Yeah, right, yadda yadda, cut to sympathy-tugging footage of the refugees and starving children in Central Africa's unending zoo of human suffering.
The media coverage never, ever, extends to naming the bastards who bankroll these militias. Someone trades with them, someone does their banking, someone is the buyer and the organiser for the trade. Someone, whisper it quietly, fronts the money when this spring's offensive changes control over a mineral territory, and runs interference to ensure that the diplomatic, legal, and public-relations efforts of the rightful owners come to nothing in our capitals.
You could ring up any major bank in London or Chicago, find an analyst or dealer on the commodities desk who lives and breathes the market in non-ferrous metals, and you'd get a damn' good answer as to who that 'someone' is... Quite possibly involving respected corporations very close to home.
Even the Chinese middlemen, who pop up everywhere these days when there is money to be made from man-made tragedy, are easily traceable in a supply chain leading to Shenzen and to identifiable consumer goods appearing in our shops with familiar Western brand names.
But that would be investigative journalism. And criticism of powerful men with sharp libel lawyers. And, worst of all, negative news about our advertisers.
So turn on the telly, or find some more 'hard-hitting' journalism in the printed media, and hold a freshly-cut onion to your face if you're finding that emotional fatigue at seeing it all over again is making it difficult for you to cry. And try not to think that some of your money, and mine, paid for the scenes we're socially-expected to regard with sympathy.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2008-11-27 07:11 pm (UTC)Yeah, right, yadda yadda, cut to sympathy-tugging footage of the refugees and starving children in Central Africa's unending zoo of human suffering.
The media coverage never, ever, extends to naming the bastards who bankroll these militias. Someone trades with them, someone does their banking, someone is the buyer and the organiser for the trade. Someone, whisper it quietly, fronts the money when this spring's offensive changes control over a mineral territory, and runs interference to ensure that the diplomatic, legal, and public-relations efforts of the rightful owners come to nothing in our capitals.
You could ring up any major bank in London or Chicago, find an analyst or dealer on the commodities desk who lives and breathes the market in non-ferrous metals, and you'd get a damn' good answer as to who that 'someone' is... Quite possibly involving respected corporations very close to home.
Even the Chinese middlemen, who pop up everywhere these days when there is money to be made from man-made tragedy, are easily traceable in a supply chain leading to Shenzen and to identifiable consumer goods appearing in our shops with familiar Western brand names.
But that would be investigative journalism. And criticism of powerful men with sharp libel lawyers. And, worst of all, negative news about our advertisers.
So turn on the telly, or find some more 'hard-hitting' journalism in the printed media, and hold a freshly-cut onion to your face if you're finding that emotional fatigue at seeing it all over again is making it difficult for you to cry. And try not to think that some of your money, and mine, paid for the scenes we're socially-expected to regard with sympathy.