The New Corporation takes on the myth of goodhearted corporations, the ones that pretend to give even half a shit about the disposable fleshpods that make up their customer base. The ones that care about the social problems they’ve very definitely caused. It’s horseshit, of course.
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Most humans on earth are aware of how Big Bidness stomps all over humanity’s face in search of its next shabby cash-grab. Joel Bakan’s The Corporation helps explain why: Corporations are, in human terms, amoral, antisocial psychopaths. That is a million percent my jam.
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Having graduated from the Bond Villain School of Bastards and Bastardry, Nestlé, the world’s biggest food and drinks company, apparently set out to also be the world’s biggest contributor to infant mortality, aggressively marketing its baby milk substitute in countries where the water used to make it was so filthy it killed babies…
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Mainstream representations of the environmentalist movement would have you believe it’s as middle class as The Guardian and white as all fuck. And while it’s true Greenpeace is, for example, as middle class as The Guardian and white as all fuck, they are not the whole of the environmentalism movement…
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Devoted as you are to yer man The Zero, and as closely as you monitor my good works, you’ll be aware I do the odd bit of fundraising in spite of hating it almost completely. The past few years I’ve been meddling with Yaknak Projects, a small charity set up by a few friends to run two children’s home in Nepal. They need £16,000 a year to keep the homes running, a delightful spot of constant pressure that cheers them greatly.
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As I’ve often said, I very much believe the children are our future. Teach them well, I’ve often said, and thereafter watch them lead the way. I also very much believe when the night falls the loneliness calls. And that you should give me one moment in time.
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So there I was, all ready to announce Kiva as the Chazza of the Month for a second non-consecutive time when what should appear but a classic spot of Zero angst? You’ll recall how Kiva is a microfinance outfit offering loans to people in developing countries and how I’ve bigged them up a couple of times already. But after that last rant about payday lenders being arseholes the worries I’ve had about microfinance went from being vague floaty things at the back of my mind to being slightly less vague, marginally firmer things on a list of other things to consider thinking about at some point in time when I can be bothered.
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With the Olympics all done with and the Paralympics prepping itself for interest considerably less feigned than usual, it’s time to reflect on the heroes at whom we marvel, the champions who capture our hearts, the icons who inspire a generation. Jessica Ennis. Usain Bolt. Me.
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Asylum law is fairly horrific, based on the casual racism and xenophobia and fear of others from which the editor of the Daily Mail draws his strength, plotting his return to bodily form as he rests patiently on the back of Margaret Thatcher’s turbaned head. Asylum seekers have been kicked out of the welfare system, told to live on the equivalent of 70 percent of Income Support as if life is cheaper for them, and put into housing so manky it’d be pulled down if it they hadn’t been shoved in there.
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Steve Jobs died last week, and here I find myself writing about it with all the delayed topicality of a Ben Elton novel. He’s been on my mind for two reasons: first, because he was cracking and, second, because of how he wasn’t.
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If I was pressed on the point I suppose I’d have to concede that in my time as the world’s leading source of inspiration I’ve picked up as many enemies as I have fans, and that their levels of adoration and fury are about even. Like Bono I’m a polarising figure, although my ratio of haters to fans is a marked improvement on his; mine being 1:1 and his being the entire population of the earth:Bono.
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Read through the Nepal Diaries, you could reach the end thinking I hate the place, presenting as they do an endless parade of poverty, frustration and half-empty glasses. But it’s a cracking country, a ramshackle would-be paradise packed full of friendly, generous people, packed full of culture and tradition and cracking food, packed full of energy and activity and ambition. It’s just a shame so much of it gives me the shits.
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