Fortress Of Freedom Board

[Maurice Ali]

Freedom As A Business!

By Maurice Ali, Journalist





Freedom as a business? What up with that? Simple: The cause of rights and freedoms is best attained by running it as a business! What you see above is our competition in the business of attracting readership at the university level (in this case - Ryerson University). This is what our newspaper will be sitting with in the hallways at this centre of learning. We are different in that we have an altruistic cause on our side, so we may find our place in this world. But why run a cause as a business; this is the question I will now answer.

The problem with most charities and causes in the western world, is that they are tightly regulated by their governments. These"not-for-profit" entities usually do not pay taxes (or pay very little); they survive with donations and grants from government agencies. What this means to me is that these entities can be bought by the people that keep them alive with money. Sometimes this is quite benign if the contributions are small ones from many individuals. But if large organizations - especially the government - support the organization in question, then they are held hostage by their major contributors; upset them.....and the funding is cut and jobs are lost.....

This will not happen with us. We avoided this trap by incorporating for-profit, but we did so with a twist. If you look at our message board today, you will see it separated into these groups:

1. News Forum

2. Fortressoffreedom.com Forums

3. IAIJ/International Association Of Independent Journalists Forums

4. Fortress Of Freedom Inc. Forums

5. International Archiving Of Independent Journalists Forum

The news forum is just a forum to display our reports on the internet.

Fortress of freedom.com is the freedoms and rights advocacy association; I registered the name as a business to keep the name and open bank accounts and such needed in the operation of this association. IAIJ/International Association of Independent Journalists is the association of journalists, and once again is a registered business in order to keep the name and do banking and the other things necessary in the operation of any association. These two associations are for the membership and when they grow to considerable size, we as a group will decide the future and status the associations will ultimately attain.

Fortress of Freedom Inc. is the operating entity that fulfills the wishes of the membership. It is a corporation because working in the media can be very litigation orientated and we need the limited liability a corporation affords our group. International Archiving Of Independent Journalists Inc. is the database and verification tool that supports our journalists as they perform their valuable functions. Any losses to these corporations will be covered by the largest individual shareholder (right now that is myself) so that the corporations will show viability; and any profits will be recycled into the corporation's operating budget. Full economic disclosure is to be assured. Note that the business dealings or failure of any of these corporations, will not affect the survivability of the association (as they are all separate legal entities); as it should be.

Running our cause as a business allows us to utilize well founded business principles to stay viable and operate effectively. Doing it this way was a bit of a fight between me and the government, but I had my way and we shall see the result. Rights and freedoms is a cause dear to my heart, and I will fight it the best way I can. I have committed ten years to this venture; and the media areas I have opened up on this board are the "seeds" that I project to be active ten years from now.....only time will tell.



Comments And Discussion