Corporate Guerilla Warfare
Trip Start
Jan 30, 2010
1
8
9
Trip End
Apr 23, 2010
Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Sorry I haven't written in a while. So we left Hyderabad on April 19th still without editing software or footage on Sam's computer. Oh dear. Venkat, the man who was pretty much in charge of us, said he will try to send over both of them on discs to the Guest House so we can grab them when we swing back through Hyderabad in April for our flight home. Looks like we'll be editing the film in Oak Park. The big snag, however, is that the film is almost entirely in the language Telugu. Um, we don't speak Telugu. Should be interesting
Anywho! So we took a train up to Bhopal. On the train we met this young man named Amit. He was so happy to have some ears to talk at. We got into a pretty long discussion, that eventually turned into a quarrel, about many different things. First off, he avidly showed his disappointment when he learned that we had never heard of his company Accenture, an American consulting firm. "You've never heard of it, and you LIVE there!" Sorry man, I guess we're just ignorant Americans. He told us all about how he thinks outsourcing is good for the American economy because it saves corporations money. We also discussed his view that muslims living in India who sympathize with Pakistan over their homeland should move to Pakistan. He said people should not place their religious faith above their nationality.
He left, we slept. We had our own bunks this time! Never in my life did I think I would be so grateful to have an entire 24 cubic feet all to myself. Ahhhhh my own faded blue, peculiarly stained 2-inch thick slightly padded cot. This is the good life lemme tell ya.
So we got to Bhopal and grabbed one of those 3-wheeled auto rickshaws to take us to Sambhavna, the clinic in which Alizarin and Dede stay. Apparently there is a global event going on in April called Live Earth. He is what the website says aboutt he event:
The Dow Live Earth Run for Water – to take place April 18, 2010 – will consist of a series of 6 km run/walks (the average distance many women and children walk every day to secure water) taking place over the course of 24 hours in countries around the world, featuring concerts and water education activities aimed at igniting a tipping point to help solve the water crisis.
Great cause right? Let me briefly tell you about the chemical multinational evil corporation known as Dow. Dow is I believe the 2nd largest chemical company on Earth. They make soooo many chemicals that are used in things you use every single day, such as deodorant or plastic. Unfortunately, Dow is single-handedly responsible for over a score of catyclismic chemical dumps. They were the makers of Agent Orange, the defoliate used in Vietnam. They conviently forgot to tell the US military that this extremely potent toxin may cause detrimental birth defects and cancer in humans. This of course includes US Vietnam vets.
A few other places that Dow has screwed over include Midland, Michigan; Plaquemine, LA; Chloorkop, South Africa; Bhopal, India; Vietnam; Homebush Bay, Australia; Guaruja, Brazil; and Seadrift, Texas just to name a few. In most of these places people are getting horrible unnatural conditions like cancer, infertility, and birth defects including many, many, many more.
So Dow has taken this Live Earth run for water and decided to be the main corporate sponsor. So anywhere you see this LiveEarth logo you now see Dow's logo. This is just a ploy to make their company name seem better to the public. Grrrr.
So Alizarin and Dede, w/ the help of Rachna and Satyu, set up a phony LiveEarth run for water in Delhi for April 18th where we'll have a station set up at every kilometer to inform participants about the real side of Dow Chemical. I'm so pumped. We helped out painting big canvases that will be used during the event.
Satyu also came up with the idea to print thousands of stickers promising told fortunes about your wealth, career, and health and to stick these stickers all over the place in Delhi and maybe 2 other cities. These stickers have Dow's number on them. Last time they did this Dow had to change it's number entirely. Hopefully that will happen again. Corporate guerilla tactics, cool right?
