Arundhati Roy on the elections
http://www.usyd.edu.au/news/newsevents/articles/2004/nov/04_arundhatispeech.shtml
You will have to cut and paste that since I haven't mastered the cryptic language of live journal in order to make it a link. (Oh volunteer guru, whoever you are, who is going to teach me to upload icons and enable cookies and whatever else, add that to the list.)
Seriously, though, this is a great speech given by Indian writer Arundhati Roy (The God of Small Things) on the state of the world after the elections. She gave it in Sydney on Nov. 3rd, when she accepted the Sydney Peace Prize. She is so straight-talking and practical, it is really refreshing.
Here's an excerpt:
So, all you young management graduates don't bother with Harvard and Wharton - here's the Lazy Manager's Guide to Corporate Success: First, stock your Board with senior government servants. Next, stock the government with members of your board. Add oil and stir. When no one can tell where the government ends and your company begins, collude with your government to equip and arm a cold-blooded dictator in an oil-rich country. Look away while he kills his own people. Simmer gently. Use the time collect to collect a few billion dollars in government contracts. Then collude with your government once again while it topples the dictator and bombs his subjects, taking to specifically target essential infrastructure, killing a hundred thousand people on the side. Pick up another billion dollars or so worth of contracts to 'reconstruct' the infrastructure. To cover travel and incidentals, sue for reparations for lost profits from the devastated country. Finally, diversify. Buy a TV station, so that next war around you can showcase your hardware and weapons technology masquerading as coverage of the war. And finally finally, institute a Human Rights Prize in your company's name. You could give the first one posthumously to Mother Teresa. She won't be able to turn it down or argue back.
You will have to cut and paste that since I haven't mastered the cryptic language of live journal in order to make it a link. (Oh volunteer guru, whoever you are, who is going to teach me to upload icons and enable cookies and whatever else, add that to the list.)
Seriously, though, this is a great speech given by Indian writer Arundhati Roy (The God of Small Things) on the state of the world after the elections. She gave it in Sydney on Nov. 3rd, when she accepted the Sydney Peace Prize. She is so straight-talking and practical, it is really refreshing.
Here's an excerpt:
So, all you young management graduates don't bother with Harvard and Wharton - here's the Lazy Manager's Guide to Corporate Success: First, stock your Board with senior government servants. Next, stock the government with members of your board. Add oil and stir. When no one can tell where the government ends and your company begins, collude with your government to equip and arm a cold-blooded dictator in an oil-rich country. Look away while he kills his own people. Simmer gently. Use the time collect to collect a few billion dollars in government contracts. Then collude with your government once again while it topples the dictator and bombs his subjects, taking to specifically target essential infrastructure, killing a hundred thousand people on the side. Pick up another billion dollars or so worth of contracts to 'reconstruct' the infrastructure. To cover travel and incidentals, sue for reparations for lost profits from the devastated country. Finally, diversify. Buy a TV station, so that next war around you can showcase your hardware and weapons technology masquerading as coverage of the war. And finally finally, institute a Human Rights Prize in your company's name. You could give the first one posthumously to Mother Teresa. She won't be able to turn it down or argue back.