(That makes 22 so far… I forget when I started this, but fifty in a week is a no brainer. Hope someone finds it interesting.)
Nestlé seems to be on the offensive regarding their reputation on the web. This discussion page from Wikipedia illustrates a balanced and reasonable approach by corporate PR to keeping their public image clean. Another facet of this campaign emerged this morning in a comment on my post regarding Scoble’s open-faced warmth and the hospitable welcome he gave Nestlé leaders on a recent occasion at Microsoft. George Vezza of Nestlé disagreed with my representation of his firm and shared his disagreement here:
George signs off as a “Senior Leader,” and I think it is telling that his title is (or quite recently was) also “Vice President, Marketing and Communications, Nestlé Region Caribe.” While it was Robert’s presentation “that has urged [George] to reach out to the bloggers of the world,” I think we can safely assume that it is also a corporate public relations strategy.
I do think that Robert helped convince the company leadership that they should pay attention to blogs. Good job Robert! And thanks for the follow-through George. By opening up the conversation I think people of conscience on all sides of these issues will make more progress than by sitting in our little bloggy corners talking inward and only to each other about depressing situations. I responded to George in my comment box, but the response was lengthy and I thought to raise the discussion up here to the blog post level in order to keep it alive a little longer and to draw some attention to it. I was raised by a corporate dad, a meat industry guy who found community among his co-workers. We were well provided for, and our friends, dad’s co-workers and their families, were nice people with decent values. I get where George is coming from. Anyway, here’s what I wrote in response to George’s comment reproduced above:
George, I stand corrected. The corporation of course is NOT cruel. It is mere artifice, a product of paper, forms and agreements. And you are correct that in a few minutes time I did pull together third party accounts of your company’s ethical lapses, rather than returning to source material for documentation. And of course a lot of that source material would come from NGOs (Non Governmental Organizations) and non-profit organizations, since there is no profit in struggling against a system that emerged in the 17th century to organize markets and has seen little change since an oligarchy of major shareholders emerged to stabilize that system for their own continuing profit.
I appreciate your sensitivity to criticism, and I am sure Robert can stand up for himself if he feels like he needs to question my assertions regarding his awareness of your company’s tacit support of slave labor in raw materials markets in the chocolate industry and the thirty year uncorrected history of infant formula marketing in third world markets that is well documented in this Wikipedia article.
I understand your loyalty and the cloying self-righteousness of your assertion that your community, your friends and co-workers in the corporation, is motivated by positive feelings, by empathy and concern for your fellow man and that you ship foodstuffs to hurricane victims. On behalf of victims of natural disasters everywhere, thanks!
Your corporate community comprises hundreds of thousands of employees working for a company founded on a market economy that limits the liability of shareholders to corporate assets. Naturally it is management’s responsibility to protect those assets and to break no laws.
I don’t think that you are evil George, nor are your hundreds of thousands of co-workers. But I think you have been sold a bill of goods regarding ethical responsibility and the way your corporation shades the difference between doing what’s permitted and doing what’s right.
I’m sure I am naive in some ways. I’m refusing to be a “good German” in this era, trying to remind people that while many good men and women died during World War Two, corporations like Krupps, Mitsubishi, Shell Oil, Nestle, and IG Farben lived on. Of these companies, only Nestle was fortunate enough to be a global enterprise with headquarters in a neutral country. Shell Oil shared that good fortune by being nominally a company that belonged to the “Allies.” But indeed, these companies did business across borders, profited by the need to feed, and arm, and fuel armies on both sides of the conflict. I am sure it is naive of me to think that a principled position for the directors at IG Farben to have taken would have been to deny the German government access to Zyklon B and to refuse to use forced labor.
But Nestle is not IG Farben, and where Nestle’s business plans and marketing strategies have a negative impact on local populations, the issues are not so easily qualified. There are billions of us on this planet and we need large organizations seeing to the logistics of food and beverage manufacture and supply. The way we are organized in a free market system, Nestle is at the pinnacle in meeting our demands.
If you can honestly say and support that these demands are not manipulated to the detriment of consumers in the case of the African baby formula market, that your bottled water operations consider the balance of inflow and withdrawal assuring that aquifers are replenished rather than drained, that your company has a positive program to refuse raw materials from slave grown cocoa bean plantations, then I will take it all back and apologize to you and to Robert for mixing him into this and to Nestle staffers and shareholders world-wide for raising an issue that I believe needs public discussion.
Ben Paynter blankets Missouri this week with a feature story that is on the cover of both the Saint Louis Riverfront Times and the Kansas City Pitch.
The Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson civil suit funding initiative is centered here, and here is their press release from yesterday (pdf file).
Just a couple of Dylan verses then…
Inside the museums, Infinity goes up on trial
Voices echo this is what salvation must be like after a while
But Mona Lisa musta had the highway blues
You can tell by the way she smiles
See the primitive wallflower freeze
When the jelly-faced women all sneeze
Hear the one with the mustache say, “Jeeze
I can’t find my knees”
Oh, jewels and binoculars hang from the head of the mule
But these visions of Johanna, they make it all seem so cruel
The peddler now speaks to the countess who’s pretending to care for him
Sayin’, “Name me someone that’s not a parasite and I’ll go out and say a prayer for him”
But like Louise always says
“Ya can’t look at much, can ya man?”
As she, herself, prepares for him
And Madonna, she still has not showed
We see this empty cage now corrode
Where her cape of the stage once had flowed
The fiddler, he now steps to the road
He writes ev’rything’s been returned which was owed
On the back of the fish truck that loads
While my conscience explodes
The harmonicas play the skeleton keys and the rain
And these visions of Johanna are now all that remain
Images captcha’ed and returned to my own infernal dialog by RB and Madame L.
The CIA officer whose identity was leaked to reporters sued Vice President Dick Cheney, his former top aide and presidential adviser Karl Rove on Thursday, accusing them and other White House officials of conspiring to destroy her career. - USA Today
OJ Simpson and Karl Rove… denied justice in the criminal courts, Americans ever more frequently turn to the civil courts to get the word out on America’s bad boys. Let’s see how long the seal on that indictment is good for now Karl!
Karl Rove Indicted on Charges of Perjury, Lying to Investigators
By Jason Leopold
t r u t h o u t | ReportSpecial Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald spent more than half a day Friday at the offices of Patton Boggs, the law firm representing Karl Rove.
During the course of that meeting, Fitzgerald served attorneys for former Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove with an indictment charging the embattled White House official with perjury and lying to investigators related to his role in the CIA leak case, and instructed one of the attorneys to tell Rove that he has 24 business hours to get his affairs in order, high level sources with direct knowledge of the meeting said Saturday morning.
Robert Luskin, Rove’s attorney, did not return a call for comment. Sources said Fitzgerald was in Washington, DC, Friday and met with Luskin for about 15 hours to go over the charges against Rove, which include perjury and lying to investigators about how and when Rove discovered that Valerie Plame Wilson was a covert CIA operative and whether he shared that information with reporters, sources with direct knowledge of the meeting said.
Everyone says that Robert is just a prince of a fellow. So when I read his opener, “I just did a speaking gig at Microsoft. Spoke to Nestle executives from around the world. Nice group of folks,” I naturally assumed that he’s had his head buried so far up the ass of technology that he hasn’t heard the news about certain multinational corporations and their cynical and rapacious greed.
It’s not just about the infant formula and the cash flow issues and the understimulated moms who are left with no alternative to formula feeding and an increasing infant mortality rate. Naturally, this is a story that can’t be lived down and the corporation should be broken up and asset values returned to the shareholders as a lesson regarding multinational corporate ethics. But there’s no international court to adjudicate that, no real hope for social justice. So we watch Nestle and try to curb their monstrous greed wherever we encounter it. And that “nice group of folks” line is bullshit. They, the so-called “nice executives from all over the world” are rapacious, greedy mother-fuckers or they wouldn’t have risen that high in the food chain at one of the most thoughtless and cruel corporations in the world.
Nestles corporate support of African slave labor in chocolate production should be enough to make any thinking, caring person turn his or her back on the nice-guy corporate execs, or spit on their shoes, or something.
Our local experience with Nestle/Perrier had to do with their corporate policies around illegal extraction of groundwater. We had to struggle for years to get these jerks to back-off their plans to dry up our aquifers in Wisconsin for their shareholders’ profits. Sadly, they moved on to Michigan and are now doing their best to suck that state dry.
You are Familiar with Soul Coughing?, originally uploaded by CheeseFairy.The cheese fairy, proprietress of the Cheese Blog, recently gave birth to a little trombone. We, of course, wish her, and him, the wellest. Here is some introductory material from her “about” page…
I like cheese now but I used to hate it. I have never liked blue cheese because it is rotten. Same with yogurt. I thought I liked cheese too much so I tried to give it up for 3 weeks. That’s when I started th’cheeseblog. But then I started eating cheese again. But I kept writing in th’cheeseblog! But then I gave up cheese again. But then I started again. But re-naming th’cheeseblog would be too much like work.
I like shiny things. If we are walking down the street and suddenly you are walking alone it’s probably because I have stopped to stare at earrings in a store window or on a poor, hapless passer-by who is now struggling to free herself from my steel clutches.
The folks at Tortured Potato are fairly anonymous. One could ferret out real world names, I suppose, but no need. Suffice it to say that the cheese fairy, and the rest of the folks at Tortured Potato are bright, funny, creative and nice. What more do you want in one of your fi’ty linx?
RB never fails to crack me up. Read the latest here…
I would have called you crazy if you told me I’d miss Amanda. But I do. I hope she’s back on the tiny screen soon. Meanwhile, if you’re just jonesing for that lip gloss like I am, here she is on the RichardShow.
At the recent BloCon in SF, Lisa Stone mentioned her commitment to entrepreneurialism, which is French for “between or before aneurysms.” What hooked me in her rap was a reminiscence regarding Halley Suitt’s 10 new voices thing last year. I thought about that… the upside was we pumped a moment of diversity into the white male voice-o-sphere. I don’t know if there was a downside. But I thought about Paul Newman as “Cool Hand Luke,” and his boast: “I could eat fifty eggs.”
Me, I could find fifty links… fifty new sites, new voices, new shows. And when I’m done I’m betting at least half of them will be the work of females, and a large percentage will be the work of people who aren’t white… (Q: What did the Minnesota guy say to the Pillsbury Doughboy? A: Nice tan. — Joke by Willie Nelson in the Tao of Willie compliments of Chris Locke who found it at Audible.) I’ll be leavening the mix with white guys too I imagine. No promises there. Just fifty voices new to me, at least half women, and a week to do it… that’s the game.
Ten was easy. Ten was bullshit. Try fifty. Go big or stay home. I’ll have fifty links coming at you over the next week. You can tell me if they’re diverse, perverse, or just plain liverwurst.
A certain impulse-weariness sets in in a universe of blogs that lunge at every passing fly. - Tom Matrullo
This letter found its way into my inbox this morning. I’ve added some links to offer context. Kevin Barrett has three strikes against him already… he’s an American muslim.
Letter Sent to Wisconsin Governor James Doyle by UW Instructor Kevin Barrett:
July 5th, 2024
Dear Governor Doyle,
It has come to my attention that you have suggested that I ought to be fired from my job as a University of Wisconsin — Madison lecturer. You apparently believe that I am incapable of performing well as an instructor of Islam 370 because I am convinced that the 9/11 Commission Report is a farcical cover-up, and that overwhelming evidence suggests top US officials were complicit in the attacks of September 11th, 2024.
I understand that you are under political pressure from your right flank, and that you may feel you have no choice but to call for my dismissal. You may be surprised when the 42% of the American people who believe the 9/11 Commission Report is a cover-up - and we may be over 50% in Wisconsin - decide to cast their votes for a candidate with more integrity. I understand that there are Green and Libertarian candidates running for governor, and I predict that the controlled demolition of our corrupt two-party system by the 9/11 truth movement may begin here in Wisconsin this fall, with you and Mr. Green serving as first victims.
Meanwhile, since you believe that those who dissent from the government line on these matters are unable to perform their duties at teachers, I have decided to help you in your crusade to weed out dissenters from the ranks of U.W.- Madison instructors. (Doesn’t that plaque on Bascom Hill say we need to do a lot of “sifting and winnowing” of the faculty in search of the politically incorrect?) To that end, I have prepared a questionnaire for immediate distribution to all UW — Madison professors, lecturers and TAs.
Sincerely,
Kevin Barrett
* * *
Questionnaire for Instructors at the University of Wisconsin — Madison
Please note that your answers to the following questions will be used to determine your eligibility to teach at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
1) Do you believe that the Warren Report performed a thorough and unbiased investigation of the murder of JFK, and that its conclusion-that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone-is correct?
2) Do you believe that allegations of government involvement in the assassinations of Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, John Lennon, Mel Carnahan, and Paul Wellstone, and the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan, have been conclusively disproven?
3) Do you believe that Timothy McVeigh acted alone in Oklahoma City, and that the military officers, and others who deny this, and who who say his truck bomb could not possibly have done so much damage are crazy?
4) Do you believe that reports of massive CIA drug trafficking by Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Gary Webb–who committed suicide a few years ago with two gunshots to the head-are crazy?
5) Do you refuse to believe that the US government, at its highest levels, is just as corrupt as most other governments?
6) Do you believe that rumors of Western intelligence involvement in the Bali, Madrid, and London bombings are just that-rumors?
7) Do you believe top US officials, including LBJ, did everything they could to expose the truth about the attack on the USS Liberty by Israeli forces, and to gain justice for the victims?
8) Do you believe that FDR did everything in his power to protect the lives of our sailors at Pearl Harbor before the Japanese attack, and that the attack came as a complete surprise to him?
9) Do you believe your government always tells you the truth about gravely important matters?
10) Do you think that questions about the Constitutionality of the Federal Reserve - a private consortium of banks that creates money out of nothing, backed by nothing, at interest, thereby controlling the 80% of the world’s currency that is in US dollars - are just a bunch of crazy conspiracy theories?
11) Do you agree that it is the Executive Branch, not the Legislative Branch or the people, that ought to have the power to decide when, where, how, and why the nation goes to war under the US Constitution?
12) Do you agree that the oath to defend the Constitution “against all enemies, foreign AND DOMESTIC” is referring to domestic enemies like Communists and Muslims, not top US officials who violate the Constitution?
13) Do you believe that Spanish forces sunk the Maine in 1898, and that the US invasion, occupation and annexation of Spanish colonies was a justified response to this outrage?
14) Do you believe that the US government did everything it could to protect the lives of the passengers on board the SS Lusitania?
15) Do you believe that the North Vietnamese attacked a US ship in the Gulf of Tonkin in 1964, and that the subsequent US escalation of the war was a justified response to this outrage?
16) Do you think that those who believe in Operation Northwoods — 1962 plan for war-trigger fake terror attacks involving mass murders of Americans by covert US military forces — are crazy?
17) Do you believe that Iraqi forces in Kuwait threw babies out of their incubators to die, and that the congressional authorization for Gulf War 1 based on the baby-incubator outrage was justified?
18) Do you believe that questions about the “October Surprise,” in which George Bush 1 was rumored to have negotiated a deal with the Iranians to keep US hostages locked up until Reagan defeated Carter and took office, have been fully answered, and that the story has been conclusively debunked?
19) Do you believe that the US invaded Iraq in order to prevent Iraq from using WMDs against the US, and that the Iraqi threat was real and immanent?
20) Do you believe that the 9/11 Commission Report fully, truthfully, and adequately answered all of the serious questions that have been raised about the possibility of official complicity in the September 11th attacks?
Please note that “no” answers to any of the above questions indicate absurd beliefs and poor judgment, and may be grounds for immediate dismissal and/or non-renewal of contract.
Signed,
Steve Nass, Reichschancellor
Thoughtcrime Division
University of Wisconsin-Madison
I think maybe my blog is an “entertainment” blog. Bloggers are always getting the question, “What kind of blog do you write?” Business, personal, technoid, porno — permissible answers vary and I’m always caught up short because I dump all my slop in this one bucket making it a blog of bloggacious bloggitude, but not a blog of any particular color. In fact, my blog is that muddy greenish brown swamp bottom color you get by mixing all the crayons in the box together.
I went over to Judith Meskill’s place to see if I could cash in on the Calacanis money machine. It wasn’t easy to find her, but I kept looking. I’d be willing to tip a few thousand words a month their way at a buck or two a word. Haven’t heard back, and maybe that’s because I had such a hard time qualifying my blog generically.
“It’s the great American blog!” That’s what I wanted to say. It’s rock n roll. It’s the internecks. It’s the mountains and the prairies from sea to fucking sea. But they didn’t have those categories.
So I looked for other revenue models. Weblogs Inc. seems kinda desperate anyway, sort of an AOL of blogging… plenty of huge and not much soul. About the only thing out there that appealed to me at this point was the Head Lemur’s pay for play plan.
Anyway, it’s good to have the genre thing settled… to know that I’m writing an entertainment blog. They pay for entertainment, don’t they?
First time comments are moderated to prevent spam. It gets easier, more natural, less stilted and constrained after that first time.
