Buy-Cott Cit-Guy

F-WUT U-HURD

I want to use this opportunity to state for the record: I DON'T THINK ALL MULTINATIONAL CORPORATIONS ARE INHERENTLY EVIL, and I'm not just saying that because Wal*mart or somebody might be listening to what I say right now. Neither do I find the phenomenon of faces in places necessarily threatening. Nope, just like the question of whether people are basically good or evil can not yet be answered; as their full story has yet to unfold, so too QED are our conglomerates' heretofore morally ambiguous still. People form them, as cells likewise makeup their own bodies, and can therefore be seen as being, in the end, responsible for what form of life they assume, or tragically, whose lives they consume. But whereas it is not for us to judge Man, as various Amerindians' tribal bodies are incredibly consistent in believing; as Man is borne of the Land and therefore only within the Great Spirit creators' dominion to condemn or honor, it is incumbent upon us to hold ourselves libel when considering the impact of the societal structures we do construct. Social institutions must be judged by the actions or lives they take or improve. I find myself hard-pressed to offhand think of a human enterprise has a greater impact upon our land than the over-consumption of fossil fuels. Fueling what even 'W' now refers to as our addiction to oil, is the cynical attitude of consumers (or perhaps 'consumees') feeling unempowered (having had the life sucked out of them like so much drilled crude). The power resides in the people, even if the will to change is found lacking when considering brutal economic "realities". If the price of doing business most anywhere is that we have to make Faustian travel arrangements, we're reminded of the parable Neil Jordan's the Crying Game(1992) has Forest Whitaker recount of the frog, and the scorpion riding it's back across a river, who can't help but to do them both in. But does it really have to be so rough out there?
It ain't necessarily so; postulates businessman William McDonough, and co-author and chemist Michael Braungart, in their book Cradle to Cradle: Rethinking the Way We Make Things; as they offer industry a principle tool for economic recreate itself in a better image. Their Design Framework embraces the 3-E's, as opposed to the 3-R's; because 'being less bad is not good enough'. It's a fractaline triple bottom line approach to business that pursues in every decision maximum value by moving one's economic platform towards any of the three directions (Economy {the more familiar bottom line}, Ecology {considering reciprocal Environmental relationships}, and Everybody else {the social networks within and with whom we operate}). Shareholders in the future might be behooved to note that only the Economic was found lacking in the social principles of those afforementioned Indians. Design writ with the triple-edged (or one better 'double', minus the old hard line bottom) pen of intelligent design composes the trinity foundation of the unfinished pyramid envisioned in an emerging world in which all human industry is designed to celebrate interdependence with other living systems, transforming the making and consumption of things into a regenerative force. But can this principle really extend to businesses that by their very nature would seem to be cutthroat? Hugo Chavez seems to think so.
Of all the major oil companies laying claim to go "beyond petroleum's" black history: CITGO GOES ABOVE & BEYOND THE $INGLE BOTTOM LINE CALL TO INACTIVE DUTY. I mean just look at that cute face in place and you can tell the Venezuelans behind the wheel of this co. wouldn't cut corners like eXXon-aerators did with their now im-mobile-ized tanker the Valdez f'rinstance? Self-admitted scorpions like myself may not be able to change our evil ways overnight, lord knows, but we can at least start by at least becoming more considerate of where we do our dirty business. By god, we can join the Buy-Cott!
http://www.alternet.org/envirohealth/22023/