>>> If you feel so strongly about Nestle why don't you do something
>>> about them yourself? >> But I do! and have been for many years, but what I *personally* do
>> is not the issue here. The issue is one of priorities.
> What you personally do is of interest when you're so busy slagging off
> other people.
Of course it's not, unless your case is so weak that you are forced to
resort to dragging the debate down to a personal slanging match level.
>McDonald's. I actually find it hard to believe that you've campaigned
>against Nestle when you have such ignorance of other issues which
>affect the lives and fate of people on this planet and are so
>disparaging of those fighting other battles.
I find this arrogant drivel that somehow I am 'ignorant of other issues
affecting the lives and fate of people on this planet' rather amusing
and desperate, when this individual knows nothing of what I have
knowledge of that falls into this category, nor have I stated such.
But then, it's hardly surprising and just another attempt to drag
this down to a personal slanging match - a predictable, if somewhat
passe tactic. Perhaps 'Jane' would care to inform us just what I am
accused of being' ignorant' of? Or was she just engaging in a bit of
empty chest beating and rhetoric?
> Go on, tell us what you're involved with.
And is this pertinent to the case I've been making regarding priorities
and relative importance of campaigns? 'Course not, it's just another
poor attempt at ad hominem debate.
>> But they don't need me to do that, there's already a ton of stuff on
>> the net, however you were all too busy chasing the corporate clown.
> You seem remarkably reluctant to help them publicise this
> information which you say is readily accessible and very important.
You don't need my word for it. You, yourself claimed to have campaigned
against Nestle so why do you need me to confirm that it is 'very
important'. Are you saying that it is not and are challenging my
value judgement about the merits of the case? I have stated
unequivocally that I consider the Nestle campaign far more important
than this one. Perhaps you'd care to give us your value judgement on
these two campaigns?
>> Because, when you engage in a paper tiger hunt like this, other -
>> possibly more worthwhile campaigns - suffer. To take a cynical view,
>> if the amount of time and effort poured into this non-issue were
>> turned instead on Nestle, how many 3rd World childrens' lives could
>> have been saved? How many children did the McLibel campaign leave to
>> die?
> Your argument is idiotic and totally insulting.
No it is not, it is straight to the point, if somewhat bluntly stated.
> The fault of dying children lies not with the McLibel campaign but
> with Nestle and other companies like them. They are the ones carrying
> out the deeds that kill. Not McLibel.
An interesting statement there. Now try this one. 'The fault of
cruelty to chickens lies not with McDonalds but with Sun Valley, they
are the ones carrying out the deeds that result in cruelty, not McDonalds".
> Why let them off the hook. Are you some kind of apologist for their
> actions.
Gosh! Can't you come up with something more intelligent than such
hackneyed old non-seqiturs?
> Ahh, poor Nestle, it's not really their fault, they wouldn't have
> done it if McLibel had stopped them. GET REAL.
This isn't even worth responding to, although it does indicate to me
that you did get the point, didn't like it and now choose to try and
muddy the water with such silly misrepresentations which bear little
resemblance to the point being made.
> The Nestle campaign could and should be successful too, but it won't
> be easy with people like you around.
The Nestle campaign has been running since the early 70s and it
*certainly* won't get anywhere with irrelevant distractions as McLibel
sucking up resources.
>> I said in my opening article that I considered this as a trivial and
>> unimportant issue on the world scale. I still believe it is. You lost
>> and now you are wasting yet more time engaging in 'spin-doctoring'
>> trying to turn defeat into victory. Forget it, it's gone. A campaign
>> against a burger company or one against a company which kills children?
>> There's no contest, the McLibel issue pales into insignificance when
>> compared with real world issues of today and is just an unneccessary
>> distraction. If you want to pursue corporate giant, pursue one which
>> does real damage, not one who's main crime appears to have been to
>> sell crap food and been the subject of a rumour campaign.
> If you don't want to recognise the damage that McDonald's does to society and
> to animals and the environment that's up to you.
I recognise that there is something called priorities and value
judgements, clearly something you appear to be lacking, judging from
your attempts to turn this discussion into a one dimension tirade of
ad hominem drivel.
> But don't forget that the judge actually found a large number of the
> complaints made in the leaflets to be true.
Really? And there was I thinking that he'd found 3 minor parts proven,
none of which were entirely earth shattering, the vast majority he
found libelous and now you engaging in semnatic acrobats to try and
prove he actually meant something different.
> Especially in countries like Brazil where large numbers of indigenous people > still live in forests, so when forests are destroyed so are their lives and > communities.
..and McDonald's are doing this? Oh of course not, that's what the
judge concluded. Think about it next time you have a corned beef
sandwich.
> Are you really so callous that you think that doesn't matter?
Oh dear, what a feeble attempt to put words in my mouth. You'll have
to do better than that. Pursuing McDonalds will do nothing for the 'rainforest', nor will it do anything for animal welfare, low(?) pay. In actual fact the
issues raised in this campaign are nothing more than attempts at
gaining a cloak of respectability for a campaign that is really more
about diet and what has been referred to as 'food fascism'. The low
pay and anti-union issue was bogus from the start since Steel and
Morris, as militant vegetarians, had targetted McDonalds as the biggest
supplier of beef to the public. The issues on the 'fact' sheet were
just convenient sticks with which to beat McDonalds, they had no real
interest in the plight of McDonalds workers as their mission aim was to
put them out of work anyway by closing the company down. So when the
veneer of 'respectable' causes is stripped away, all you are left with
a rather silly campaign aimed at enforcing vegetarianism on the public.
If your concern is indeed for the 'rainforest', I suggest you address
the logging companies who are doing *far* more damage to the rainforest
than McDonalds in areas like the Philipines, Indonesia and Borneo,
and the corned beef companies in the UK who switched production from
Argentine pampas raised beef to Brazilian beef as a result of the
Falklands War.
As for 'low pay' and lack of union recognition, I take it you'll all
be picketing IBM for union recognition and, on behalf of those
hundreds of thousands who work in quite atrotious conditions for even
less pay that a burger flipper - in the NHS? No? Why not?
