TechHui

Hawaiʻi's Technology Community

I'm letting you know that a media outreach and action campaign call Occupy APEC has launched.

This is in support of OWS, the main (De)OccupyHonolulu campaign and other local groups.

Ohe new web blog will be up shortly (the temporary site will be replaced this week)

OccupyAPEC

Twitter: @occupyapec2011

This is a nonprofit mission and we are seeking help with some things and invite members to participate and spread our word. You may want to be a volunteer contributor:

CYBER/SOCIAL/CALENDAR NETWORKER
Also ARTISTS+ILLUSTRATORS+PHOTOGRAPHERS+WRITERS

You will be sympathetic to Hawaiian culture, sustainability and accountability of the 1%.
They will have time, effective skills, talent and dedication between NOW and APEC 2011 Summit (week of Nov 07 > 13)

We already have a good team. Please contact me: info@occupyapec.org

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Considering these facts:

  1. South Korea is a major manufacturer of Computer Memory Chips, worldwide;
  2. China is ridiculously FANTASTIC when it comes to Mass Production, especially electronic devices;
  3. APEC will bring Asian attention to Hawaii -- thus improving our chances of broadening our Tourist Base and improving Local Economy

I find the movement somewhat misguided and I respectfully disagree with said protest movement.  At the very least, such protests will only hurt Hawaii's tourism industry from expanding.

As many in the IT Profession are already aware, Asia's manufacturing capability is necessary to keep the price of chips and electronic goods to cost-effective levels.

We're all entitled to differences of opinions and expressions of them; I'm just pointing out the consequences of "Occupy APEC" demonstrations, as it directly applies to Hawaii and the IT Industry.

Good points Laurence, this is my reply:

The 1% are not necessary to much of anything you are concerned about

Fairness, human rights, access to free speech, sustainability are not dependent on the obscene takings and bailouts for the 1%.

Much of China's output is done so in an environment of tradgic human rights violations. I hope you are concerned about that in your quest for cheap chips and devices. Production and your access to products is not dependent on the current system of gross inequality.

Hawai`i can and should be aligned with workers in South Korea and China.

The cooperative economy is ours - not APECs - Have the 1500 corporates behind the 21 national leaders asked you or our kind to participate or represent a direction for our region? No!

We have not addressed the environmental issues which APEC ignores - rather exploits natural resources whereby all our discussion and Hawaii's tourist economy is made void by climate collapse.

Please Laurence, this is urgent and it effects you.

Please understand. We must change and if anything proves that change is not possible in Washington its the Obama term. The people have to change things themselves.

Sorry for the inconvienence during renovations. Please Join Us!

Last thing, almost everything I stand for, and I am not easily fooled, is backed in someway by all science facilities. I am very wise to "you are entitle to your opinion". Of course - what makes you assume it is opinion and not robust fact?

If you want to say anything say you are entitled to your wheel barrow, I think most techies, designers, reporter, professionals are as enslave or in servitude to corporate agenda. How does it feel?

 

Any argument that "Asia's cheap manufacturing is needed to maintain the IT sector" sounds a lot like old Southern arguments for slavery "how else will we harvest cotton?". Sorry Laurence but while I agree a lot of the anti-APEC stuff is misguided, (I saw one claim elsewhere that APEC is going to boost child trafficking/prostitution in Hawaii - absurd), your arguments are not compelling either.

@Brian,

I challenge you to find a technology product that's 100% designed, manufactured, and produced within the borders of the United States -- competitively priced against those that include components manufactured in Asia.

Compare sales volume for 200-Gig SSD Hard Drives, versus 2-Terabyte Hard Drives at a fraction of the price. Quality difference, sure.. but product price still reigns supreme. Wholesale and Retail Businesses depend on sales volume to survive; Consumers demand better products at lower prices. Naturally, the tendency will lean toward cheap Asian products, which is why I stand behind my original assertion.

 

@Michael,

1) While it's noble of you to oppose "Tragic Conditions" behind Asian manufacturing.. how about the "Tragic Conditions" behind the harvesting of USA Crops? Lots of illegal immigrants out there working the farms to put food on peoples' tables -- long hours and low pay; yet there are so few people out there fighting for equality on that front, and no easy answers to the issues at hand.

2) Why should the Corporations and Leaders ask me, as a mere Consumer, to participate in APEC? Unless I'm a major stock holder, or they're engaged in something illegal, I really don't care.

3) The USA is hardly one to talk about "Climate Collapse" -- we were a major World Polluter when our own manufacturing facilities were in full production.  "Clean Coal" is a myth. The USA's "fracking" for shale energy is destroying water reserves and poisoning people within our own population.

 

In sum, if there's an inherent need to "protest" something, there are plenty of issues within the USA's borders to choose from. I find Business Relationships with Asian companies beneficial to my industry (IT); and I find APEC has potential to boost Hawaii's Tourism Industry. Therefore, while I respect your group's views and your right to protest, I cannot in good conscience support the logic and rhetoric behind the Occupy APEC protests.

 

Laurence you should do what I do as a matter of Earthly URGENCY. Seek and tell truth.

You know as I write my messages, I am aware that the strength and truth is going to alienate most readers - on a post where i am trying to get highly skilled volunteer support. But i'll do it anyway.

Do you know how much service I have given corporations? Actually enough to know I am good at what I do and valuable, but not enough for crazy corporate capialists to use my god-given talents and god-given education for their shocking ends.

You are polite Laurence, but intrenched in some, I dont know what, patriotism - certainly not to Asian countries. You want the USA to life its game though in terms of human rights and carbon emissions - perhaps because it should be a model leader, or in any case its the USA team colours you want to rally and invest in. I'm seeing this yearning from you to have the USA fix it's issues of corporate immorality/exploitation/filth, yet you are think it will just happen out of the blue without any disturbance at least for you.

I cant figure you exactly and you seem to represent a tangled mind of protecting the status quo for your own centered interest which of course is probably what was taught to you as being very rightious and red, white and blue.

I feel like there is no depth to your understanding of global longterm issues that are going to devastate, perhaps sufficate the next generation or so across the planet while you think you are somehow going to protect the Waikiki tourist generator. You want to leave it for another time when the hotel lobbies are flooded do you? You want environmental regulation which will stop the ocean rising, but "not in my lifetime".

Your discussion points above are couched in the idea of national borders/teams (as I say). Yet the 1500 economic corporate movers who stir our supposed state "leader", 20 of them, at APEC have little regard for borders. This is more like a monopoly meeting of 20 zones that will decide the conglomeration of more that a third of the planet and over 40% of the total global economy. And you don't care that you or any 99% "the public" have been and will be barricaded out!

While your sniffing around comparing one nation to another, and arguing highlights of the game, the global owners running all the teams on the highly lighted stage are making a mockery of you on the sideline which would not be so bad except the stadium is going to crush you and all. Do you really think WalMart has some kind of allegiance that fundamentally matters to the USA or China. Dose the waste and pollution they make in Bejing stay in China? Does the waste and pollution they make in Reno stay in the USA? No its global. Why are sovereign nations still considered real when Globalization and Climate Change kills life and democracy on every inch of the planet ???

  The CEOs meet with their peers at APEC and behind closed doors to tell government what they want and when they want it. They care nothing for you or life except for the immediate

Your points sound weak, trite, to me. I mean the few points you might have that are not be just blatantly wrong.  It sounds like you just want to protect your, income, a roof, some food and your sofa and computer chips or your potential riches. Many young people support the crooks for decades and decades thinking that one day they will be the 1%.

OR, you feel the problems and you fully understand or subcosciously know what any protest of APEC is all about in that it is the fight in the belly of corporate Globalization. But you are scared. 

Can anyone abbreviate this for me so I can post it on my new blog OCCUPYAPEC.ORG

?

Caterpillar, CNSE, Cypress, ON, KitchenAid, TI, Intel, Tibor, Micron, Harley, GE, ACR, Syntax Olevia, blah blah, So what? That wasn't my point at all. It's hardly revelatory that unskilled labour costs are lower there. I'm not under any delusion that we aren't in a global economy dominated by transnationals, nor am I upset over it. I wasn't disputing that I can pay a guy less to bundle up iPhones into a box in China than I could in the US.

Consumers don't lean towards better products at low prices. They lean towards image. Shiny. I only need one example to prove this. Soda/bottled water. The vitamin ones are hilarious. Consumers are in general uninformed and make poor buying choices. Branded gas? Another favorite.

The reason you see more Chinese tourists is because we have direct flights. Not because of APEC. We aren't a niche destination that people haven't heard of. If we want to promote tourism we should solve the homelessness problem and clean our state up. Personally I never recommend visiting Oahu.

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