The Unsuitablog

There is a story, and it is partly true, that the Ford Motor Company were responsible for the mass incursion of free market capitalism and the associated violent suppression of opposing voices, across South America in the 1960s and 1970s. Certainly the Chicago School of economic thought, led by Milton Friedman, were grateful for the funding provided to a number of their programs by Ford; but as with many of these things, it is not so much the isolated horrors that probing into the history of a great corporation will reveal, as the net effect of thousands of lesser actions, creating a toxic scum around the edge.

Most of these “lesser” actions are in the form of advertising and political funding, and right from the up, Henry Ford was no mug – understanding the importance of having both the public and the political system on his side. Personally I’m not that bothered who killed the electric car – it would have still needed something to run it; what is far more sinister is that such vast corporations can exist at all in a society that, apparently, allows people freedom of choice in how they live their lives.

Any way you like, to paraphrase Mr Ford, “So long as it’s our way.”

A mere trifle, but a perfect example of the corporate mind-meld, comes in the form of an email received a couple of days ago. I reproduce it in full, safe in the knowledge that my readers have the nous to see through the layer of greenwash:

Hello,

Going green is a tagline that everyone wants to be associated with. But Ford Motor Company is walking the walk.

A large part of all auto makers environmental credibility gets placed on how fuel efficient their cars and trucks are. But Ford is taking significant measures this year to spread their sustainability efforts beyond miles per gallon, and into operations and corporate practices.

Today ford announced their Dealer Sustainability Program, in partnership with the Rocky Mountain Institute, aimed at implementing cost-effective ways to improve the energy-efficiency of their facilities, resulting in a long-term reduction in individual dealership’s carbon footprint as well as overall operating costs.

This industry-leading effort kicks off today at the 2010 National Automobile Dealers Association Convention in Orlando.

Please see the full release below let us know if you have any questions or would like any additional information or a follow up briefing from Ford.

Thank you!

FORD ANNOUNCES DEALER SUSTAINABILITY PROGRAM

* Ford Motor Company is launching a voluntary sustainability initiative for Ford and Lincoln Mercury dealers to reduce their carbon footprint and improve the energy-efficiency of their dealerships

* Ford has partnered with Rocky Mountain Institute, a leading energy-efficiency organization to pilot new technologies and architectural design principles, at three dealerships in diverse climates

* The ‘Go Green’ dealer sustainability initiative is fully integrated into the company’s existing architecture to provide dealers with the ability to improve energy efficiency and lower operating costs

ORLANDO, Feb. 14, 2010 – Ford Motor Company’s commitment to contributing to a better world further expands today with the announcement of the ‘Go Green’ Dealership Sustainability Program. The program is being shared with the company’s U.S. Ford and Lincoln/Mercury dealers today at the 2010 National Automobile Dealers Association Convention.

The goal of the program is simple: Collaborate with dealers to implement cost-effective ways to improve the energy-efficiency of their facilities, resulting in a long-term reduction in individual dealership’s carbon footprint as well as overall operating costs. Participation in the ‘Go Green’ Dealership Sustainability Program is voluntary for dealers.

“In keeping with Ford’s commitment to the environment, this program is a great fit for our dealers because it provides a variety of energy-efficient improvement options regardless of the current age and design of the facility,” says Sue Cischke, group vice president, Sustainability, Environment and Safety Engineering. “This allows all dealers the opportunity to participate in improving the energy efficiency of their facility and gives them flexibility in making choices that are right for them and their dealership.”

Ford has partnered with Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI), an organization recognized as a leader in providing energy-efficiency solutions to businesses, communities and organizations around the world.

“We applaud Ford for their ongoing energy-efficiency efforts around the world,” said Amory B. Lovins, Co-Founder, Chairman and Chief Scientist, Rocky Mountain Institute. “This initiative will have a positive impact participating dealers decrease their consumption of energy. Implementing these cost-effective solutions will also improve dealer’s bottom line over the long-term.”

Getting Started

Dealers interested in participating in the ‘Go Green’ Dealership Sustainability Program will first receive a comprehensive energy assessment from sustainability experts at Ford. After the thorough assessment is completed, Ford and the dealer will collaborate on energy-saving options available and will tailor a program to meet the needs of the dealer. Solutions are wide-ranging and can be implemented for dealers with existing facilities as well as dealers who are constructing new facilities.

Dealers who participate in the program will be able to take advantage of several benefits, including guidance on available State and Federal tax credits and incentives, as well as access to technical expertise and resources to assist with selection of energy-efficient products and equipment.

Ford is finalizing details to initiate a pilot program with three dealers located in Florida, New York and Nevada.

“Through this initiative we are making available to dealers the same techniques, principles and expertise we use to reduce our energy use and contribute to a better world,” said Cischke.

___________________________________________
Eddie Fernandez I Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide
T: 916.231.7733 / F: 916.418.1515
E: eddie.fernandez@ogilvypr.com
A: 1414 K Street, Ste 300, Sacramento, CA 95814

Hello, Eddie, did you forget to mention that Ford exists to sell cars and trucks that burn fossil fuels. Never mind, perhaps you would like to use the logo at the top in your next press release. It would be a lot more honest.

“The peasants, living lives which to us seem indolent and shiftless, are invariably carefree and contented; but, if they are to be citizens of an independent self-governing nation, they must acquire…a new set of wants.”

Greenwash inevitably starts with advertising. The image of desire projected into the mind of a seemingly independent human being makes them so much more open to suggestion; the machine has us where it wants us by virtue of just clever words and clever pictures. We are so easily led…or at least we have become so easily led. So, if a corporation wants to appear green it just uses the same tricks it uses all the time, to suggest whatever it wants us to believe. Invariably, it gets what it wants.

Life would be so much more carefree without advertising. The quote at the top of the page was spoken by Arthur Millspaugh, an advisor to the US government in 1929. This was made with reference to the people of Haiti, the country that the USA was occupying then, and now desires to occupy once more. Whether with guns, the promise of aid or those clever words and clever pictures, the people at the top of the chain will do whatever it takes to occupy our minds, our lives and, of course, our wallets.

And who needs guns or aid when you have billboards, ad breaks, in-store advertising, promotions, junk mail, pop-ups…the power of the global marketing machine?

How would you like to help people get their lives back?

No Risk

For someone who wants to move away from a technological existence, it would seem odd for me to promote a particular technology, but this is well answered by Derrick Jensen who defies those who selectively quote Audre Lorde in saying: “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house”. There is no reason at all why certain, effective technologies should not be used in defence of humanity and the wider world, so long as the doctrine of technology as a universal force for good is resisted. You are almost using a web browser to read this. If you are using Internet Explorer, then stop using it and install Firefox instead.

Now you have done that – and wasn’t it easy? – watch the following video, which will explain how to install AdBlock Plus:

Working with the AdBlocked browser might not seem different, but we are surprisingly poor at noticing things that are not there – maybe news sites feel a bit cleaner; pages load a little quicker; you aren’t getting all sorts of messages asking for permission to open this and that. The critical difference is that you are being exposed to far fewer advertisements; and if you do see and advert, all you have to do is right-click (or the Mac equivalent) and select “Adblock Image…”. Click “Add Filter” and you will never see it again.

Unless you are using someone else’s machine, in which case, ask them to install Firefox and AdBlock Plus, and get them to ask all their friends to do the same, and so on. Very quickly, with virtually no risk at all, you have a lot of people who are being brainwashed that bit less. What’s not to like?

Low and Medium Risk

I am genuinely unsure of whether defacing or damaging an advertisement in a public place is a crime or not. Speaking for English Law, which is the jurisdiction under which I am forced to live, if a billboard is operated by a private company then any “negative” action taken against the advertisement is taken against the private company alone. Any prosecution would have to be taken out by that company (ClearChannel, JCDecaux or whatever) upon the individual, and as far as I know, it never has been. That’s why I consider any non-destructive (speaking from a structural point of view) actions that do not directly harm another person to be Low Risk.

However, the comfort factor is important, so there are a number of variables that determine your personal risk, whether real or perceived. First, where and when the action is taking place: in broad daylight in a busy shopping street is bound to get you at least some attention, although this can be mitigated (perversely) by the wearing of a fluorescent yellow tabard, making methodical actions at least seem official. Under cover of dark, next to a place usually only busy during the rush-hour is perfect for avoiding any trouble.

Second, how much you do: rip off a small part of a poster, which is quick and less obvious than a complete removal, and you probably won’t be noticed; as will just a subtle change to a word or image (which can often be more effective) compared to a complete spray-job. I have found, to my delight, that removing a corner of even the largest billboard is often followed up by local teenagers finishing the job for you; similarly, scribble a bit of hair beneath an Immac-ed armpit, and you are inviting even more creative additions.

Thirdly, the nature of the change, if you are not simply removing the advert. There is one thing I personally would avoid, just because I have children, and that’s swearing as part of the defacement, as well as the use of sexual or overtly violent images. The addition below is great fun, but you can see (where I have smudged, just in case kids see this) the problem if it’s near to a school, for instance. Just keep it appropriate – by all means draw in a person crushed by the car on the advert, but avoid drawing a massive penis on a Coke bottle, as much as you would probably like to, if you want to keep it low risk.

The key to these low and medium risk actions, is the physical removal of the message intended by the advertiser. If you can reverse the message, as often portrayed by groups like Adbusters, then that’s great too; but the main thing is the release of people’s minds from the grasp of the corporate system. Just one advert removed from the eyes of a thousand people is a very good thing indeed. And don’t forget, this includes televisions, as featured last month.

High Risk

I’m putting these things under High Risk because whilst being incredibly important, they are almost certainly illegal, and may even pose some kind of direct risk to yourself in executing them. Because of that, I have to issue the following disclaimer:

The author, nor the host of this web site does not condone any actions which break the law under the jurisdiction where the described activity is taking place.

Which, of course, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do them at your own risk.

An Unsuitablog staffer had a chat with David Lambert of JCDecaux, the largest seller of high-tech billboards in the UK, to discuss their Première range of backlit behemoths, and he was relatively forthcoming on the subject of power sources to their units (listen towards the end):

RECORDING: JCDecaux Premiere Billboard Range (opens in new window)

Obviously if the power were to be removed from these units then the advert would be pretty useless; all those drivers no longer being urged to spend, spend, spend!

For billboards that are rather more inert, particularly the suburban and rural variety, I hand over to the peerless “Ecodefense: A Field Guide To Monkeywrenching” (a mirror of which you will find on the A Matter Of Scale website). In particular, Chapter 8, which deals with the removal of Propaganda:

Propaganda-psychological warfare-has been around ever since the early agricultural cities of the Fertile Crescent began quarreling and pushing each other around. Half of your battle is won when your enemy is afraid of you.

Propaganda is a good way for the monkeywrencher to not only present her message to the public, but also to cause sleepless nights for the black-hearted Freddies, developers, subdividers, gutless politicians, sleazy advertisers, and others. Besides the well-known act of cutting down billboards, other entertain­ing ideas in this chapter can leave the evil ones sweating and sleepless in their beds.

The relevant section includes details on tools, tactics for avoiding detection, and safety (for yourself and others) – you really don’t want one of these things falling on you!

As well as felling, Ecodefense goes into a great amount of detail about the various types of defacement and revision I have only touched on here. All of this is pretty high risk stuff, but certainly not beyond the ability of smart and careful people.

Whether you just install AdBlock Plus on your computer, remove a sheet of advert from a billboard or do something more permanent, you are giving both yourself and many others back their liberty; indeed, their basic right not to have their thoughts polluted by the desires of other, more nefarious, parties. Advertising is not freedom of speech or expression – it curtails this in favour of a corporate-driven message that defines how we should life our lives.

Now go and break those ads!

This is classic greenwash. Vintage greenwash, in fact.

Tesco, the British supermarket giant headed by Sir Terry Leahy (knighted for services to corporate power), has announced that one of their 2,360 stores is to become carbon neutral. I assume, obviously, that this carbon neutrality includes the things they sell in the store, rather than just the operational carbon, otherwise you could be excused for thinking that – heaven forbid – this is a PR stunt.

The story is taken up by Julia Finch in The Guardian, who opens with a cracking statistic…

Supermarket group Tesco, which pumps out some four million tonnes of carbon a year, today opened its first zero carbon store as part of its bid to be a carbon ­neutral company by 2050.

The shop, in Ramsey, Cambridgeshire, is timber-framed rather than steel, and uses skylights and sun pipes to cut lighting costs. It also has a combined heat and power plant powered by renewable bio-fuels, exporting extra electricity back to the national grid. In addition the refrigerators – one of the biggest blackspots for food retailers trumpeting their green credentials – have doors to save energy and harmful HFC refrigerant gases have been replaced.

Tesco chief executive Sir Terry Leahy said: “It shows that you can dramatically alter how much carbon you use and life can go on”.

The new store, he said, “cost 30% more to build, but it uses 50% less energy, and with oil at $70 a barrel it is a business case in itself”.

To coincide with the Ramsey opening, the supermarket chain said it intended to spend more than £100m with green technology companies, although Leahy was unsure of the level of supermarket’s current spend on this.

Tesco has been at the forefront of the grocers’ race to be green. The UK’s biggest supermarket has provided £25m of funding for the University of Manchester to set up a sustainable consumption institute, and has a 10-point community plan, with pledges to increase local sourcing and to consult local communities in an attempt to be viewed as a good neighbour.

Apart from the obvious dissonance between Tesco’s 2,360 stores that rip the heart out of communities wherever they are located – and, believe me, they are not located in order to develop a harmonic relationship with any community – there is the small matter of what Tesco sells.

In 2009, Tesco had a turnover – essentially a measure of how much stuff they sell – of £59.4 billion, an increase of 15.1% on the previous year. Of that vast amount, £41.5 billion is from UK sales, with the remaining £18 billion accounted for by supermarkets in Thailand (614 stores), China (50 “hypermarkets”), Ireland (117), South Korea (280), Japan (137), Turkey (100), Poland (313) and the USA (113).

As the “green” store is in the UK, we should focus on Tesco’s activities there: so we see £28.5 billion coming from food retailing – what is considered the Core Business – and the bulk of the remainder from non-food retail (clothes, electrical goods, homeware etc).

If you live in the UK, I want you to go into a Tesco store and pick ten items at random, both food and non-food, then try and find out where the items were manufactured, grown or otherwise produced. You’re going to have an interesting time with food because, like most food in supermarkets, the items contain a huge variety of different ingredients emanating from all across the globe: simplicity is not in the nature of mass food retailing. Fruit, vegetables and other single-source items will invariable be a mix of local (ish) and from much further away; but you can be assured that even “local” items will have been moved from one end of the country to the other a couple of times for warehousing and distribution before reaching the store.

Non-food items are made, basically, in China.

Tesco’s Carbon Disclosure (via http://www.cdproject.net) is interesting, to say the least, and it’s well worth repeating here:

8.1. Please indicate the category that describes the company, entities, or group for which Scope 1 and Scope 2 GHG emissions are reported.

Companies over which operational control is exercised.

8.2. Please state whether any parts of your business or sources of GHG emissions are excluded from your reporting boundary.

Production of goods, supplier transport, international freight, asset sites, waste recycling and disposal, employee commuting, customer transport, consumption and disposal of goods.

So while they are honest about their “direct” emissions, they completely ignore the thing that accounts for the bulk of Tesco’s emissions: the production and transportation of the things they sell.

The aforementioned four million tonnes of carbon dioxide is, large as it seems, only the tip of Terry’s toxic iceberg.

Why should this be a problem, given that the companies that make and transport the stuff should be disclosing and accounting for their emissions? Because Tesco is a huge company, and for the most part, if they did not exist to sell people overprocessed, long-haul, extraneous and unnecessary things that people would not buy were they not marketed by Tesco’s gigantic marketing machine, the emissions simply would not be produced. But, hey! They have a carbon neutral store, so that’s ok, isn’t it?

Tesco: every lie helps.

Just been sent a link to this cracking semi-serious article on Cracked.com by David at The Good Human. While I would probably balk at being called an insufferable prick (but I suppose it’s better than being called a Terrorist – see all these links) I go along with everything else here. Pity they don’t bother filtering out their comments…

For a person, “going green” is as simple as recycling more, wasting less and always, always, always behaving like an insufferable prick in social situations. But for a corporation, “going green” can be a much harder task that costs million of dollars, thousands of hours of manpower and often painful company-wide cutbacks.

Or, they can opt to do jack shit and just spend all of their money and effort convincing the public otherwise. This is what is referred to as “greenwashing,” and it works like this:

#6. Who Needs Water When You Have Coca-Cola?

Listen: India is a beautiful, ancient place with a rich and storied culture and we don’t mean to knock it, but it’s pretty damned overcrowded. They’re practically breathing other people right now, and as a result their resources are stretched taut. Water actually still means life over there–as opposed to the Western world where it’s just something that needs to be enhanced with electrolytes or thrown on the t-shirts of girls who hate their fathers.

So when Coca-Cola came to India and started sucking up thousands of gallons of the nation’s precious life-sustaining water each day to make their bottled acid-baths, it kind of rubbed a few (billion) people the wrong way. So to balance out this horrible misappropriation of resources, Coke tried to prove they were environmentally conscious by setting up a donation scheme to help save polar bears… which, of course, aren’t native to India.

Then at a San Francisco business conference, Coke also pledged to go water neutral. Well, actually they said they “aspire to put back” what they “take out.” Aspire. You can aspire to anything; take a poll of a first grade classroom and you’ll get 18 kids aspiring to be astronauts, four aspiring to be policemen, two aspiring to be president and one special child aspiring to be a motorcycle.

Wait, it gets better! Part of the their plan is that if they take all of the water out of one village’s wells, they can become “neutral” by putting the water back… into a different village. You know, like how instead of paying back your loan to your bank, they’ll allow you to just give the money to some random person instead. As long as you’re paying somebody, right?

[Five more of these hideous greenwashes here]

Disaster Capitalism is the name given to the process by which natural or purposefully contrived human disasters are exploited in order to impose a free-market system upon a population. The most extreme examples are those that have been contrived: these include the 1954 military coup in Guatamala, orchestrated by the CIA at the behest of the United Fruit Company (now Chiquita) to open up markets to the industrial West, and the afternath of the first (in Kuwait) and second (in Iraq) Gulf Wars, specifically to benefit US oil and construction companies. Natural disasters – and even that term is being questioned in relation to the Haiti earthquake of 2010 – have tended to result in a more subtle, but nonetheless significant change in conditions, such as the period following the Indian Ocean Tsunami in which the restoration and expansion of the tourist industry in Thailand seemed to be more important than the rebuilding of peoples’ lives!

I have been watching the developments in Haiti with an overriding sense of distrust, recording some of the more disturbing ones in a blog called Haiti Watch. The imposition of military rule seems to be inevitable, followed by free trade agreements and the installation of a US-friendly President. But it is not just the big guns (pun intended) that are taking advantage of the chaotic situation that, let’s not be coy here, has already left at least 200,000 people dead, hundreds of thousands more injured, and millions of people homeless. Wherever there is a market there shall be an opportunist; that’s how capitalism works, and I have seen a perfect example of this in a press release I received today from a fashion chain that, up to now, I had never heard of:

Contact: Megan Benson
megan@alexandani.com
212-385-1075

ALEX AND ANI SUPPORTS THE VICTIMS OF THE HAITI EARTHQUAKE
WITH LIMITED EDITION CORNELIAN EXPANDABLE WIRE BRACELET
-All Proceeds to benefit Doctors without Borders-

(New York, NY – January 2010) – In an effort to lend support to the victims of the Haiti earthquake, Alex and Ani, designer of couture and contemporary jewelry, has created the “Cornelian Bracelet” featuring its patented, expandable wire bangle™ with 100% of proceeds donated to Doctors without Borders.

The Alex and Ani Signature Expandable bracelet is an innovative wire bangle bracelet that adjusts and expands for a customized fit on any wrist. This exclusive piece features Russian or yellow gold finish plated over a brass etched wire and is adorned with a Cornelian stone. Wear Cornelian to increase energy, self motivate and take action. This stone is also a symbol of protection and peace.

This limited edition bracelet is available at www.alexandani.com and retails for $18 USD. Buy one for a friend, loved one, or yourself.

Alex and Ani was created by Carolyn Rafaelian. The line, which is made in the USA from recycled materials, is named after her two daughters. Their collections are sold at fine retailers such as Henri Bendel, Scoop, and e-commerce sites such as Shopbop and Saks.com. Alex and Ani’s pieces have been featured in publications such as Vogue, Lucky, In Style, Marie Claire and Glamour.

“Alex and Ani…Where Glamour and Consciousness Co-Exist.”

So, let’s get this right – rather than just donate a portion of their profits, or quietly stock a special item in their stores, they instead choose to send a press release out to everyone on their huge mailing list to show exactly how wonderful and full of conscience Alex and Ani is?

The correct term for this is “Opportunistic Marketing”; in the case of Alex and Ali, the “opportunity” is the death of 200,000 people so they can tell the world about their high couture range of jewelry.

If this is what “conscience” means then I need a new dictionary.

Disaster Capitalism is alive and well, and coming to a country near you.

The Public Eye Awards (formerly Public Eye on Davos) are a critical counterpoint to the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos. Organized since 2000 by the Berne Declaration (BD) and Pro Natura (the latter replaced by Greenpeace in 2009), Public Eye reminds the players of the global economy who impact people and the environment with destructive business practices that actions have consequences – in this case for the image of the company. We present shame-on-you-awards to the nastiest corporate players of the year. Two of these (in the categories „Global“ and „Swiss“) will be awarded by an in-house jury of experts while winner of the people’s award will be chosen by the people, who can vote online (http://www.publiceye.ch/en/vote).

The deregulation of world markets has greatly expanded the range of transnational corporations. This change has come about at such a rapid pace that national laws have long lost their ability to impose an orderly framework. The voluntary restraint or social/environmental commitment pledged by companies is often not worth the glossy paper it is printed on. Patents that price life-saving drugs out of reach of poor populations, natural resources exploited without regard for the local environment, or workers exploited ruthlessly in a race to the bottom, you name it – there is nothing that the global players assembled in Davos will not do to improve their bottom line. In the second year of a major world economic recession it is more important than ever to remind corporations of their social and environmental responsibility. We want a legal framework that will hold them accountable for their practices.

Starting this year, Public Eye also presents a „Greenwash Award“ to account for the rapidly growing number of institutions that fabricate social-environmental fig leaves in an attempt to make inveterate corporate players look greener than they are.

As the “Mother of all Window Dressers,” the WEF would naturally be a serious contender for this special award. The shortlist for the most dubious eco or social distinction includes the the highly-diluted CEO Water Mandate, a greenwashing project launched in 2007 within the framework of the UN Global Compact by (then) Nestlé boss Peter Brabeck to tackle the water crisis. But instead of doing so, CEO Water Mandate pursues systematic water privatization without meeting mandatory environmental or social criteria . Other nominees for the Greenwash award are he Round Table for Responsible Soy, co-initiated by WWF, and the partially state-owned Health Promotion Switzerland foundation.

Nominees for the Public Eye People’s award include Roche for organ transplantation from executed prisoners in China, the Royal Bank of Canada and the International Olympic Comittee. Voting takes place online on www.publiceye.ch/en/vote until January 27th. The more people vote, the more powerful the message!

This is a guest article, written by Annina Rohrbach of Public Eye, Switzerland.

Impinging upon an uncontacted tribe is, by any stretch of the imagination, culturally the most destructive thing it is possible to do: the tribe not only lose their landbase – the source of everything they need to live – but they become subject to foreign diseases to which they have no immunity, and their cultural identity becomes diluted, almost certain to be swallowed up by industrial civilization’s “growth at any cost” mentality. In short, if civilization impinges upon an uncontacted tribe, the tribe dies.

Survival International never let up in their efforts to prevent this kind of thing happening. Their “Greenwashing Award” may be symbolic, but it is a vital way to publicise the awful things that corporations and governments do in order to make money; just money, as though it is more important than life…

A Brazilian company bulldozing an uncontacted tribe’s land in Paraguay has won Survival’s ‘Greenwashing Award 2010’.

The company, Yaguarete Porá S.A., has won the award for ‘dressing up the wholesale destruction of a huge area of the Indians’ forest as a noble gesture for conservation’, says Survival’s director Stephen Corry.

Yaguarete owns 78,549 hectares of forest that is part of the Ayoreo-Totobiegosode tribe’s ancestral territory. After satellite photos were published around the world revealing that it has destroyed thousands of hectares of the tribe’s forest, the company issued a press release announcing it intends to create a ‘nature reserve’ on its land.

But plans submitted by Yaguarete to Paraguay’s Environment Ministry reveal that the amount of ‘continuous forest’ in the reserve will be just 16,784 hectares out of the 78,549 hectares total, and the company in fact plans to convert around two thirds of the land to cattle ranching.

Some of the Totobiegosode have already been contacted and vehemently condemned the plans for the ‘reserve’, pointing out that it violates their rights under both Paraguayan and international law. The contacted Totobiegosode have been claiming legal title to this land since 1993, but most of it is still in private hands.

The Totobiegosode are the only uncontacted Indians in the world having their territory destroyed for beef production.

Survival director, Stephen Corry, said today, ‘This is textbook ‘greenwashing’: bulldoze the forest and then ‘preserve’ a bit of it for PR purposes. The public won’t fall for it. Yaguarete should stop playing games and pull out of the Totobiegosode’s territory once and for all.’

Survival’s Greenwashing Award is presented to Yaguarete Porá S.A. for dressing up the wholesale destruction of a huge area of the Ayoreo-Totobiegosode’s forest as a noble gesture for conservation.

The following video shows what is likely to happen to the Totobiegosode people, using the terrible example of the Akuntsu:

“Out-of-Home impact plus the power of television to a captive audience. Reach 5.8 million monthly Atlantans, commanding attention during the entire ride.”

You don’t really notice it, but it’s there, filling your subconscious with a thousand different messages; broadcasting its commercial dominance to an entrapped population. Television is the primary method by which civilized humans are manipulated into carrying out the instructions of the industrial machine; this is no Orwellian fantasy, it is now and it is real, and don’t you feel pissed off that you can’t go anywhere without having your eyes and ears assaulted by this garbage?

The Monthly Undermining Task was instigated in order to remove greenwashing from the world, but because television propagates so much more than just the greenwashing messages of the industrial world, taking down the commercial public television network also removes all sorts of other insidious messages: promises of material fulfillment; political spin; embedded journalism; commercially sponsored “education”. By switching off a television you do nothing less than give people back their ability to think for themselves.

So, are you up for it?

From today, throughout 2010, I would like you to switch off televisions and other electrical hoardings whenever you get the chance. As I explained in the opening article, the risk you take is up to you; you can do this in an almost risk-free environment, or you can take a few chances and do something more permanent. Risk is relative, of course, and the first time you do something like this it always feels a bit dangerous – as though someone is about to walk up behind you and say, “Excuse me, what do you think you are doing?” before escorting you away from the premises.

Not that it really matters if you are asked to leave; but in all my time switching sets off I have never once been escorted away or even caught. The point is: no one expects anyone to switch these damn things off!

Low Risk

You see these everywhere now: plasma or LCD screens littering the walls and ceilings of shops, pubs, railway stations, libraries, schools. So insidious yet so fragile. With a wave of the hand you can switch these off. I’m going to recommend a product to do this; if you don’t want to buy it then you will need to take a little more risk (see later).

TV-B-GONE is the product you need; it is available in kit or ready-made form. The link for the ready-made versions is below:

https://www.tvbgone.com/cfe_tvbg_buy.tvbg.php

Check it works, attach it to a keyring or just hold it in your hand, and when you see a television that is in a public or commercial place – keeping the LED pointed at the screen – just press the button. It’ll take a while to get used to the order in which televisions are switched off, but in general the most popular models (like Sony, Toshiba and Samsung) go first.

I had great fun sitting on a bench outside a Sony Store, eating a sandwich, while switching off all the televisions within range; I have walked past shops with huge screens inside and knocked them out much to the incredulity of the staff; and I even walked around a music store, “shooting” the TVs off which were situated above the salepeoples’ heads. Great fun and, as I say, I have never been suspected: who would dream of switching televisions off?

Medium Risk

The next level of risk is essentially doing the same as for the Low Risk, but without the remote. Obviously there are fewer opportunities to do this, you being limited to what you can physically reach, but there are a few reasons why this might be a better option: first, you don’t have a remote control; second, the display is a computer monitor or other custom display that doesn’t respond to remote controls (these are often in small stores or office-type areas); third, you might want to just make a point of switching the screen off, as described by a correspondant:

My dentist recently instituted an *enormous* widescreen telly in their previously very lovely Georgian house conversion waiting room. It had some trashy Hollywood comedy playing on it when my partner and I were there last year. In fact, it had finished so it got stuck in the irritating sound loop that DVDs go into when they are in their menu screen.

Anyway, later on, we were both back in the waiting room while our xrays and so forth were being attended to, and there was one other middle-aged woman there too reading a magazine and sitting where she couldn’t see the screen. So I switched the TV off. A while later someone who worked there stormed in and switched it back on. I explained that we’d switched it off because noone wanted to watch it and was told off.

The reason for the telling off, I suspect, was not because anything had been damaged, but because the employee of the dentist had the idea in her head that THE TV MUST STAY ON! Why? Because it must. That’s it. Talk about brain death!

You might simply just say to the people in the room: “Is it ok if I turn the TV off?” Chances are no one will object, even if they were blankly staring at the screen. While we’re on the subject of reaction, the thing I have noticed most is that when an “ambient” (a.k.a. subconsciously brainwashing) television goes off, people don’t react at all; if anything they simply switch back into communication mode, and get on with their lives.

See, you are freeing people up. Well done!

High Risk

Now we’re getting into voluntary territory: if you want to take the high risk options then you need to follow the basic rules of Sabotage, as explained in this article:

– Carefully weigh up all the pros and cons, and then ask yourself, “Do the benefits far outweigh the costs?” Only act if the answer is “Yes”.

– Plan ahead, and plan well, accounting for every possible eventuality.

– Even if you value the worth of your actions, don’t get caught.

For legal reasons, I have to write that I don’t condone any breaking of the law nor anything that could potentially harm a living being.

Now, in the case of the displays that you can’t switch off remotely or by pressing a button, more drastic action has to be taken. You really have two options that are practical.

In the case of units that are immobile, like in the image above, it’s not generally practical to simply obscure the picture, so you will need to find the power source. I’m not going to go into any details, and it is highly inadvisable to mess around with breakers and wires if you don’t know precisely what you are doing; nevertheless, if there is a plug socket or obvious rocker switch connected to the unit, then you could just disconnect it. Whether you go further is up to you; but if you can disable a very large display, such as those in major railway stations, then you are a bit of a hero in my eyes.

UPDATE: On a little walk around I found that many of these units, at least in the UK, are controlled using keys that you insert into key switches (also known as “Secret Switches” or “Grid Key Switches”). You can buy the keys online, for instance at this UK outlet. It’s a bit more obvious than hitting a switch, but still something that can be done quickly and easily.

For display units on public transport, like the really creepy one in the image above, you will need to be more up-front. Don’t mess around with the power unless there is a switch on the back – you won’t find the source anyway because it has to be hidden well away – I would suggest covering the screen up, perhaps using a professional “Out Of Order” sign or something like this one:

(click for large version)

If you have a high visibility jacket or smart suit then you can probably get away without anyone saying anything. You may raise a smile from some of the people who didn’t even realised their eyes were glued to the set. You might even give someone the motivation to do something similar themselves.

And speaking of which; make sure you pass this article to your own networks, Facebook friends, Twitter feeds and put it on your blogs – here’s the link:

http://thesietch.org/mysietch/keith/2010/01/15/monthly-undermining-task-january-2010-the-great-tv-turn-off/

I have a funny feeling we will be seeing fewer usable televisions in 2010…

ACTION UPDATE:

Just so you know I’m not asking people to do anything I wouldn’t; yesterday I walked the length of Oxford Street in London, and switched off approximately 50 TV screens both in shop windows and in-store, some of which were being watched at the time! No one had a clue what was happening, and most simply walked away. The biggest coups were switching off the 2 metre tall vertical flat-panel in Benetton, and the wonderful silence after switching off a bank of blaring screens in HMV. Go on, you know you can do it!

From COMMON DREAMS, January 4, 2010

There has never been a better moment for natural gas. It is the “other” fossil fuel, touted as a clean alternative to coal and oil. It may be non-renewable, proponents argue, but it is a bridge or transition fuel to a happier future. Not surprisingly, the industry has gone to great lengths to persuade local residents, members of congress, and the public at large that there’s nothing to worry about. Chesapeake Energy Corporation, one of the major players drilling for natural gas in the Marcellus Shale, which stretches from New York to Tennessee, has successfully billed itself as an environmentally friendly operation.

Accidents do happen, Barrett told me. It’s part of the price of doing business. Something McClendon and the Sierra Club’s Pope might like to acknowledge as they make the case for an industry whose green credentials are far from certain.

“But we have to find a cheap alternative to coal!” Scream the denizens of Industrial Civilization, scared that perhaps the foundations of their beloved, energy-hungry world are starting to crumble. Keep screaming, one way on another it’s going to end in tears.

Unless you are, by some remarkable turn of events, completely self-sufficient in food — which, believe me, I would dearly love to be, except that I live in a society that doesn’t want me to be — then you will have to go out and buy stuff from time to time. Today was one such time; so after walking my younger daughter to school (or, to be accurate, walking about 30 metres in front of her while she chatted to a friend) I continued slipsliding on the surface of pavements covered with just-melting ice, and eventually reached the small National Trust property where I do some wardening two or three times a week. The gate was locked due to the snow and ice being quite treacherous, so I let myself in and spent a happy 30 minutes walking around picking up the odd piece of litter, and generally enjoying the bewhitened landscape, replete with squirrels, crows, chaffinches and a slightly confused mistle thrush.

I left through the top gate, then continued my slidey walk through the town in search of a charity shop woolly hat (£1 from Cancer Research), a mug of coffee (to accompany the planning of The Unsuitablog’s next major campaign), some potatoes and onions from the corner veg shop, and various food items from the Co-op (formerly Somerfield). It was while putting the porridge oats, vinegar, butter, bread flour etc. on the conveyor belt at the till that I noticed the woman in front, dutifully packing all of her items into a range of “bags for life”, that had been bought at Tesco, Sainsburys and Marks & Spencer.

After you’ve clicked on the links in the last sentence, see if you have the same thoughts about bags as me…

See what I mean, especially that last one?

I can’t remember exactly what she was putting in the bags, but it was an awful lot, and most of it didn’t look like staple foods; more the kinds of things bought to satisfy the endless cravings brought on by a life spent in front of advert-strewn television sets. Now, I don’t want to bash this particular person: look at any supermarket queue and you will see the same thing, and far worse in the form of two-litre bottles of Coke and spring water, multi-packs of crisps, loaves and loaves of sliced bread (especially when the weather’s cold, for some reason), ready meals and prepacked meats and pre-washed vegetables and pre-peeled potatoes and pre-grated cheese, bars of chocolate, boxes of cakes…piles and piles of food in shopping carts, of which about 30% will be thrown away, and the rest gorged upon in an orgy of consumer loyalty. This is normal; perfectly normal.

And it’s fine, because it’s all neatly packed in eco-friendly reusable bags.