[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 Mc Donald'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."

User Options Recent Changes Help Page