(2002-02-14) b

John Mac Arthur on the banality of the World Economic Forum. Above all, Davos is about the hollowness of public relations, the hot air of advertising and the monotony of mutual congratulation - more so, at any rate, than the exercise of raw power. And if, as I concluded, empty phrases and fatuous rhetoric are the real stuff of Davos, then Davos and its elitists are ripe for overthrow - all we have to do is blow, and it will all come tumbling down... Instead, I asked how it was that no one had commented on the exploits of Jose Bove, the French sheep farmer turned scourge of McDonald's, who was just then attending the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil. Thus far, all the talk had been pseudo-compassionate treacle about the poor and the "anger" emanating from the "South," as though the moderator, Frederick Schauer of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, was conducting an interdisciplinary colloquium for psychology and sociology graduate students. Mr. Greenberg tensed slightly, but he remembered his PR lessons, referring to Mr. Bove; only as "that individual" and "the Frenchman" who "obviously has a social agenda and likes to have his picture in The New York Times." He advised the audience "to separate the loud voices of a few people from the voices of the customers who outnumber (the protesters) by a factor of a thousand."