Dear All & Jim in particular!

So, what if I invest with a bank (TRIODOS) that sponsors environmental
schemes such as renewable energy and the interest gets given to Friends of
the Earth...does that make me a capitalist pig?

OINK  OINK

Em



>From: Jim Tantillo <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: "Discussion forum for environmental ethics."
><[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Capitalist pigs, was Re: eco-terrorism
>Date: Sat, 17 Feb 2001 13:14:46 -0500
>
>Hi everyone,
>
>I've been down and out with the flu the last few days and so haven't been
>able to participate in the discussions as much as I would have liked.
>Undoubtedly from many list members' perspectives, that's a good thing.  :-)
>anyway, I'd like to address one or two small points that have been made
>along the way.
>
>Tony responded in part to my speculations about his pension plan:
> >
> >Your second point, about my personal savings, seems rather off-topic, as
>my
> >savings are pretty meager and not arrived at through the exploitation of
>my
> >students, colleagues, or employer. Are you suggesting that they are
>wrongly
> >invested? Or wrongly earned?
>
>I don't believe the comment was off-topic.  Recall that originally you were
>trying to discredit the definition of "terrorism" used by the U.S. State
>Department because it included the destruction of property as one example
>of terrorist activity:
>
> >I think the "property" was put in there by a capitalist. How do you
> >intimidate property? It's an unwarranted extension of the definition
>though
> >I admit some would find losing their property worse than losing their
>loved
> >ones-Tc
> >Anthony R. S. Chiaviello, Ph.D.
> >Assistant Professor, Professional Writing
>
>Questioning such a basic and common definition of terrorism on the basis of
>"capitalist" authorship struck me as ad hominem in the extreme, although
>given the long history of our wrangling over that term on this list I only
>reluctantly reintroduce it here in this context.  We are all capitalists in
>one way or another.
>
>Or, as Burton Zwiebach quips in a different context, "[E]ven
>revolutionaries travel on public roads" (_Civility and Disobedience_
>Cambridge U. Pr., 1975, p. 41).
>
>Thus my point (perhaps feebly expressed) about your retirement plan was not
>aimed at your "savings" at all, but at the fact that you like so many
>others choose to INVEST those savings rather than simply hide your cash
>under a mattress or in a piggy bank where it will accumulate but will not
>grow.  By participating in the capitalist market in this way, you do your
>own little part for economic growth, and in exchange you benefit from the
>gains on your investments that you would not otherwise receive had you
>simply plunked your pennies into a porcelain piggy.
>
> >If what your getting at is that any savings
> >whatever are by definition, wrongly earned, then it would require some
>case
> >analysis of specific circumstances to determine whether mine are
>ill-gotten.
> >I'm pretty sure they're not, but one does need to be careful about the
> >companies one's pension funds invests in, to be sure. Mine are socially
> >aware, in a special fund for that. I don't earn so much as to make me a
>part
> >of the landed classes.
>
>Again, I am implying nothing whatsoever about your savings other than the
>fact that you have chosen to take advantage of "capitalist" social and
>economic infrastructure in order to "grow" those retirement savings.
>
>Now, I would think that a professional rhetor such as yourself would have
>appreciated the keen irony of such a "tu quoque" or "you too" response (I
>think I have the Latin right, but don't quote me on it).  The fact that
>your money is invested in a special "socially aware" fund, Tony, does not
>by itself make YOUR investments any less "capitalist" than they would
>otherwise be.  After all, I personally don't care whether you've chosen to
>invest in Lockheed Martin or in a record company that specializes in
>producing Pete Seeger CDs . . . you have still chosen to invest your
>capital in the market, thereby taking full advantage of the "capitalist"
>infrastructure that exists there, rather than choosing to sock your money
>away in a non-capitalist and non-interest bearing piggy bank.
>
>A minor point, but one I thought it would be helpful to clarify.
>
>Jim T.
>
> >
> >        That's it, and tiring to me,
> >
> >-Tc
> >
> >Anthony R. S. Chiaviello, Ph.D.
> >Assistant Professor, Professional Writing
> >Department of English
> >University of Houston-Downtown
> >One Main Street
> >Houston, TX 77009
> >713.221.8520/713.868.3979
> >"Question Reality"
> >
> >> ----------
> >> From:         Jim Tantillo[SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> >> Sent:         Wednesday, February 14, 2001 8:35 AM
> >> To:   [log in to unmask]
> >> Subject:      Re: eco-terrorism
> >>
> >>
>
> >
> >And speaking of capitalists . . .  I'm curious what kind of retirement
>plan
> >the administrators of the University of Houston offer assistant
>professors
> >like you.  <g>  I.E. do they give you a choice to keep your retirement
> >savings under an interest bearing mattress at home, or perhaps do you
> >yourself prefer the more traditional porcelain piggy bank to keep your
>nest
> >egg safe?   :-)
> >

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