‘No way!’. Say that to these....

A list of popular products you should / should not Buy, Use or Endorse

Here is a little something I’ve whipped up that is a list of products/companies you should not buy/endorse. The reason for not buying as well as buying is given alongside each entry.

Disclaimer: this list does not claim to be complete. Actually this is not even the tip of the tip of the tip of the iceberg but here goes..

Product no:1- Pespsi/coca cola

Reason for not buying:

Both of the soft drink giants have started and are maintaining rather successfully bottling plants causing serious environmental problems in the surrounding areas causing physical ailments to the residents. Plachimada in kerala is just but an instant of this ‘soft kill’. In addition, it is widely known that next to jesus rising out of the tomb the availability of pepsi/cola products in the legal market is the greatest miracle of all times since almost all standard authority norms on the level of chemicals have been violated by both companies. There is more, but I think you have reasons enough now.

Reason for buying:

So that u can buy it to ur child and kill him/her with stomach cancer thereby excluding urself from any future parental responsibilities. Seriously that’s the only reason I can see.

Product no:2- GAP products (Clothing related accessories)

Reason for not buying:


Conclusive proof has been obtained and produced before authorities including the U.N (with no results as usual) showing that GAP uses as employees women and children made to work for 20 hours a day without pay and under locks and guns, yes guns. This is especially true in the middle east. Assault on the ‘employees’ are a daily issue with physical abuse and whole lotta other shit. So everytime u buy a GAP product some poor child might be getting hurt for it.

Reason for buying:

err..well…

Product no:3- Saint gobain

Reason for not buying:

There exist only very few nations on the earth where these buggers have not started up factories evicting farmers illegally, even when government orders were with the farmers. Of course the governments should be more responsible but so is the company.

Reason for buying:

So that u can look at ur ugly mug on the mirror.

Product no:4- Any and all bottled water

Reason for not buying:

An estimate of roughly 200 people around the globe are dying due to scarcity of water simply because some big conglomerate or other has ‘brought off’ the local water sources like rivers and sometimes even canals (yeah, I also don’t know how they do that, I mean canals are built in the first place to bring water to the people). Worst hit in the world include Gujarat in India as well alongside certain Scandinavian villages.

And the 200 figure I gave at the beginning is a safe estimate.

Reason for buying:

Look at ur life! Slaving from morn till night all because food has been privatized. Do u want to make it any worse than it already is?

Product no:5- mcdonalds

Okay, this is a company but forget the friggin’ grammar man!

Reason for not buying:

This is the company that has single handedly made the largest number of people in the world what media people like to call internally displaced and what normal people call homeless. Using ‘tactics’ such as using the local mafia/underworld forces to properly ‘persuade’ people to leave their homes for meagre sums that wouldn’t even buy them a one time meal for two from mcd itself, it is something greater than injustice that this company is being allowed to continue with its current mode of operation.

Reason for buying:

for those cute giveaway toys, but we can live without those, cant we?

Product no:6- Ford

Reason for not buying:

A company that ‘officially’ supports and make money out of america’s so called fight on terrorism that is going on in the assumption that all the baddies in the whole world are in the middle east/iraq area, should not only not be supported but should possibly be pissed on in my opinion. Minus the funds coming in from companies such as ford, many innocents in the war ridden regions of the world would have better chance to live.

Reason for buying:

Simply for satisfying your killer instinct and getting away with it.

For knowing about products u can buy without hurting others, log on to www.maketradefair.com

The no logo nation

My 45 year old neighboring lady asked me why I was out on such a fine morning with a decent sized bucket in my hand with the intention of collecting money for the war affected people of Iraq. This happened some while ago, I know iraq aint hot topic anymore. I didn’t have a good answer to give her especially since the honest answer had something to do with my craving for booze. My neighbor, call her madam y, shooed me away saying her sons hard earned money from a prominent software mnc( I wont name it,whew) is not to be wasted like this. After all,what connection does she has with people of iraq or Africa or wherever. Just shoo. And shoo I did.

But after a couple of days I went back to her with an apt answer that was found by me calling up all the intellectual prowess in me as well as the local drugstore. I knocked the door and out came madam y. I gave her my answer. With some research(ahem) I’ve found that the company for which ur son is working has taken up projects for pepsico. Now imagine that if at some war ravaged space in the world like iraq, if the pepsico plants there gets bombed( yes, they do have pepsi and coke plants in iraq and I know they wont ever get bombed,only the neighboring huts), pepsico would have to slash back on their project outsourcing and the mnc for which ur dear son is working may need to cancel some projects might leading to cutting off of employees. Then where would ur son be? Inside or outside.

Of course it was a whole lotta bullshit but the old dame got scared all the same and looking at the expensive kanchipuram sari she had on, asked me to wait and gave me some money for iraq. I told her as a bonus yet another thing before parting. Consider the mnc for which ur dear son is working. They need to put up a new campus or office and evicts more than a handful of farmers to acquire the land for the purpose. Your son has got job in that particular office. The farmers of course got a ‘decent’ compensation from the government after which they are roaming the streets looking around for a tree with proper heights to commit suicide. No matter to which nation the farmer belongs, now don’t u think that u, ur son and the farmer are all connected and u do have a liability to those farmers? Of course, I said all of this since in the back of my mind I’ve already planned to get the next bucket with the cause of ‘evicted farmers of bangladesh’ tagged to it. Got to have booze. But madam y’s response put a curb on it. She declared-“why would I give a fuck about some fucking farmer? My son aint no farmer, he is a highly paid and respected employee in a highly esteemed company.”

My mom always says that I have very limited intellect when it comes to practical things. Maybe she is right. I certainly didn’t have any answer to madam y’s very practical question.

Those of u who don’t want to be bugged by such questions and want to know more about anti-globalisation activities or about the effects of globalization on classes of people, referring the following would help:

1. no logo (non fiction book by Naomi klein)

2. constant gardener(movie by Fernando Meirelles)

3. blood diamond(movie by Edward zwick)

4. The corporation(documentary by Mark Achbar & Jennifer Abbott)

5. 1000 days and a dream(documentary by biju viswanath)

6. fences and windows(non fiction book by Naomi klein)

7. run a google search on ‘zapatista’