Posted by Racer on January 31, 2004, at 14:29:39
In reply to I'm butting in, posted by DaisyM on January 31, 2004, at 13:57:10
OK, I managed to avoid wetting my pants laughing, but only just. Cliche or not, I feel your pain.
I've spent so much time in the non-profit world, and talked to my friends in CorporationVille about what I faced every day, and they never got it. One eventually spent four months working at a corporate style non-profit, only to call me one day and tell me she'd quit outright because she just couldn't handle it at all. She admitted she'd never believed most of what I told her about it, but said she knew I was telling the truth after experiencing it. (Of course, she's an ex-friend, because her conclusion was that, since non-profits were impossibly crazy, I should move into the corporate world. Sorry, I'm a True Believer, and can't handle the CorporationVille.)
The hardest part of it for me, is that my background *is* corporate. (Well, OK, really law firms, which are usually partnerships, but a corporate atmosphere.) I give great outline, and excellent flow chart, and I have a really low tolerance for inefficiency. I walk through the door of most NPOs, and start grinding my teeth at all the chaos and waste. {{sigh}}
And the reason The People vote against taxes is that they don't explore the issues -- they vote as a reaction to propaganda that they don't recognise as such. Local example: there was a proposition on the local ballot a year or so ago, something about restricting the laws regarding certain types of traps being used to catch members of an endangered species in an area near San Jose. Sounds so good, right? Stop the mean old hunters from catching the cute little foxes in nasty traps? Gotta vote FOR the fuzzy foxes, right? Um, actually, if you read a little more, you'd find that some well intentioned but uninformed people decided this was a good idea, without realizing that the bill they were pushing would have REDUCED the protection for these foxes, by excluding them from the existing Endangered Species laws already on the books. Those existing laws were created by experts in wildlife conservation, and really and truly did protect this particular fox. Because I'm familiar with the area involved, and see the construction going on there, I would bet almost anything that some Big Player wanted those foxes off the land in order to build either more condos or more business space, and managed to find a group of people who wouldn't ask too many questions before hopping up to support the idea of "saving" the foxes.
Alabama's governor recently proposed changes to the state's tax system. He said that Family Values and God Above required that those who have the good fortune to be secure are morally responsible to help their neighbors who are struggling. In an effort to make himself right with God, he proposed lowering the taxes for the poor, eliminating taxes for the poorest [x] percent, keeping middle class taxes the same, and raising taxes for the richest individuals and corporations. You know that the opponents attacked that by saying, "He wants to raise YOUR taxes!" The poor people, the very people he wanted to help, defeated that proposition.
I know, I'm preaching to the choir. Education, enlightenment, social cooperation, and ethics. Maybe we can buy some from Japan? I understand the manufacture of those commodities was shifted there in the last recession...
poster:Racer
thread:307707
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20040131/msgs/307767.html