WASHINGTON (AP) Former Pentagon official Richard Perle resigned Thursday as chairman of a group that advises Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on policy issues, saying he did not want a controversy over his business dealings to distract from Rumsfeld's management of the war in Iraq. Perle said he was stepping aside voluntarily.

''I have seen controversies like that before and I know that this one will inevitably distract from the urgent challenge in which you are now engaged,'' Perle wrote in a resignation letter. The controversy centers on Perle's deal with bankrupt Global Crossing Ltd. to win government approval of its purchase by a joint venture of two Asian firms. Perle would receive $725,000 for his work, including $600,000 if the government approves the deal, according to lawyers and others involved in the bankruptcy case. The deal is under review by a government group that includes representatives from the Defense Department. Perle denied any wrongdoing.

Q. Supermarkets are just rewarding loyal shoppers. What's wrong with that?

The notion of "rewarding loyal shoppers" is wrong on two counts. First is the myth of a "reward." The markets claim that the opportunity to participate in the program is their way of "rewarding" you for your loyalty to the store. But a reward is a tangible benefit you wouldn't have had otherwise. There is no benefit in being recorded and tracked for the "privilege" of paying the same sale prices you'd always been able to pay in the past. (In fact, you often wind up paying prices that are even higer than they were before the card program was introduced.)

Shoppers are not signing up out of a sincere desire to contribute their private information to the supermarket's database, but in response to coercion and strong-arm tactics -- "if you resist you'll pay a price." This is not how a store rewards "loyalty," it's how a bully with power (the power to affect your pocketbook -- and ultimately the power to keep you from eating) abuses its power to subdue and control the shoppers that patronize it.

Second is the myth that these cards are offered to shoppers who demonstrate loyalty. Leaving aside for the moment the issue of whether a supermarket, of all institutions, is one to which I would even want to demonstrate loyalty, there is the simple fact that these cards are issued indiscriminately to anyone who walks in the door -- not as a reward to selected shoppers who are somehow more loyal than others.

Supermarket "loyalty" programs reward submission and compliance with the registration, numbering, and surveillance agenda -- not loyalty.

Cool-2B-Real is about real girls like you! Whether you're in school, playing sports or just having fun, strive to be the best you can be! Real girls are "keepin' it real" by building strong bodies and strong minds... and they're feeling great about themselves!

PLEASE CALL, FAX, EMAIL OR WRITE STARBUCKS ON MARCH 25!

*They need to stop serving GE ingredients including rBGH in their dairy products, in all of their 6,000 cafes.

*They need to make sure all their coffee growers are receiving a fair wage for the coffee they grow.

OrganicConsumers.org Campaigning for food safety, organic agriculture, sustainability, and fair trade

The past decade's wave of media mergers has produced a complex web of business relationships that now defines America's media and popular culture. These relationships offer a massive opportunity for cross promotion and selling of talent and products among different companies owned by the same powerful parent corporation.

Examine the charts breaking down what each of the five U.S. media giants now control (as of February 2001). Also included on this list is Bertelsmann AG, which in globalizing has bought up several large American media divisions.

March 11, 2020

WALTON, OH--Officials of the Wal-Mart Corporation announced Thursday the opening of Walton Township, a company designed and managed subdivision on the outskirts of Cleveland, Ohio. Walton, the first of three Wal-Mart communities scheduled to open this year, introduces residents to the company's new 'all you can live' consumer goods subscription service. "Beyond its quality environment and top-notch municipal services, Walton represents our first serious foray into flat-fee provision of consumer products," explains Michael Elmoere, Wal-Mart VP of Intra-Regional Logistics and First Regent of Walton Township. "It's a 21st century horn-of-plenty, all for one no-fuss monthly fee."

Taking advantage of the company's superior purchasing power and its much-vaunted just-in-time inventory management systems, Walton guarantees its residents a literally bottomless supply of the staple consumer goods with which Wal-Mart is commonly associated. "As much Windex as you want," boasts Elmoere. "As many Cheetos and Glad garbage bags. Imagine, every need satisfied." And the company is willing to stand behind its promises, integrating a '100% availability guarantee' covering more than 1,200 common household goods into Walton's town charter. "If it's in the charter, and it's not available, we'll pay you the cost of a replacement good, plus 10%. Guaranteed."

Now Mr. Richard Perle, an adviser to Donald Rumsfeld, who urged America to war with moral certitude, finds himself subject to questions about his own standards of right and wrong.

Stephen Labaton wrote in The Times on Friday that Mr. Perle was advising the Pentagon on war even as he was retained by Global Crossing, the bankrupt telecommunications company, to help overcome Pentagon resistance to its proposed sale to a joint venture involving a Hong Kong billionaire.

The confidant of Rummy and Wolfy serves as the chairman of the Defense Policy Board, an influential Pentagon advisory panel. That's why Global Crossing agreed to pay Mr. Perle a fat fee: $725,000. The fee structure is especially smelly because $600,000 of the windfall is contingent on government approval of the sale. (In his original agreement, Mr. Perle also asked the company to shell out for "working meals," which could add up, given his status as a gourmand from the Potomac to Provence, where he keeps a vacation home among the feckless French.)

Although his position on the Defense Policy Board is not paid, Mr. Perle is still bound by government ethics rules that forbid officials from reaping financial benefit from their government positions. He and his lawyer told Mr. Labaton that his work for Global Crossing did not violate the rules because he did not lobby for the company and was serving in an advisory capacity to its lawyers.

His convictions of right and wrong extend to the right and wrong investments. On Wednesday he participated in a Goldman Sachs conference call to advise clients on investment opportunities arising from the war, titled, "Implications of an Imminent War: Iraq Now. North Korea Next?"

The ancient carved stone terraces of the Borobudur monument rise out of the plain of central Java like a grand wedding cake trimmed with hundreds of Buddha statues. . But the sanctity of the temple that symbolizes the Buddhist civilization that flourished here more than a millennium ago is under threat. Governor Mardiyanto of central Java, a powerful local politician, has announced plans to build a mall that he says will provide a cleaner environment for the souvenir stands that jostle each other for space around the gateway to the monument.

What especially offends the sensibilities of Indonesian conservationists is the governor's proposed name for the mall: Java World, a shade too close to Disney World, say the opponents. Moreover, they argue that Mardiyanto's plan for a tramway to take tourists from the mall to the base of the monument could shake the temple's foundations, which are already sinking year by year.

Angry villagers have held protests.... Mardiyanto told the protesters that he wanted to get rid of the shabby stalls and grubby ice chests of the soda pop vendors at the entrance to the monument.

Thousands of protesters across the country today honored their pledge to "stop business as usual" the day after bombing began in Iraq, walking out of classes and work, shutting down major roads and converging on plazas, bridges, military bases and federal buildings to proclaim their opposition to war. San Francisco was the antiwar movement's epicenter, with more than 1,000 protesters arrested in the financial district. Demonstrators also made the Bay Bridge and about 40 intersections impassable during the morning rush hour.

Scattered vandalism and hundreds of arrests were reported elsewhere, as well, with large crowds gathering despite cold and heavy rain in some places. In Washington, protesters forced the police to close Potomac River crossings during the morning commute. In Chicago, protesters shut down Lake Shore Drive during the evening rush hour. Protesters in Atlanta and Boston also shut down major streets. About 100 protesters were arrested in Philadelphia, 8 were arrestd in Los Angeles, and in New York, 21 people were charged with disorderly conduct after a crowd of several thousand lay down in Times Square

Some of the biggest rallies this month have endorsed President Bush's strategy against Saddam Hussein, and the common thread linking most of them is Clear Channel Worldwide Inc., the nation's largest owner of radio stations. Clear Channel radio stations in Atlanta, Cleveland, San Antonio, Cincinnati and other cities have sponsored rallies attended by up to 20,000 people. The events have served as a loud rebuttal to the more numerous but generally smaller anti-war rallies.

The sponsorship of large rallies by Clear Channel stations is unique among major media companies, which have confined their activities in the war debate to reporting and occasionally commenting on the news. The San Antonio-based broadcaster owns more than 1,200 stations in 50 states and the District of Columbia.

While labor unions and special interest groups have organized and hosted rallies for decades, the involvement of a big publicly regulated broadcasting company breaks new ground in public demonstrations. "I think this is pretty extraordinary," said former Federal Communications Commissioner Glen Robinson, who teaches law at the University of Virginia. "I can't say that this violates any of a broadcaster's obligations, but it sounds like borderline manufacturing of the news."

Because I am one of the millions of people against the war;

And because the American government has made it clear that it won’t listen to world opinion;

And because the symbols of American power are its corporations and their brands;

I hereby pledge to boycott Brand America, from the moment the war begins and to the best of my ability until the empire learns to listen.

Dow Chemical is going to court this week in India. Not as the defendants for their ongoing responsibility for the Bhopal disaster, but as the plaintiffs: Dow is suing the SURVIVORS of the disaster for protesting at a Dow plant, and--we're not making this up--they're demanding US$10,000 from them... about 10 years of wages at local rates.

After the 1984 gas leak, which has killed 20,000 people to date, Union Carbide abandoned the factory site and fled India. For 18 years since, the toxic wastes left by Union Carbide have been bleeding poisons into the groundwater and affecting the health of the people living near the factory. Dow merged with Union Carbide in 2001 and paid up for Union Carbide's asbestos liabilities, but it refuses to do the same for Bhopal.

A virtual sit-in is simply an automated way of sending lots of traffic to a website. Activists around the world park their browsers on a page which does nothing more than automatically load the bhopal.com site several times a minute. In the same way that a real-world sit-in disrupts traffic, the virtual sit-in makes the target site less responsive and slow. Eventually, the site may become so crowded with protestors that it stops serving information completely.

The virtual sit-in will be located at The Yes Men's hugely successful spoof of Dow's website. Dow has been playing whack-a-mole with the DowEthics.com site, launching several abortive legal attempts to shut it down, only to have new activists set it up in a new spot on the internet. Other parts of the site explain more honestly why Dow refuses to clean up Bhopal and why image is everything to Dow.

ABC is clambering aboard the bandwagon of networks that allow advertisers to place products in reality series by signing two major marketers, Schick and Cingular Wireless, to embed brands in all 13 episodes of a new show, "All American Girl," which has its premiere tonight.

Product placements, a staple in the early days of radio as well as TV, are returning to favor among advertisers and networks. Both the buyers and sellers of commercial time are eager to find alternate ways to reach an audience at a time when viewers are increasingly using technology to ignore spots by zipping, zapping or TiVo-ing them into oblivion.

The marketers and networks are gambling that the benefits of placements will outweigh the castigation by critics who complain about the blurring of the boundaries between programming and advertising. Those lines have recently been rendered fuzzier by reality series like "American Idol" on Fox Broadcasting and "Survivor" on CBS that are replete with product plugs within the shows themselves from advertisers like Coca-Cola, Ford Motor, General Motors, Mars, the Old Navy division of Gap and Reebok International.

Asked if such placements unduly blur the line between content and commercialism, Ms. Payne of Cingular replied: "That is one opinion, certainly. But I feel the consumer is much more sophisticated this day and age, able to recognize the difference."

KOLKATA, Feb19, 2003 -- If you don't live in India, chances are that you haven't heard of McWrap and Pizza McPuff. But don't worry, you soon will, because these are two new products the world's leading fast-food vendor McDonald's will shortly be selling at its global outlets. Again, have you heard of Profile and Hotpoint? If you live in United States, it is very likely that you would have, because these two are reportedly GE's top-of-the-line washing machines there. Strange as these questions may sound, the newest offerings of McDonald's and GE's washing machines have a common link. McDonald's developed McWrap and Pizza McPuff at its research and development (R&D) center in India, while the motors for the two washing-machine models were also developed in India at GE's technology center in Bangalore. GE and McDonald's are not the only ones. More than 70 multinational companies (MNCs), including Delphi, Eli Lilly, Hewlett-Packard, Heinz, Honeywell and DaimlerChrysler, have set up (R&D) facilities in India in the past five years.

Visit ChillingEffects for more info on how intellectual property and other laws are being used to silence online users

posted by Michael | Monday 10 March 2003 2:35 PM
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CommonDreams article by James MacKinnon, Jan 2003

Big Bucks Won't Buy Respect article by Jennifer Wells, Mar 2003

BrandAmerica Project in Adbusters by JamesMackinnon Jan/Feb 2003

BrandAmerica not selling in the Muslim World. Boston Phoenix, Feb 13, 2003

Charlotte Beers resigns March 2003, AdAge

NPR's Lynn Neary and Steve Silver on All Things Considered March, 2003

posted by Michael | Sunday 09 March 2003 10:10 PM
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HONESDALE -- An advocacy group and some health care professionals are asking hospitals, including Wayne Memorial Hospital, to stop broadcasting a TV channel they say plays manipulative drug ads to vulnerable patients in their hospital beds. Hospital and network officials say the advertising is not as pervasive as opponents argue, and that the channel is a free source of valuable medical information.

At issue is the Patient Channel, a 24-hour station GE Medical Systems, a subsidiary of General Electric Co., began offering hospitals last year. The station airs programs on topics ranging from heart disease, cancer and diabetes to smoking cessation, nutrition and exercise. The channel is free, but includes ads for health-care products and services.

Those ads drew criticisms from Commercial Alert, a Portland, Ore., group that in its own words "protects children and communities from commercialism." Co-founded by Ralph Nader, Commercial Alert is also waging battles against advertisements on police cars and in schools.

Wayne Memorial Hospital began broadcasting the Patient Channel last fall. Hospital workers may direct patients to watch a certain program on the channel that relates to their illness, Wayne Memorial Hospital spokeswoman Emily Paulsen said.

Feb 2003--Hasbro Inc., the No. 2 U.S. toymaker, said fourth-quarter earnings rose 19 percent, boosted by strong sales of its mainstay toys like GI Joe action figures and Play-doh. Hasbro is focusing on its core brands, which also include Transformers and Lite Brite, as it tries to reduce its dependence on licensed toys and games tied to movies.

Last month, the company reworked it licensing agreement for toys related to the Star Wars movies, extending the pact with Lucas Licensing Ltd. for 10 years through 2018, while also reducing the minimum amount it had to pay out.

Resistance—to privatization and enclosure, to poverty and forced migration, to capitalism and colonization—is everywhere. It is rooted locally, in day-to-day work carried out for the dignity and freedom of communities and individuals.

To globalize resistance is to participate in building transnational networks of solidarity and resistance between communities, individuals, collectives and organizations fighting on the front lines of struggles for justice and supporting them as allies.

"When I was a teenager, it was much more acceptable within my peer level to eat here," said Mr. Ibrahim, a 26-year-old architectural draftsman, as he sat in a McDonald's near the Mission District in San Francisco. "But now, it comes off as uncultured, unclassy and uncool. Nobody brags about going to McDonald's, that's for sure." He added: "If you want to be chic, you eat sushi. Indian food is even more cutting edge. McDonald's is like white bread."

Since 1997, McDonald's share of the fast food market has fallen more than 3 percent, according to Technomic, a market research firm. (McDonald's now accounts for 15.2 percent of the market.) Subway, which offers custom-made sandwiches on freshly baked bread, has supplanted McDonald's as the largest chain in the United States. Among hamburger chains, McDonald's has lost the lunchtime battle to Wendy's, which first offered an alternative menu featuring baked potatoes and a salad bar. Sales of the popular Happy Meals have slid, in part because the company's 10-year licensing deal with the Walt Disney Company has not been able to capitalize on toys from any blockbuster movies since "Toy Story 2." And, while owning a McDonald's was once a sure-fire moneymaker, many of the company's franchisees have voiced disappointment with lower profits, expensive new cooking systems and strained relations with management.

The company's image problems are starting to affect its bottom line. Last December, under pressure from Wall Street and investors, McDonald's chief executive said he would step down at the end of the year. He was replaced in January by James R. Cantalupo, a 28-year veteran of the company who was brought out of retirement to assume the post. The company also announced plans to close 600 restaurants and to shut its operations in three countries. In January, McDonald's recorded its first quarterly loss in the company's history as a publicly traded business.

So along with the entire hamburger category, the company has been losing market share to what the food industry calls the fast-casual restaurants like Panera Bread, Baja Fresh, Pret A Manger and Chipotle Grill (McDonald's has an ownership stake in the last two) that have successfully domesticated exotic tastes for the mass audience.

McDonald's has been experimenting with new foods like a salad topped with hot slices of grilled or crispy chicken that is scheduled to go on sale nationally in March. Customers will be able to eat a griddle cake sausage sandwich, called McGriddles, in the spring and will soon be able to petition an in-house barista for a cup of premium ground coffee and pastries, a concept the company calls McCafe. McDonald's has promised an expanded menu before, but it has not had a blockbuster new product since the Chicken McNugget, which was introduced in 1983. Other attempts to diversify their hamburger offerings, like the McLean sandwich and the Arch Deluxe, have all gone to their respective McGraves. A 1991 cover of BusinessWeek magazine featured a photograph of Michael R. Quinlan, a former McDonald's chief executive, surrounded by 10 new menu items, including spaghetti, lasagna, pizza and carrot sticks. Of those 10 products, only 2 remain on McDonald's menu.