You should not scrap with fictional characters. They will always win. Murphy Brown crushed Dan Quayle and now the Muppets have their retort in the those-puppets-are-biased-against-oil-companies culture war.
thanks to therapup for the link.
Category Archives: propaganda
Based superstructure: apple sweatshop economics
Pretty good example of Apple’s race to the bottom in terms of semi-legal-seemingly-nice-guy-global-gangsta sweatshop economics.
Apple typically asks suppliers to specify how much every part costs, how many workers are needed and the size of their salaries. Executives want to know every financial detail. Afterward, Apple calculates how much it will pay for a part. Most suppliers are allowed only the slimmest of profits.
So suppliers often try to cut corners, replace expensive chemicals with less costly alternatives, or push their employees to work faster and longer, according to people at those companies.
via Apple’s iPad and the Human Costs for Workers in China – NYTimes.com.
Filed under capitalism, colonialism, human rights, propaganda, representation
His name is Lakhdar Boumediene, we locked him in Guantanamo
The New York Times published the testimony of a survivor of the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay Cuba. Lakhadar Boumediene worked for Red Crescent helping orphan children when he was accused of a bomb plot and was taken to Guantanamo Bay.
I went on a hunger strike for two years because no one would tell me why I was being imprisoned. Twice each day my captors would shove a tube up my nose, down my throat and into my stomach so they could pour food into me. It was excruciating, but I was innocent and so I kept up my protest.
via My Guantánamo Nightmare – NYTimes.com.
He was freed after finally getting a (civilian) judicial review of his case.
Filed under communication, human rights, prisons, propaganda
Engaging with Burma but at what cost?
photo by Paula Brownstein, from the Guardian
A couple of decades after a military dictatorship started to lock up and exterminate the local Burmese populations, the United States has decided to check in. Above we see Hillary Clinton shaking hands with Burmese democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi.
I’m not a romantic about international affairs. I know that ugly stuff happens. But the Burmese government is truly nasty.
What would fuel such a sudden rush to check in on Burma? In my opinion there are two elements which bring US-Burma relations to the forefront.
1. Many US businesses have been salivating to set up work in the dictatorship. Turns out that when the military leaders can just shoot labor union organizers and lock up those who complain about bad working conditions, business profits can soar. A couple of years ago, French and US energy companies built a massive natural gas pipeline through the dictatorship. Unocol hired a consultant to see just how much evil they were on the hook for (public relations-wise).
And consider this: according to company sources, Unocal hired a former Pentagon analyst to investigate whether the army was abusing human rights along their pipeline. And he warned Unocal executives that Myanmar’s military was committing “egregious human rights” violations. According to company sources, the consultant flatly told executives that when they keep insisting that slave labor is not being used to support the project, they appear “at best naïve and at worst a willing partner in the situation.”
via American Radio Works – Blood and Oil in Burma.
2. American force projection is taking serious losses. Talk about going from a dominant first world power to a second-tier nation in the span of a couple of years. Military backlash in Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, Colombia, Mexico, Afghanistan, Yemen, and everywhere an American soldier shows his head. Check out the softpower backlash in every place where US aid money is deposited in the bank accounts of local elites. Bottom line, the United States empire is running out of “little buddies.” The bid to drop money and relations on Burma is a last-gasp effort to shore up the US empire. The fact that we have to turn to Burma is in itself evidence of just how little clout the US wields.
Filed under colonialism, human rights, propaganda
Visibility of power: controlling the message on #occupy wallstreet
Thanks to Democracy Now! and MSNBC for unveiling the corporate lobbying group that has offered to the American Banking Association to undermine #occupy wallstreet.
According to MSNBC, the lobbying firm Clark Lytle Geduldig & Cranford sent the memo to the American Bankers Association and offered to conduct “opposition research” on Occupy Wall Street in order to construct “negative narratives” for a fee of $850,000. The memo advises the ABA to take the movement seriously, writing: “It may be easy to dismiss OWS as a ragtag group of protesters but they have demonstrated that they should be treated more like an organized competitor who is very nimble and capable of working the media, coordinating third party support and engaging office holders to do their bidding. To counter that, we have to do the same.” The memo goes on to warn the ABA that Democratic victories in 2012 would be detrimental for Wall Street and suggests the financial industry focus its energy on specific races that would lead to Republican elections.
via Washington Lobbying Firm Offers to Undermine Occupy Movement on Behalf of Wall Street.
In times of crisis, arguments about power become more visible. In this case, we get to see the generation of propaganda at the stage of inception and amplification.
Filed under capitalism, communication, media, propaganda, resistance
Kamala Harris against the banks
Let us praise Kamala Harris, California’s Attorney General for her pressure on the big five banks who exploited the mortgage crisis for profit. The banks, state governors and Obama administration folks have been negotiating a pay-out deal for the states. Of course the deal would protect these mortgage lenders from future lawsuits.
But the key player in the battle to make the banks pay is Harris. California’s catastrophic recession is due above all to the unpayable debts with which the banks saddled entire regions of the state. Harris recognized this in September, when she announced that, like Schneiderman and Biden, she was pulling out of the negotiations because the banks remained uninvestigated and the waiver they were being offered for their possible misconduct was way too broad. In her letter to Associate U.S. Atty. Gen. Thomas Perrelli and Miller announcing her decision, Harris said the agreement “would allow too few California homeowners to stay in their homes…. After much consideration, I have concluded that this is not the deal California homeowners have been looking for.”
Without California’s participation, of course, the banks would never assent to a deal.
via Kamala Harris is key in mortgage settlement with banks – latimes.com.
Filed under capitalism, propaganda, resistance
How do you know if it’s propaganda: Iran edition
I guess a large explosion has erupted in Tehran. Iran proclaims that it had nothing to do with the United States or Israel. No news here right? Wrong! Check out the last paragraph in this L.A. Times write up:
Exonerating archenemies Israel and the United States from any foul deed seems to some a peculiar turn of events, likely deserving further inquiry. An uneasy Iranian populace, steeped in intrigue and conspiracy theories, sometimes assumes the opposite of what its leaders say.
via Iran, again: No U.S. or Israeli mischief in explosion – latimes.com.
Huh, that’s interesting. I wonder if that kind of criticism happens in the United States?
Filed under capitalism, communication, propaganda, representation
Coca Cola vs. the Grand Canyon
Thank you Marion Nestle. I saw this yesterday but was too disgusted to write it up. Dr. Nestle is on point here:
I’m always saying that food company donations and partnerships to health and environmental Good Causes end up doing more for the companies than the recipients. Money always talks. Accepting corporate donations comes with strings that create conflicts of interest.
The latest evidence for these assertions comes from the Grand Canyon’s efforts to get plastic water and soda bottles out of the park. These account for a whopping 30% of its waste.
According to the account in today’s New York Times, Coca-Cola, one of the park’s big donors, convinced the National Park Service to block the bottle ban.
Stephen P. Martin, the architect of the plan and the top parks official at the Grand Canyon, said his superiors told him two weeks before its Jan. 1 start date that Coca-Cola, which distributes water under the Dasani brand and has donated more than $13 million to the parks, had registered its concerns about the bottle ban through the foundation, and that the project was being tabled.
via Food Politics » Coca-Cola v. Grand Canyon: donations come with short strings.
Filed under capitalism, nature, propaganda
Potato politics: senate and school lunches
You should know about Marion Nestle. She is a food scientist and scholar of eatin’. She kicks major ass in my opinion.
Her blog on food politics is quite good. Today she is taking up the subject of school lunches and the powerful potato lobby.
Please note: the proposal does not call for elimination of starchy vegetables. It calls for a limit of two servings a week (one cup is two servings).
What’s wrong with that? Plenty, according to the potato industry, which stands to sell fewer products to the government and could not care less about spreading the wealth around to other vegetable producersPotato lobbyists went to work (apparently the sweet corn, lima bean, and pea industries do not have the money to pay for high-priced lobbying talent). The Potato Council held a press conference hosted by Senators from potato-growing states.
The result? The U.S. Senate added an amendment to the 2012 agriculture spending bill blocking the USDA from “setting any maximum limits on the serving of vegetables in school meal programs.”
Mind you, I like potatoes. They are thoroughly delicious when cooked well, have supported entire civilizations, and certainly can contribute to healthful diets. Two servings a week seems quite reasonable. So does encouraging consumption of other vegetables as well.
via Food Politics » One potato, two potato: Undue industry influence in action.
Not only is Nestle on point with this subject, but her remark about the potato lobby is correct. Remember the scene in Life and Debt where the struggling potato growers of Jamaica get a meeting with the U.S. potato lobby hoping to sell some potatoes. Instead the potato politicians are coming to sell Jamaicans subsidized potatoes.
Filed under colonialism, food, learning, propaganda
Welcome to Oakland #occupy wallstreet
Photo ran in the Guardian, taken by Kimihiro Hoshino/AFP/Getty Images
Photo credit Daryl Bush, AP, ran in the Guardian
photo byStephen Lam, Reuters, ran in the Guardian
This collection of images is pretty disturbing. No good photos of the police/protester scraps from yesterday in US media, but the British journal has the images. I found the same thing when I went to look for images of the crackdown on Chicago #operation wallstreet. Lets note protesters helping each other and excessive police violence intended to communicate threats to the supportive public. Lets also note courage, generosity and the elements of a new world being articulated. The kind of world which disturbs corporate heads and their cop subordinates.
Filed under capitalism, communication, human rights, propaganda, protest
Life of refinement 