[sustran] "In my view you have no place asking a question like this since Shell "

[eric.britton]

Sorry to natter on here one last bit, but I really do think that this is all
very healthy, and thank you Paul for summing up things very neatly for us. 

 

But here are two other wrinkles on this that my admittedly exasperated,
cranky note of yesterday should have added: one concerns greenwashing, the
other the screamers. 

 

1.     Greenwash is out there in copious, strident, beautifully financed,
hypocritical, indeed voraciously  anti-social gobs. To remind us, just in
case you have not looked of late, the Wikipedia page is not a bad place to
start: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenwash. The SourceWatch entry at
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Greenwashing is more complete and
useful. 



.         I for one greatly appreciate greenwash activists and if anything I
would like to see more, more strident and more strategic work and activism
in this area. (And while you are at it, don't forget that tomorrow is
International Buy Nothing Day of which we at the Commons have been smiling
supports since 1993, when we folded out own such day (which we called
Consumer Holiday) into the Adbusters even wilder and wooly initiative:
http://adbusters.org/metas/eco/bnd/), 



.         What continues to amaze me is the gall of the leading corporate
groups and the institutions, public sector as well as private, that more or
less consciously fall in line and back them. Every two page ad which
solemnly extols the contributions of the motor car and fossil fuel companies
to the environment are outrageous, and yet open up any glossy mag and there
it will be.



.         There is a great word for it: shameless.



2.     The screamers, those who keep up the pressure on the public to see
all this for what it is, are precious social resources and we need if
anything even more of them. (More, better founded, more effective). Thus
when I hear from Todd in some of the other fora in which he generously
shares his views, I always have a quick look and smile to know that he is
still at it (though not when I read him here when he carries on in this vein
and in the process stretches us just too far out of our mandated area of
interest). Likewise, folks like Adbusters, Carbusters and other such groups
are great. Keep at it and keep at it Todd. 

 

Finally Todd, I am glad that your computer got the better of you and that
you were not able to unsubscribe. Sustran is a great resource and is, I
would like to think, part of the process of continuing education in which we
all need to participate. 

 

Back to work,

 

Eric Britton