Lessons of Empire: India, 60 Years After Independence

"...On August 1, 2007, the Majhis spoke out at the annual general meeting of Vedanta Resources PLC, a British multinational that is poised to dig a new bauxite mine that threatens the village of Jaganathpur. While Vedanta is incorporated in Britain, it is owned by Anil Agarwal, the world's 230th richest man according to the Forbes 2007 list, a former scrap metal merchant who was born in eastern India. (See Vedanta Undermines Indian Communities, by Nityanand Jayaraman.)

The timing of the Mahji’s trip to Britain and the protests back in India have a much wider significance. 2007 is marked by a trinity of anniversaries that recall India’s conquest, first struggles and eventual liberation from British rule. On August 15th, India celebrates 60 years of independence. Earlier in the year, commemorations took place for the 150th anniversary of the great rebellion against British rule in 1857 -– known in the UK as the ‘mutiny’ and on the sub-continent as the ‘first war of independence.’ This trinity of historic milestones is completed with the 250th anniversary of the pivotal battle of Plassey in June 1757, when the private army of Britain’s East India Company (which was often referred to simply as the “Company”) defeated the forces of the Nawab (ruler) of Bengal (in eastern India), ushering in first corporate and then imperial domination.

It is this legacy of collusion between global corporations and the expansionist state that makes this year so poignant and full of enduring lessons. Its history provides timeless lessons on how (and how not) to confront corporate power with protest, litigation, regulation, rebellion and, ultimately, corporate redesign. Many of today’s corporate struggles are prefigured in the resistance to the Company’s rise to power. Again and again, "the return of the East India Company" is used as a catch-phrase to describe the recent influx of multinationals into India, whether global mining corporations or foreign business more generally..."

 

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=14640&printsafe=1

US: Air America on Ad Blacklist?

ABC document: Sponsors shun liberal network

Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting
October 31st, 2006

An internal memo from ABC Radio Networks to its affiliates reveals scores of powerful sponsors have a standing order that their commercials never be placed on syndicated Air America programming that airs on ABC affiliates.

The October 25 memo was provided to FAIR by the Peter B. Collins Show, a syndicated radio show originating on the West Coast.

Headlined "Air America Blackout" and addressed "Dear Traffic Director"—referring to the radio station staffer who coordinates programming and advertising—the memo gives the following order to affiliates:

Please be advised that Hewlett Packard has purchased schedules with ABC Radio Networks between October 30th and December 24th, 2006. Please make sure you blackout this advertiser on your station, as they do not wish it to air on any Air America affiliate.

The directive then advises ABC Radio Network affiliates to take note of a list of other sponsors who do not want their programming to run during Air America programming.

Please see below for a complete list of all advertisers requesting that NONE of their commercials air within Air America programming.

The list, totaling 90 advertisers, includes some of largest and most well-known corporations advertising in the U.S.: Wal-Mart, GE, Exxon Mobil, Microsoft, Bank of America, Fed-Ex, Visa, Allstate, McDonald's, Sony and Johnson & Johnson. The U.S. Postal Service and the U.S. Navy are also listed as advertisers who don't want their commercials to air on Air America.

The ABC memo is evidence of the potentially censorious effect that advertisers' political preferences can have on the range of views presented in the media. When Al Gore proposed launching a progressive TV network, a Fox News executive told Advertising Age (10/13/03): "The problem with being associated as liberal is that they wouldn't be going in a direction that advertisers are really interested in.... If you go out and say that you are a liberal network, you are cutting your potential audience, and certainly your potential advertising pool, right off the bat." (See Extra!, 11-12/03.)

FAIR's call to the ABC contact person listed on the memo, to ask if similar "blackout" lists exist for other shows, including conservative-leaning programs, has not been returned.

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=14213

Admin Camera Shy?

Women's Wear Daily
Jacob Bernstein asks Tim Russert if it's gotten harder for "Meet the Press" to book members of the Bush administration as the war drags on. "There is no doubt that the frequency by which Bush administration officials have chosen to give interviews has declined dramatically as the war becomes more and more controversial. The vice president has not been on in more than two years. [Donald] Rumsfeld hasn't been on in six months."

http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=45&aid=101330

Orwell on Language

Excerpt from: "...George Orwell’s essay, ‘Politics and the English Language.’

Some highlights:

“A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus: What am I trying to say? What words will express it? What image or idiom will make it clearer? Is this image fresh enough to have an effect? And he will probably ask himself two more: Could I put it more shortly? Have I said anything that is unavoidably ugly?”

“This invasion of one’s mind by ready-made phrases (lay the foundations, achieve a radical transformation) can only be prevented if one is constantly on guard against them, and every such phrase anaesthetizes a portion of one’s brain.”

“In prose, the worst thing you can do with words is surrender to them. When you think of a concrete object, you think wordlessly, and then, if you want to describe the thing you have been visualizing, you probably hunt about until you find the exact words that seem to fit. When you think of something abstract you are more inclined to use words from the start, and unless you make a conscious effort to prevent it, the existing dialect will come rushing in and do the job for you, at the expense of blurring or even changing your meaning. Probably it is best to put off using words as long as possible and get one’s meaning as clear as one can through pictures and sensations. Afterwards one can choose – not simply accept – the phrases that will best cover the meaning, and then switch round and decide what impression one’s words are likely to make on another person. This last effort of the mind cuts out all stale or mixed images, all prefabricated phrases, needless repetitions, and humbug and vagueness generally. But one can often be in doubt about the effect of a word or a phrase, and one needs rules that one can rely on when instinct fails. I think the following rules will cover most cases:

i. Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
ii. Never use a long word when a short one will do.
iii. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
iv. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
v. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday […] equivalent.
vi. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

“These rules sound elementary, and so they are, but they demand a deep change of attitude in anyone who has grown used to writing in the style now fashionable.”

“Political language … is designed … to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”

Substitute ‘business language’ for ‘political language’ and I think it still applies. Orwell understood how to effectively combine words. One reason that '1984' and 'Animal Farm' are so often taught in secondary schools is that he used concise, simple language to tell powerful stories..."

http://blogs.ipswitch.com/greene/2007/01/orwell_on_language.html

Thousands of hyphens perish as English marches on

LONDON (Reuters) - About 16,000 words have succumbed to pressures of the Internet age and lost their hyphens in a new edition of the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary.

Bumble-bee is now bumblebee, ice-cream is ice cream and pot-belly is pot belly.

And if you've got a problem, don't be such a crybaby (formerly cry-baby).

The hyphen has been squeezed as informal ways of communicating, honed in text messages and emails, spread on Web sites and seep into newspapers and books...

continues at:

http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUSHAR15384620070921?feedType=RSS&feedName=oddlyEnoughNews

Six Great Long-Distance Bike Trails Without Cars

Many years ago I took a meandering 5,000 mile bike ride across the US, from San Francisco to New York via Idaho and Texas. I rode back roads all the way and it was a highlight of my life. But this long bike ride would have been 100 times better if I did not have to share the road with careless drivers, overloaded pickups, and logging trucks, not to mention suicidal teens in hot rods. Wouldn't it be great if there were long-distance trails specifically for bicycles? Basically -- roads without cars?

Well, there are! A quickly emerging network of abandoned railway lines are being converted by regional governments into superb bike paths. In addition to offering very gentle grades that are ideal for bikes, many of these new trails are satisfying long. The longest rail trail is over 300 miles long, and the longest off-pavement bike trail in the country stretches 2,500 miles. On these bike roads you can cruise along for weeks without ever encountering a car...

-- read more at:

http://www.kk.org/cooltools/archives/001903.php

Pirate Bay suing major media companies for sabotage, based on MediaDefender leak

ThePirateBay has been digging through the enormous chunk of leaked email from MediaDefender, the sleazy enforcers used by the entertainment industry to fight P2P, and they've discovered evidence of illegal sabotage. So they're suing all the big movie and record companies in Sweden....

 

http://www.boingboing.net/2007/09/22/pirate-bay-suing-maj.html

What Really Happens to Our Food Aid?

When you hear the words food aid you no doubt imagine a wealthy country sending bags of food to parts of the world where people are starving. Yet in the case of the US, the reality is quite different. In fact, there is many ways that your food does not go from here to there. Even more alarming, could the US food aid program be hurting hungry people more than helping them?

“Who Does US Food Aid Benefit” is a recent article for In These Times, written by ... Megan Tady.

We then hear from Jordan Dey, director of US Relations for the World Food Program...

http://bicyclemark.org/blog/2007/09/bm225-what-really-happens-to-our-food-aid/