Today, let’s discuss responsible consumption, which can cut in more directions than one. Let me explain.
A current topic discussed in the news is for consumers to assume responsibility for their purchases, taking steps to be as certain as possible that their purchases don’t support companies committing environmentally harmful acts or companies that may behave in a socially irresponsible manner. These are certainly worthwhile goals. The world could do with less environmental harm and less social irresponsibility, committed by either corporations or individuals.
Of course, one problem that consumers would have in making such decisions would be with the identification of such companies. The problem lies in the semantics; just what does “environmentally harmful” or “socially irresponsible” mean, and who defines such things. If you read the business press regularly, or even if you occasionally read this blog, you’ll know that many of those definitions are set by NGO and activist groups such as Greenpeace, Rainforest Action Network, and Corporate Accountability International. It is these groups, these “semantical gatekeepers,” who have appointed themselves to define what is “environmentally harmful” or what is “socially irresponsible.” I suppose that’s better than no one taking on this task, but such power in the hands of a limited number of groups can be unsettling. Perhaps what is needed here, in addition to more “responsible consumption” of companies, is more responsible consumption of these “semantical gatekeepers,” a “monitoring of the monitors,” if you will. But what’s to motivate the public in taking such an interest? How about a financial interest? The criterion of money usually hits home.
Whether you know it or not, if you are an American taxpayer, you support these semantical gatekeepers, the groups who decide from whom you should buy and from whom you should not.
How so?
This is the sixth post in the continuing series about Rainforest Action Network (RAN) and how it involves children in its campaigns against companies. To have a look at the previous five articles in the series, just click here.
Today’s post is a short one.
Recently RAN released a report regarding their assertion of how children’s book publishers use paper that is linked to the destruction of the rainforest. Well, as are many of RAN’s reports arguable, so is this one. But I am not, today, commenting on the validity of the information within their report or on the integrity of their research processes. My post today is made simply to draw your attention to RAN’s strategic choice of the continued employment of children into their anti-corporate campaigns.
Why would RAN choose children’s books about which to write such a report? Why not, say pulp fiction books? Or how about romance novels? Or mysteries? Or graphic novels? Or even porno magazines? Why not? Because those other genres don’t carry the presumed innocence that children’s books carry, the very innocence that is attached to children themselves. There isn’t as much shock involved in stating that, say for example, mystery novels use paper that is contributing to deforestation of the rainforest. No. Focusing on the children’s genre attracts a lot more media attention than would focusing on most other genres. And residing within that attention is the shock that RAN wishes to strategically leverage for their purposes.
Truly shocking only if their report is correct. But is it? Or are they creating shock in kiddy paper? You may take a look here at their report and then decide for yourself. And after reading that report, you might want to regard it within the context of the findings that I have made regarding how RAN uses children in its private political campaigns against companies.
My article from last week, “Rainforest Action Network . . . Does Indoctrination Count,?” drew a bit of attention on this blog. That article was the first in a case study series on how Rainforest Action Network involves children in its various anti-corporate campaigns. Today’s post is the second article in that series.
Below you’ll see a link to a Rainforest Action Network video that appears on YouTube.com, in the Rainforest Action Network channel. This video involves a toddler, to the seeming confusion of his mother, in declaring, toward the end of this 48 second video, that he doesn’t want any “rainforest destruction” in his cereal.
I’m assuming that this young man was a child actor hired for this specific RAN video. I assume this because I don’t realistically believe that any toddler is going to utter the words “rainforest destruction” of their own choosing. So, my question becomes:
Is using child actors appropriate in a politically-motivated campaign?
And, yes, this is politics. Private politics is the process of “collective interactions between parties attempting to advance their interests that do not rely on the law, public order, or the state.” (Source: Contention and Corporate Social Responsibility, p. 30.) NGOs practice private politics when they engage a company to get the company to change its behavior. In the RAN campaign of which this video is a part, RAN is attempting to affect a change in General Mills’ (the maker of Cheerios) purchases of palm oil, an ingredient in their cereals.
Concerning the above question, you’ve probably guessed my opinion, especially if you have read the previous post in this case study series, “Rainforest Action Network . . . Does Indoctrination Count?”
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About  Here at " Richard Telofski on The War on Capitalism," I discuss and analyze the individuals and groups conducting campaigns against capitalism. In the articles on this site, I provide analysis on lesser known facts about this movement. More . . .
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