I spoke of Virginia Tech m assacre in the previous email. It’s a a total coincidence that on the world service today I heard Fred D’aguiar’s voice as a documentary is being
broadcast about the Virginia Tch masacre where Fred lst a student to the gunman. he also wrote an article for the Guardian web blog. You can read it here.
I am reading a moving book at the moment. It’s called The Visible world by Mark Slouka. Watched alot of films recently. Black Gold is a film about Ethiopian Coffee and how the workers are undermined by the multinationals.
Got me thinking about who runs the world, governments or multinationals. Is it a side effect of globalisation, that governments become the servants of commercial companies? Can global companies effectively run governments? Are multinationals the new aristocracy aping its family structure while promoting an inherent aquisition of land and virtual ownership of the people upon it.
I'm also thinking about the influence of the major companies who seem to have increasing control over our daily lives. I'm curating a project and art exhibition to explore people's emotions about shopping, a mundane task that seems to have become a leisure activity that we are persuaded is essential to our exisitence and well being. As someone who hates shopping I was interested in finding out others' responses so there are 20+ artists and a band involved.
Do you enjoy shopping? What do you think about the impact of the multinationals on our high streets? On the environment? There must be some positive aspects or we wouldn't continue to flock to the huge temples of consumerism like the Trafford Centre. Perhaps you have written on the subject. I'd be interested to find out.
Do I enjoy shopping? It all comes down to my mood. I have to be in the frame of mind. It is not something I choose to do as a leisure activity. I'll tell you something that I haven't articualted. The tesco's in the villages and towns of Britain. The government prepares it because they get one VAT Bill. Think about it? Not only do they get One VAT Bill, but they can calculate the needs of a town. We are more quantifiable. The ramifications of this quantifiability are massive.