If you choose to work for a corperation that does not own up to its responsibilities and are aware of this, ethically you are as guilty as the CEO. Making some low level employee of one company accountable for the actions of another company acquired in a financial transaction is the most perverse, twisted notion I have ever encountered. No one made the single Dow employee that ventured out in the to Bombay parking lot acountable. Neither did any of the protesters hurl the tainted soil at the "poor working stiff". There was no physical attack of any sort. Nor was the the employee halled of in shackles because of the sins of his employer. Yup. Somebody dropping chemical waste into my immediate environment surely qualifies as an assault on me. The protesters were not inside the building. They didn't scoop up the tainted soil and plop it on any one's desk. They didn't drop bits in the coffee filters. In essance, for the past two years, the protesters, have been forced to live in the waste that dow is so fearful of. And obviously that was the point of the protest. The protesters brought a sample of the tainted soil as a symbol, if the company's employees would not have anything to do with it, why should those souls have to live in it? The point of the matter is that Dow does not feel it is responsible for the results of negligence and ineptitue that its purchased company commited. If Dow had just purchased UC rescently and pledged to clean up the mess, I would agree that they have no copablility here, but the fact of the matter is that they have owned UC for nearly two years. They have made no efferts to clean up the mess and completely renounced any responsibility in cleaning up the mess. Dow didn't kill any of these people. A company that Dow acquired 2 years ago in a financial transaction made some mistakes - and Dow now inherits the liabilities associated with those mistakes. Yes you are correct, they did not kill the anyone due to the original spill, but in the the past 2 years they have, through negligence, continued to forgo the oppertinuty to make right what was the responsibility of the company it purchased. As you stated, they now own the liability of UC, which they currently deny responibility for. That does not justify criminal acts against Dow in any way. There were no criminal charges brough forward. Dow is suing for time lost. It is a tort, not a criminal acusation. If they were violent, or destructive in this case, Dow's actions would not be so deplorable. The fact of the matter is they did not stand in the way of Dow going about its business. Peacefully protesting the criminal neglect commited by a corperation should always be protected. Bottom line. Dow bought UC, because of its profit potential. Actually last year Dow's revenues raised nearly 5%. The survivors of the tragedy, cannot sue UC. UC is now part of dow, and because of that fact dow is now responsible for cleaning up.

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Re:"peaceful protest" (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 01, @04:57PM (#4995147)

What would you do if (this is conjecture): (1) A chemical comapny turns up at your HOME. (2) A chemical company dumps chemical waste in your GARDEN, STREET, LIVING ROOM, BEDROOM and DRINKING WATER (if that seems unrealistic, think of the fumes from a chemical spill - you can't escape). (3) You have nowhere else to go, you are in abject poverty. You breathe the fumes for several days trying to salvage your life's posessions and work out what's going on. (4) Everyone else living under your roof dies from chemical poisoning, somehow you survive but are crippled for live - say blind in one eye, and your lungs don't work so well now, it hurts to stand and you occasionally cough up blood. ? What would you do now ? Get a lawyer? You don't have the money. Scream blue murder to the press? They're not interested, being on the payroll of the corporation. Something tells me you're living in such a state of isolation that you don't understand the magnitude of the events that took place. Turning up on the doorstep of the chemical company (with some of those chemicals) would just about be the only thing you *could* do. Would you like fries with your Big Mac?

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Re:"peaceful protest" (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 01, @05:10PM (#4995218)

But then wouldn't the sit-ins during the civil rights era also be considered irresponsible protests? What about the bus boycotts?

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Re:"peaceful protest" (Score:1) by Siriaan (615378) on Wednesday January 01, @05:20PM (#4995284)

Exactly how did those deadly chemicals come about in the first place? We're not talking about some disgruntled employee who got fired for stealing office stationery dumping some industrial weedkiller on the front lawn, these peopl have had their live completely ruined by the negligence and sheer inhumanity of a company that refuses to take responsibility for their own messes. By acknowledging that the soil is contaminated and deadly, they also confound their guilt by tacitly admitting that there genuinely has been a ecological disaster. As for other courses of action, what the hell else are these people supposed to do? Likely they have absolutely no money to fight a legal battle and are up against a MASSIVE corporation who is probably quite adept at silencing negative publicity. How dare you suggest that this is irresponsible. A company losing some business compared to HUNDREDS of people losing their lives? What choice do these people have?

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Re:"peaceful protest" (Score:1) by Blue Stone (582566) on Wednesday January 01, @05:59PM (#4995483)

"If someone showed up at my company's door with deadly chemicals, we'd have to shut the place down for security reasons, at a cost to the business." What if they were your deadly chemicals and they were just returning your property to you, because you left it on their doorstep, and...well, didn't really give a fuck? I can only describe this action by Dow, as the act of cunts. I have nothing but contempt for them.

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Re:"peaceful protest" (Score:2) by sg_oneill (159032) on Thursday January 02, @02:28AM (#4997243) (http://guild.murdoch.edu.au/)

I can only describe this action by Dow, as the act of c*nts. I have nothing but contempt for them. Bravo. While I normally would avoid such a word, strangely this is really the only way to honestly describe it. Dow chemicals really are c*nts. They chose to be. I say someone shut THEM down. Hey isn't it amazing , in a few countries in the world, you can get brutally executed for killing people. But not if your a corporation, even if you cop 800 victims.

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Re:"peaceful protest" (Score:2) by mgblst (80109) on Wednesday January 01, @10:21PM (#4996523) (http://asmsource.cjb.com/)

From reading between the lines of the article, it appears that they are suing the protesters, and not all the survivors, for what sounds like an irresponsible protest rather than a peaceful one. If someone showed up at my company's door with deadly chemicals, we'd have to shut the place down for security reasons, at a cost to the business.   You can't see the irony in this. So you would have to shut your business down for security reasons. What about the people whose land is filled with these chemicals, what the fuck do they shut down, there houses? Who the fuck modded this post up, or has Dow somehow taken over this website too!

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Re:"peaceful protest" (Score:2) by LostCluster (625375) on Wednesday January 01, @11:42PM (#4996814)

I don't get it. Dow dumps chemicals, they get sued by the people they've harmed. Those people turn around and dump contaminated soil on Dow, and they shouldn't be sued? Sorry, being poor doesn't mean you get to torture the rich.

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Re:"peaceful protest" (Score:2) by mgblst (80109) on Thursday January 02, @09:00AM (#4998073) (http://asmsource.cjb.com/)

Yeah, they both did exactly the same thing, didn't they. The protestors were trying to make a point, that although Dow was "beaten", there are huge tracks of land still unusable, so they dump a small amount of the poisoned land on Dow. They did not create the poisoned land, in fact, they were really just returning Dow's chemicals to Dow. Can you not see the difference, or are you being deliberatly obtuse? Perhaps Dow should be forced to clean up the mess, no matter how much money it costs, and no matter how much they try to buy off the government.

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Re:"peaceful protest" (Score:1) by tanner_andrews (234838) on Thursday January 02, @11:48AM (#4998994) (http://www.payer.org/)

...they are suing the protesters, and not all the survivors, for what sounds like an irresponsible protest rather than a peaceful one. If someone showed up at my company's door with deadly chemicals, we'd have to shut the place down for security reasons, at a cost to the business. Well said.! If I dump poison in your back yard, and you bring some of the contaminated soil back to my office, I am certainly damaged in that my business is disrupted. I would reasonably expect my legal staff to attempt to recover from you. It's what the legal staff does, after all. However, there may be a problem in quantifying the damage. Since the business did not shut down, and only one employee even came out to see the protest, and that only for a short time, it is going to be rather a stretch to show damages in of $10,000.

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Re:I am truly disgusted (Score:2) by Artifex (18308) on Wednesday January 01, @02:44PM (#4994500) (Last Journal: Tuesday July 16, @12:44PM)

Dow chemical suing people who have a yearly income of $1000 for $10000 after the tragedy in Bhopal (which still hasn't been cleaned up) is so low and disgusting that one wonders what kind of snarling inhuman lunatics run that company. Greenpeace has their own spin, but. as has been stated by others here, Dow probably had to spend money to clean up the chemicals the protestors brought with them, etc. Two wrongs don't make a right. Did those protestors think about how they were spreading the environmental impact by collecting chemicals from one location and potentially contaminating another? Or just about what good press they would get? I can't carry on because I am absolutely speechless with disgust at those fucking bastards. Which ones? The ones who, having made a mistake, half-assedly tried to clean it up and then abandoned their work, or the ones deliberately trying to cause (or at least threaten) environmental harm not only to the culprit but to anyone nearby? I'm disgusted by Greenpeace's role in this. They've figuratively gone from trying to block Japanese whalers to dragging whale carcasses into a city and leaving them in front of a building where the whalers have offices, not caring that it's a public street and others would have to clean up their mess. The protesters' attitudes might have been summarized by "they messed up our backyard, let's mess up theirs," but where does that lead, except to two messed up backyards?

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Re:I am truly disgusted (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 01, @03:06PM (#4994590)

Dow is suing the protestors, who were members of greenpeace. They probably aren't even from the area. How do you know the income of the greenpeace protestors that they flew in just for that protest?

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Re:I am truly disgusted (Score:2) by HiThere (15173) <{ten.knilhtrae} {ta} {nsxihselrahc}> on Wednesday January 01, @05:04PM (#4995186)

No. This is the kind of thing that causes ordinary people to feel that the terrorists are justified. If you can't protest, what are your choices?

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Re:Play a little devils advocate. (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 01, @01:22PM (#4994197)

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Re:Play a little devils advocate. (Score:2) by EvanED (569694) <mailto:evaned@netzeroEEE.net%20minus%20threevowels> on Wednesday January 01, @02:06PM (#4994363)

I'm just pissed off that no actual newspapers seem to have covered this story... a search for "Bhopal" at nytimes.com, cnn.com, msnbc.com, washingtonpost.com, latimes.com, and Proquest (through Penn State; search terms "Bhopol AND PDN(>12/01/2002) AND PDN(01/01/2003)") yielded no relavant results. I want to know what happened... why are people hushing this up?

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Re:Play a little devils advocate. (Score:1) by bm_luethke (253362) on Wednesday January 01, @02:25PM (#4994440)

Well, the way I see it three reasons. One) there is a conspiracy. This is the least likely, too many news sources out there to only have greenpeace reporting it. I would beleive conspiracy if many were running it and the three big + cnn + fox were not running it, but I can't believe that any group has that much worldwide influence. two) thier slow. This is possible. News in india probably is not very high on thier lists unless it's REALLY bad (such as the original contamination). I would buy this three) misrepresentation. As I said greenpeace isn't really known for unbiased reporting and telling the whole story. Maybe they blew it out of proportion or misreported it. Most likely I would guess a little bit of two and three, the contamination happened a while ago, out of most people memories. It takes time to fully research what they have (and I bet if they ran mostly false reports on dow they would rightfully sue). And I bet that there is more to this story than what they are saying (from both sides).

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Re:Play a little devils advocate. (Score:2) by EvanED (569694) <mailto:evaned@netzeroEEE.net%20minus%20threevowels> on Wednesday January 01, @02:37PM (#4994481)

Well, the slow argument doesn't really hold water in my opinion; the march took place December 2. Anyone know of Indian newspapers?

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Re:Play a little devils advocate. (Score:2) by HiThere (15173) <{ten.knilhtrae} {ta} {nsxihselrahc}> on Wednesday January 01, @04:57PM (#4995146)

Too many news sources? I had heard that most of the media was owned by seven corps, but more recently I was told that there had been some mergers and it was now down to five. Still sure that there are too many sources for a conspiracy to be practical? Then try it this way. The people in control of major corporations tend to see the other people in control of major corporations as their peers, and they don't want to annoy them too much. No conspiracy needed. Just peer group pressure. Sometimes someone will be obnoxious, and print something that annoys one of his competitors or enemies. But not usually. That sound more plausible? Do you think that denying this effect sounds plausible at all? I suppose the only question would be "How strong an effect is is?" Another example of orchestrated media events is reporting on Israeli/Palestinian events in the US vs. Europe. I understand that the press in the US is dependably biased in favor of Israel, where in Europe it is dependably biased in favor of the Palestinians. If so, this would be an interesting thing to research the causes of. Genuine conspiracy is probably unlikely, but theories about group coordination without explicit agreements could probably be applied. (Consider the "bird flocks" in Tierra.)

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Re:Play a little devils advocate. (Score:1) by bm_luethke (253362) on Wednesday January 01, @08:46PM (#4996228)

no, no, no, you misunderstood what I said. The poster talked about a google search, I seriously doubt that all the web news sources are owned by five companies. Most of the large media companies are owned by a very small amount of companies, but by no means are THAT many owned by five companies (i mean there are PLENTY of non-mainstream news companies), a google search should have turned up plenty of resources.

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I am the author/submitter and... (Score:1) by tres3 (594716) <class5.pacbell@net> on Wednesday January 01, @03:51PM (#4994805) (http://lwn.net/ | Last Journal: Monday August 26, @10:51AM)

Although Dow's response is a parody the story is still valid because the story is about DOW using the DMCA to force Verio to terminate service to The Thing, RTMark, and The Yes Men. The copyright and trademark issues may or may not be valid regardless of the DMCA but it is the DMCA that provides DOW with a means to have the upstream provider cancel their service. Next: the protestors are being sued for interrupting work at the DOW offices in India not for transporting pollutants back to the corporate source. Finally: a more recent poster lays a pretty good foundation that DOW has paid everything that the courts have ordered and then some. Conclusion: This is slashdot!! It's not like this is an unbiased group of people here -- anymore than Greenpeace or The Yes Men. What we do here on slashdot is discuss, argue, debate, criticize, demean, curse, and provide links to more information so that we can all become better informed. Thanks for your contribution! In response to your response below as to why it is being covered up on the Internet how about this fact: it happened in 1984. Back then the Internet was for government and Universities only -- NOT news organizations.

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Re:I am the author/submitter and... (Score:1) by bm_luethke (253362) on Wednesday January 01, @09:00PM (#4996267)

Although Dow's response is a parody the story is still valid because the story is about DOW using the DMCA to force Verio to terminate service to The Thing, RTMark, and The Yes Men. The problem is that nearly the entierty of you r argument about this being evil is not from dow. Just because the DMCA was invoked does it make it bad, in this case it was already covered under traditional copyright law. If the links provided in the beginning had been valid then I would agree with what you said, the single response that is actually from dow is actually rather valid. Finally: a more recent poster lays a pretty good foundation that DOW has paid everything that the courts have ordered and then some. umm, ok - you just seemed to give an argument against what you said and has nothing to do with what I said (or at least what I meant, maybe I wasn't as clear as I could have been). I actually agree with greenpeace (and beleive me when I say that is about the only time I will say this in my life) that DOW got off easy, the courts did not fine them NEAR what they should (and hence the "get away with it" line). Conclusion: This is slashdot!! ohh, so since this is slashdot we should be happy to have misinformation spread around? I suppose that means reposts == slashdot == good also? Or any of the other myriad stuff one typically wades through to get anything usefull? The problem I had was just that, intentional or not, you seemed to beleive greenpeace totally correct and used "evidence" that you even knew was a farce to prove a point.

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How the DMCA got involved (Score:4, Insightful) by LostCluster (625375) on Wednesday January 01, @04:05PM (#4994867)

This kind of misrepresentation and use of Dow's trademarks in a way that makes people thing The Yes Men's site belonged to Dow has always been illegal under assorted trademark and copyright laws, and has nothing to do with the DMCA. Where the DMCA kicks in is the takedown provisions. Dow called Verio and said "Get this off the Web now!" and Verio was required to honor that request. Verio tried calling The Thing, but they weren't available because they had shut down for the day and didn't leave anyway to contact anyone in control. Verio had no way to delete the site other than to pull their whole line, so they did. Eventually The Thing pulled the illegal site, and Verio restored access. However, because The Thing caused this whole mess by not having somebody on call who could respond to the takedown demand, they downtime was theirs even though Verio is taking the blame. Verio has now decided they don't want to do business with The Thing anymore, because they don't like being blamed for their customer's inactions.

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Re:Play a little devils advocate. (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 01, @05:57PM (#4995479)

> No, even according to the greenpeace article the survivors carried contamited material to thier site - that's not legal. They were carrying Dow's OWN CHEMICALS from the mess around their homes to Dow's offices. That's just courtesy. If you put a bunch of toxic crap in my backyard, and I take some of it back to you, you have no right to complain! As for legality, if it's illegal on a small scale, it must be much more illegal on a larger scale, so fix the big problem first. Then hey, presto, there's no waste left for anyone to carry around.

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Re:Umm... (Score:1) by Profane Motherfucker (564659) on Wednesday January 01, @01:52PM (#4994298) (http://www.skitfaced.com/flashandscream/ | Last Journal: Friday January 03, @02:03AM)

Not just babies. Entire fucking villages! The DMCA will be, according to some extremely fucking well-placed sources, classified as a weapon of mass destruction. Anyone carrying documents invoking it, or viewing PDF files related to it across international borders will be circumsized and anally raped, as they are Enemies of the State. You heard it here first. I scooped that Drudge Motherfucker too.

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Re:Dow's Responses (Score:2, Informative) by Gatsby137 (632418) <gatsby137NO@SPAMhotmail.com> on Wednesday January 01, @02:34PM (#4994471)

I found this document [bhopal.com] while Googling for more info on the Bhopal disaster--it's more or less the story of the disaster and the ensuing legal mess from Union Carbide/Dow's point-of-view. (Google lets us view it as HTML here [216.239.33.100].) I tend to agree with the above poster. I'm not usually one to defend a corporation, but it looks like Dow did make an awful lot of reparations. The actual truth of the matter, I'm sure, is obscured far beyond our ability to discern it, particularly by a few minutes of Googling. Cheers, Mike V.

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Re:Dow's Responses (Score:2) by HiThere (15173) <{ten.knilhtrae} {ta} {nsxihselrahc}> on Wednesday January 01, @04:27PM (#4994954)

Very nice. But I'm not sure that an expert from Union Carbide counts as disinterested testimony. And none of this justifies suing the survivors for 10 years income because they protested. I don't care that DOW may have felt that the protest was unjust. It was no where near as unjust as the reaction. It makes me wish that the entire upper management of the corp would be taken out and mutilated. In a way that left them unable to speak coherently or feed themselves. Permanently. If they can't understand that the survivors may be desperate, and that they have some responsibility for **EFFECTIVE** relief, then they can't be counted as humans. Yeah, they paid some money. So? Their responsibility wasn't to pay money, their responsibility was to ameliorate the damage that they had, at minimum, contributed to. (The safety standards by which the plant was operated were unconsciousable. Legal, I believe, and so *** what!)

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Re:Dow's Responses (Score:3, Insightful) by Psion (2244) on Wednesday January 01, @02:44PM (#4994501) (http://www.psidonia.org/)

[applauds] Excellent post! I have little doubt that Greenpeace is once again playing fast and loose with the facts to further their political agenda against multinational corporations. It's just a shame that so many people buy into the notion that Greenpeace is an unbiased guardian when even one of the founders of the organization now says of it, "They're using environmental rhetoric to cloak agendas like class warfare and anti-corporatism that, in fact, have almost nothing to do with ecology." And now the info in your post, if true, shows they're up to the same old tricks with Dow. Yep, we do have to keep an eye on corporations and make a point to highlight grievous activity...that's what gave The Yes Men "parody" such legs. But we also need to keep an eye on activist groups like Greenpeace and be every bit as suspicious of their propaganda.

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Re:Dow's Responses (Score:2) by canadian_right (410687) <alexander.russell@telus.net> on Wednesday January 01, @06:34PM (#4995700) (http://www3.telus.net/alexander_russell/)

Green Peace was once a great organization, but they are now just fanatics, that do indeed, play fast and lose with facts. It has become so bad that one of the founders, Bob Hunter, actually quit the GreenPeace quite a while back. More recently, Green Peace has been prattling on about the "Great Bear Rain Forest" here in BC and how the forest companies are cutting it down. Despite the fact that the forest companies are cutting down old growth forests as fast as they can, there is NO "Great Bear Rain Forest". Green Peace made it up because it looks good on billboards.

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Re:Dow's Responses (Score:2) by greenrd (47933) on Wednesday January 01, @05:23PM (#4995303) (http://angrydot.presidium.org/)

The paid ~$500 million to the Indian Government for ongoing cleanup, to create a medical program for anyone who lives in the affected area, and to cover things like ongoing monitoring of the chemical creep. They also paid out an additional ~$20 million to build and maintain a new hospital specifically in the area to handle any related medical claims. They also added an additional ~$55 million dollars to the hospital support funds when they bought out UCI. Well, that's good if true. But that's not enough. Let's see what Greenpeace says [greenpeace.org]: The survivors have never received adequate compensation for their debilitating illnesses and even 18 years after the disaster, the polluted site of the abandoned factory, bleeds poisons daily into the groundwater of local residents. And in more detail from their myths and realities [greenpeaceusa.org] page: In the criminal proceedings in courts in India, preceding the settlement, UC and members of its senior staff (including Chairman Warren Anderson) refused to appear in court or obey court orders. Warren Anderson and UC were notified as absconders by the court. This settlement was made without any consultation with the survivors. The survivors petitioned the court against the settlement. The court ruled that the settlement did not remove criminal liability from UC, UCIL and senior staff mentioned in the initial criminal case. These figures should be compared to $108 million that Monsanto Company was ordered to pay the family of a single chemical worker who died due to benzene exposure or the $2.5 billion offered by Johns Manville Corporation for about 60,000 claimants of injury caused by exposure to asbestos. (5) As per the current settlement, the average claimant (the gas affected who put in a claim for compensation) receive approximately $300-$500, which in most cases does not pay for medical bills. ... # Myth. An independent investigation claimed that a disgruntled employee caused the incident. Reality. Even though UC has had an opportunity in court to provide information on this sabotage theory, originally presented by Arthur D. Little (ADL), and thus resolve the case, it has failed to do so. However, the corporation still promotes this argument. When this theory was proposed in an international seminar, there was widespread condemnation by experts. A safety specialist with the World Bank noted that he "was shocked when [he] heard that ADL people were promoting the "sabotage" theory for Bhopal at the Institution of Chemical Engineers conference in London." (12) See also this page [bhopal.net] on Carbide/Dow's ongoing negligence with respect to poisoning of water supplies. I don't know much about Bhopal so I thought it best to quote directly, but I couldn't let such one-sided bullshit stand unchallenged. Are you by any chance an astroturfer working for Dow? Maybe you're not, but I wouldn't be terribly surprised if some of the pro-Dow arguments here came from astroturfers. (If ad homenim arguments can be used against Greenpeace, I don't see why I shouldn't use ad homenim arguments right back!)

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Re:Dow's Responses (Score:2) by mgblst (80109) on Wednesday January 01, @10:29PM (#4996558) (http://asmsource.cjb.com/)

Fascinating account of what has happened. But, I can't see anywhere in your post, where you discuss what happened to those responsible? No one was jailed because of this tragedy, and it is quite possible that the people involved are still working at Dow. If you are happy with this outcome, then could you please move next to one of their plants? thanks, J.

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Re:Dow's Responses (Score:1) by digbat (535674) on Wednesday January 01, @11:00PM (#4996647) (http://slashdot.org/)

The New Scientist [newscientist.com] provides a little more information about the legal actions and negligence issues. It strikes me that DOW knew about the Bhopal events before they bought UC. DOW seem to want to continue to avoid responsibility for the effects of their commercial activities just as UC did before. The compensation that the Bhopal victims have had so far wouldn't keep many of us in food and clothes for a month. What compensation would UC or DOW have paid if this had happened in the USA? digbat

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A negligent American company releases poisonous gases in a third-world country and kills or injures tens of thousands of (dark-skinned) people. You would think the world would be outraged.

No. Suddenly, Dow chemicals was no longer a global company - it was an American company, run by American citizens who are bound only by American laws! The Indians had to struggle very hard to bring these people to court - it is still not over, 18 years after the 'accident'.

Globalization is a wonderful thing, but only if all such aspects are dealt with. People tend to forget that free markets in countries like the USA work well only when the companies are governed by law and regulated by watchdog organizations. While the West aggressively pushes for global free markets, they don't seem to realize that there is no global law and no global watchdog or regulatory body.

What Dow chemicals did is an extremity, but there are many other simpler violations. Think about it - Coke sells cans in USA, among hundreds of other countries. That is great. But, how many of these countries have proper recycling facilities? Many third world countries are being pressurized by the world bank to open up to MNCs and are they are all becoming dumping grounds for these multi national companies. Heck, most of these countries don't even have proper drinking water for its population, but Coke and Pepsi are available everywhere!

Re:Whither Globalization? (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 01, @01:39PM (#4994254)

The difference between Dow and Iraq is one of intent. Hussein did it PURPOSELY to kill those people. Dow did it accidentally. Does that mean they are blame free? Of course not, but it's the same line between manslaughter and murder. Different crimes with different consequences, yet both result in someone else's death. People always point to globalization as a problem. Globalization already happened. It's over. The real problem is corporatism. Do you know how many globalization protestors eat chinese food and never realize that's globalization too?

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Re:Whither Globalization? (Score:2) by teetam (584150) on Wednesday January 01, @01:50PM (#4994288) (http://www.etash.com/)

I am not protesting globalization. As I said, it is a wonderful thing. What I am concerned about is why steps are not being taken by the advocates of globalization to ensure corporations and its executives are held responsible for its actions? Why is Nike able to get away with sweat shops in Indonesia where people work in inhuman conditions? Why are the other junk food companies are held responsible for the amount of garbage they generate? Are there effective pollution checks in place all over the world, just like in the West? Sure, most of the responsibility lies with that country itself. But, let's face it - some of these countries haven't even solved their basic problems of food and water yet! In the place of corporate appeasement, if the West starts to have real capitalism, may be these things will be resolved. Till then, companies will use "globalization" as an excuse for circumventing wage laws, pollution control laws and consumer safety laws.

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Re:Whither Globalization? (Score:2) by HiThere (15173) <{ten.knilhtrae} {ta} {nsxihselrahc}> on Wednesday January 01, @04:45PM (#4995074)

I see. And DOW sued the protesters by accident? And yes, globalization is a problem. It doesn't need to be, but it's being managed by the centralizers of authority, and they want to steal everyones rights and wealth. They are after the power to control, and don't care who gets hurt in the process. Corporatism is only a part of the problem.

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Re:Whither Globalization? (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 01, @05:24PM (#4995307)

If you murder someone who accidentally killed your father, you're going to jail, too.

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UNION CARBIDE, NOT DOW!!! (Score:2) by MacAndrew (463832) on Wednesday January 01, @02:40PM (#4994486) (http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/)

Please everyone, condemn the right party. ** Dow bought Union Carbide 2 years ago. [bhopal.com] ** Dow is 100% liable for Union Carbide obligations, that comes with the purchase, but did not "kill" anybody at Bhopal in 1984 -- nearly 20 years ago.

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Re:Whither Globalization? (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 01, @02:41PM (#4994491)

Without minimizing the horror of the tragedy, it is useful to remember what actually happened. The plant at Bhopal was owned and operated by Union Carbide India, Ltd (UCIL). UCIL was, in turn, owned 50.9% by Union Carbide of the US with the remaining 49.1% owned by Indian financial institutions and Indian private citizens. The plant was managed and staffed by Indian citizens. Sometime in the early AM of December 3rd, 1984, one of those Indian citizens operating the plant either by accident or on purpose (according to investigators) triggered the release of the gas which killed thousands. There were no Americans in the plant at the time of the gas release. To paraphrase you: This is a case of negligent, third-world, brown-skinned operator releasing poison gases in his own third-world country, killing or injuring thousands of dark-skinned people. You'd think the world would be outraged.

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Re:Whither Globalization? (Score:5, Insightful) by the eric conspiracy (20178) <slashNO@SPAMehlarson.com> on Wednesday January 01, @04:19PM (#4994906)

American politicians today who scream about Iraq gassing its own people should take a look at this. A negligent American company releases poisonous gases in a third-world country and kills or injures tens of thousands of (dark-skinned) people. You would think the world would be outraged. Your comparison between Carbide and Hussein is morally bankrupt. There is a very large difference between the negligence (if there was actual negligence) of Carbide and murderous intent of Saddam Hussein to commit genocide. Carbide certainly did NOT go out and say 'let's kill off a bunch of folks using MIC to cut down on these local protests'. There is also the fact that the UCarbide plant in West Va, had problems with MIC accidents as well. The concept that Carbide was doing anything in India because it felt that Indians were less worthy than Americans is speculative, to say the least. UC does bear a great deal of responsibility for what happened in India. But it was not genocide, murder, chemical warefare or any other such act. It was an unintended industrial accident of unprecidented impact. Maybe UC was negligent in it's operations of the Bhopal plant - but the fact is that best practice standards then and now are two very different things. And the fact is that ultimately that local management of a chemical plant is in the best position to address safety issues. That local management must share a great deal of the responsibility for what happened, including ultimately the leaky valve that was the immediate cause of the accident. That local management was Indian.

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Re:Whither Globalization? (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 01, @04:23PM (#4994933)

So CEO's in the US are a bunch of dangerous, incompetent fools? While Saddam Hussein could be persuaded *not* to gas people, it would be impossiblew to stop a bumbling fool as long as they are in a position where their cack-handed mistakes can kill or injure thousandes. Well, I hope I've got that right...

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Re:Whither Globalization? (Score:2) by Patman (32745) <pmgeahan AT chartermi DOT net> on Wednesday January 01, @08:30PM (#4996163)

No. Suddenly, Dow chemicals was no longer a global company - it was an American company, run by American citizens who are bound only by American laws! The Indians had to struggle very hard to bring these people to court - it is still not over, 18 years after the 'accident' You mean Union Carbide, right? Dow Chemical purchased Union Carbide *sixteen years* after the accident. Regardless of their current policies, I fail to see how that makes Dow Chemical responsible for it.

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• Torpedoing any serious effort to curb greenhouse gas emissions in the 1997 Kyoto agreement (thanks, Bill Clinton).
  
• Later reneging on America's commitment to ratify that agreement, despite the fact that 178 other nations have done so (thanks, George W. Bush).
  
• Failing to tackle arsenic pollution in its own drinking water (currently at levels way above those that would be illegal in Europe and elsewhere) until 2004 (thanks again, Bill).
  
• Attempting to reverse that legislation, only to have it blow up in his face (thanks again, Dubya).
  
• Allowing Alcoa, the world's third largest Aluminium maker, to profit from a loophole in Texas environmental laws by further polluting that state with 60,000 tons of sulphur dioxide each year (from which Paul O'Neill, Dubya's Secretary to the Treasury profited).
  
• Cutting funding for research into cleaner, more fuel efficient cars by 28% (Dubya again).
  
• Reversing an age-old bi-partisan policy of demanding more fuel effieciency from car makers (Bill again).
  
• Carrying on that policy (Dubya again).
  
• Exempting SUVs from having to meet the same minimum mileage requirements of other cars (Bill again).
  
• Cancelling the 2004 deadline for car makers to develop prototype high-mileage cars (Dubya again).
  
• Breaking a campaign promise to invest $100 million into rain forest conservation (Dubya again).
  
• Vetoing a proposal to increase public access to information about the potential consequences of chemical plant accidents (Dubya again).
  
• Refusing to honour an international accord to enforce a 1972 treaty banning germ warfare (Dubya again).
  
• Cutting $500 million from the Environmental Protection Agency's budget (Dubya again).
  
• Ignoring campaign promises to regulate carbon dioxide emissions (Dubya again).
  
• Proposing the opening up of previously unspoilt national monuments in Alaska and elsewhere in the hunt for yet more coal, oil and gas (Dubya again).
  
• Permitting oil and gas developments off the coast of Florida and in Montana forests (Dubya again).
  
• Attempting to reverse legislation protecting 60 million acres of national forest from logging and road building (Dubya again).
  
• Promoting the development of "mini-nukes, in direct violation of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (Dubya again).
  
  The list goes on and on.
  
  Not only is the US the world's biggest polluter, it's also the world's biggest consumer. Per capita, Americans use more energy, more oil, more gas than any other nation in the world.
  
  Even the most patriotic simpleton has got to see that this isn't something to be proud of - if nothing else, the shit's going to hit the fan sooner or later. Why not try and do something about it?

Re:USA - the world's biggest polluter. So what's n (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 01, @01:51PM (#4994295)

You just don't get it, do ya Scott? It's simple really. We use up all the oil, THEN we release our new super energy source only available from the United States, and BOOYAH! 3rd subjugation for the next 100 years!

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Re:USA - the world's biggest polluter. So what's n (Score:2, Interesting) by the eric conspiracy (20178) <slashNO@SPAMehlarson.com> on Wednesday January 01, @02:57PM (#4994545)

Per capita, Americans use more energy, more oil, more gas than any other nation in the world. That sort of automatically follows from the fact that America has the highest GDP and GDP/capita, doesn't it? Personally I agree with you that the US should be doing a lot more to control it's greenhouse gas emissions. But tirades that ignore the fact that there are other sources of pullution in this world, and in fact the US is not doing that badly in terms of pullution per GDP do little to address the overall problem. If you look at statistics like pollution / GDP, which is a much more indicitive measure of how a society is handling pollution issues, America is not the highest in the world, and isn't even close. For example if you look at lb. of sulfur dioxide emissions per $1000 USD GDP we have the following as the top polluters. Poland Greece Australia Canada Turkey Czech China Russia In fact the situation with pollution in China is so bad that 8 of the 10 most polluted cities in the world are in China. China, with a GDP equal to about 10% of the US GDP releases 13% of the world's CO2 vs. the US's 23%. That is a factor of more than 5 per GDP dollar greater than the US. At this rate, and China's rate of economic growth it is estimated that China will be the #1 CO2 emitter by the end of the decade. By 2020 China is expected to be emitting more CO2 than the US, Japan and Canada combined. Yes, the US is the largest consumer of economic resources, and the largest polluter in the world. Be even if the US were to freeze it's CO2 emissions at 1990 levels, it would little to impact world CO2 levels or growth of those levels. That growth is coming from places outside the US. And even worse is the efficiency of that growth in terms of pollution per GDP dollar.

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Re:USA - the world's biggest polluter. So what's n (Score:1) by jtcampbell (199660) on Wednesday January 01, @05:32PM (#4995352) (http://www.thebofh.co.uk/)

This analysis of the situation in China is completely bogus. China happends to have approximately 3 times the population of the USA - yet still only produces 13% of the CO2 emissions versus 20% for the USA. A more "fair" comaprison pollution/GDP Per Capita, as opposed to your comparison of pollution/gross GDP.

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Re:USA - the world's biggest polluter. So what's n (Score:2) by the eric conspiracy (20178) <slashNO@SPAMehlarson.com> on Wednesday January 01, @09:09PM (#4996305)

A more "fair" comaprison pollution/GDP Per Capita, as opposed to your comparison of pollution/gross GDP. That is just not right. Per capita comparisons in greenhouse gas production do not reflect the real, important goal - sustainable economic development. Sure, China has a much lower per capita greenhouse gas consumption - but China as is still a developing country with a rapidly growing economy. The real goal is minimization of energy consumption per dollar of GDP, not just stopping CO2 emissions. That we could do (at great human cost) by simply turning everything off. If we cut emissions per $ GDP, we can actually improve the human condition.

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Re:USA - the world's biggest polluter. So what's n (Score:3, Insightful) by NexusTw1n (580394) <`slashdot' `at' `mumuland.com'> on Wednesday January 01, @05:45PM (#4995420) (Last Journal: Monday October 07, @05:39AM)

Yes, the US is the largest consumer of economic resources, and the largest polluter in the world. Be even if the US were to freeze it's CO2 emissions at 1990 levels, it would little to impact world CO2 levels or growth of those levels. That growth is coming from places outside the US Nonsense. According to the UN : "China has, despite economic growth estimated at 36 per cent, managed to reduce it carbon dioxide emissions by 17 per cent since 1996/97. " "A study by scientists at the Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory in California concludes that China's C02 emissions are already 400 to 900 million tonnes below what was expected in 2000 which is approximately equivalent to all C02 emissions from Canada, at the low end of the range, or Germany, at the high end of the estimate. " "In the United States, which at 23 per cent has the highest share of global C02 emissions, levels of the greenhouse gas have grown from 4.8 billion tonnes in 1990 to over 5.4 tonnes in 1998 China is doing all it can to reduce its emissions, the US is still increasing its pollution." Like much of the world, China is doing something about C02, which is a good job, because the US's refusal to work with the Kyoto Protocol is embarrassing. Source [solutions-site.org]

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Re:USA - the world's biggest polluter. So what's n (Score:2) by the eric conspiracy (20178) <slashNO@SPAMehlarson.com> on Wednesday January 01, @07:50PM (#4995987)

According to the UN... A number of sources claim this data is phoney. In particular China is widely believed to be underreporting coal consumption. In fact, the combined reduction in CO2 emissions and increase in economic activity that China is claiming is without precedent in world history, and as such is extremely unlikely to be anything close to the truth. Here is what the WWF says about China's greenhouse gas status: Overview The 1990s was the hottest decade in the past millennium. CO2 emissions worldwide are now around 12 times higher than they were in 1900 as the world burns increasing quantities of coal, oil and gas for energy. The global temperature build-up is seriously disrupting the natural balance of the world's climate, creating more extreme weather conditions and putting one-third of the world's forests at risk, as well as the species that depend on forests for their survival. China currently accounts for 13% of the global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, ranking second after the US. Although China signed the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, commitments have yet to be made in terms of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. In the past two decades, China has experienced massive economic development and social change. With an average economic growth rate of 9% per year, the energy system plays a central role in shaping development in industry, agriculture, and the service sectors. China has achieved considerable progress in improving energy efficiency and CO2 emissions reduction. However, 70% of energy production is still dependent on coal, and demand for automobiles is growing fast. China¡¦s challenge will be to shift its energy mix into a cleaner path, particularly in the development and dissemination of new and renewable energy technologies, and promoting structural change for more efficient energy use. Basic facts         * China is set to overtake the US (at 21%) as the biggest producer of greenhouse gases by 2025 unless current trends are modified.         * 7 of the world's 10 most polluted cities are in China         * economic losses and health costs due to pollution alone are equal to 8% of China's GDP (source: the World Bank)         * acid rain in China is widespread, causing severe damage to crops and forests         * more than 70% of China's energy production is from burning coal Key threats         * Use of unsustainable energy sources, such as coal and oil, which leads to air and water pollution and global warming         * Non-sustainable consumption patterns and wasteful use of energy Another interesting that seems to slip through the cracks is that the "former Soviet Union" countries emit more greehouse gases than the US does. And here is another good one - while the US emissions grew 5% over the period of 1995-2001, The emissions per GDP went down 11%. Also you might want to look at the other signatories of the Kyoto convention, and what their performance is. For example Japan has been recently averaging a 1.1% growth in greenhouse gas emissions per year - and that's for a country that is essentially economically stagnant.

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Corrections re Clinton (Score:2) by MacAndrew (463832) on Wednesday January 01, @03:16PM (#4994653) (http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/)

I'm no Clinton cheerleader, but I'm fairly sure every single one of your attributions to him is false. Also bear in mind that the President cannot single-handedly enact every policy. * Torpedoing any serious effort to curb greenhouse gas emissions in the 1997 Kyoto agreement (thanks, Bill Clinton). Bush torpedoed Kyoto immediately after taking office. * Failing to tackle arsenic pollution in its own drinking water (currently at levels way above those that would be illegal in Europe and elsewhere) until 2004 (thanks again, Bill).         * Attempting to reverse that legislation, only to have it blow up in his face (thanks again, Dubya). President Bush deserves the blame for repudiating action on arsenic [go.com] permanently, Clinton for leaving it until the 11th hour. At least Clinton put it on the table -- Bush never will because of the mining interests. * Reversing an age-old bi-partisan policy of demanding more fuel effieciency from car makers (Bill again). Age-old? CAFE has been essentially frozen since President Reagan. Clinton might have failed to raise it, but in face of a very hostile Congress. * Exempting SUVs from having to meet the same minimum mileage requirements of other cars (Bill again). No. The "exemption" (lower standard actually) was practically why SUV's and minivans were invented in the eighties, not the other way around. Notice how station wagons, subject to car standards, disappeared long ago? The lax standard was intended to favor pickups in rural areas and the like, not a fleet of urban vehicles. Cheap fuel prices and style perferences have accelerated adoption of SUV's.

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I'll tell you why (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 01, @03:44PM (#4994785)

Because we're better and smarter than the rest of the world. I laugh at you and your envy.

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MOD PARENT DOWN -1 OFF-TOPIC (Score:2) by LostCluster (625375) on Wednesday January 01, @04:11PM (#4994884)

Sorry, what you say is true, but even people who are truely the first poster aren't allowed to say "First Post!" without being modded down.

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you're statistics are selective (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 01, @06:08PM (#4995544)

First of all, the Communist Bloc in eastern Europe and Soviet Russia polluted the world far worse, and killed far more people as a result, than the USA ever has. Ever heard of Chernobyl? How about Romania? Siberia? Second, take a look at your car mileage statistics, vs. car safety. When auto manufacturers were mandated to create lighter cars, accident fatalities went UP. That's one reason SUV's are so popular: the large body protects the occupants far better than your pathetic little Echo. You don't want people to be safe. You just want them to be equally miserable.

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blah blah blah USA sucks blah blah wah (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 01, @09:16PM (#4996332)

That's what you get when you produce 26% of the world's goods. With 4% of its population, no less. Time to get your statistics straight, and try looking at the whole picture next time, instead of just what you want to see.

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Re:USA - the world's biggest polluter. So what's n (Score:2) by sg_oneill (159032) on Thursday January 02, @02:36AM (#4997261) (http://guild.murdoch.edu.au/)

To the dickhead mod who moded that as -1 flamebait, grow up. It's a well researched informative post, and most importantly it's true. *Man* the danger of computers deciding who gets moderation is that sometimes assholes get the trigger.

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Re:How many people... (Score:2) by HiThere (15173) <{ten.knilhtrae} {ta} {nsxihselrahc}> on Wednesday January 01, @05:19PM (#4995278)

I did. I find the actions of DOW (not speaking here of Union Carbide) vile beyond description. I wish I could write vile beyond belief, but there have been too many examples. To me, DOWs responsibility is to clean up the place where the people live, not to pay money to the govt. Paying money to the govt. counts as paying protection money. Cleaning up the area counts as helping people. And suing people who protest their not being ethical strikes me as about as low as it's legally permissible to get. (Morals and ethics don't figure in here. DOWs reaction to the whole mess has been without any consideration of morals or ethics.) Union Carbide had an accident while running a plant that was unsafe. Bad. Very bad. But not especially morally cuplable (except for the cost cutting that shorted the safety standards). Perhaps they had some reason to believe that the money they paid the Indian Govt. would be used to remediate the damages (OK, so I egnage in fantasy occasionally). But they were bought by DOW. DOW bought the liabilites as well as the credits, but this doesn't really count the moral baggage (unless they kept the same management...I didn't check, so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt). But after all this time the site is still polluted, and people are still forced to live there. This is no credit to the Indian govt., and they were the people that the protest should have been aimed at, really. But it was aimed at DOW. This is understandable by any normal person. It may well have been unjust, I'm not certain. But it was reasonable. DOW had not made restitution to those that it (i.e. Union Carbide) had injured. And it's response was to sue them for 10 years income. A company that would do this deserves to have it's charter yanked immediately. It deserves to be obliterated, to be sold at auction. And the management deserves 20 years in solitary. Plus confiscation of all assets (for distribution to the *other* stockholders to recompense them for their losses). Not that I think this will happen, but anyone who cares so little for people shouldn't be allowed to encounter them. And luxury is clearly inappropriate.

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Didn't you read my submission... (Score:1) by tres3 (594716) <class5.pacbell@net> on Wednesday January 01, @03:09PM (#4994605) (http://lwn.net/ | Last Journal: Monday August 26, @10:51AM)

At first I was lured into thinking that this was Dow's response too. Then I started paying attention and even pointed out the fact in my submission that this (where you quoted from) was actually part of the parody site. Pay attention. It's a two step process. First -- Engage Brain. Then -- Engage Mouth.

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Re:Didn't you read my submission... (Score:2) by Hott of the World (537284) on Wednesday January 01, @05:30PM (#4995343) (http://slashdot.org/)

But then it wouldnt be slashdot...

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