Nipawin - February 17, 2001 - by: Mario deSantis
property rights	We are all aware on how commerce has progressively evolved to dictate the way we are
	supposed to live. Property rights have usurped human rights, and as a consequence, the
	Rule of Law has been used more and more to undermine our freedom and construct a
	society built on property rights. It is not anymore one person one vote, it is now one
	property dollar one vote.
make money with money	Our big corporations are an invention of man, yet they have been given legal rights beyond
	people's rights. The big corporations behave just like people with the difference that big
	corporations have money, no families and no emotions; while people have no money,
	families and emotions. The purpose of big corporations is to make money with money, rather
	than to look after the welfare of people, and as our Prime Minister Jean Chrétien said recently
	in his trip to China, a million dollars doesn't speak Chinese, doesn't speak French, doesn't
	speak English, and it moves very quickly(1).
basically wrong	Our governments have abdicated their main role to work for the people, and now they are
	working for the big corporations; and the World Trade Organization has been set up not
	to serve the people but to serve the big corporations. Something is basically wrong in the
	way our leaders are planning for the future of common people. Governments should serve
	the people, and we have the Fraser Institute telling us that Romanow government performed
	relatively well when compared with other provinces or other states in the south(2).
entities	What is the index of performance used by the Fraser Institute? The index of performance is
	not what these governments do on behalf of the people, their index of performance is the
	fiscal performance of governments, again, governments are not considered as agencies
	serving the people, they have become entities per se.
strength	Our social and economic strength should rest on the creativity and knowledge of people, and
	instead our corporate world concentrate our strength on our strong leaders who make the
	tough decisions for everybody else, and what is this, tyranny or democracy?
John Roth	So today, we have John Roth, CEO of Nortel Networks, being reviled by the stockholders,
	the media, governments, by everybody and above all by Nortel's own employees. Nortel's
	stock went down 35% in a span of 18 hours, Nortel has announced thousands and
	thousands of layoffs, and in the last year Nortel's shareholders have lost some $300
	billion(3).
tough leaders	What do we have to think about Time Magazine which only few weeks ago hailed
	John Roth as the most successful businessman in modern Canadian history? There is
	something wrong about our conventional commerce, and we can't continue to look for the
	tough leaders to make tough decisions for us, be shareholders or employees or consumers
	at large. We have to take our freedom back, have governments working for the people,
	become leaders ourselves, take over our responsibilities, and serve each other. We must
	stop the status quo, business must not be as usual, and we must stop serving the big
	corporations and their governments.
------------References/endnotes:
1.	Human Rights are Before the Rule of Law, by Mario deSantis, February 15, 2001
2.	Saskatchewan gets passing grade from right-wing group, CBC Saskatchewan, February 12, 2001
3. -	NORTEL'S JOHN ROTH LOSES $ 300 BILLION, Note, February 16, 2001 by BOURQUE NEWSWATCH
	Additional sources
	Background of John Roth
	Nortel's home page