Subject: Re: NYT Op-Ed Salman Rushdie 271102
Date: Fri, 6 Dec 2002 08:56:25 -0000


Salil

With all due respect - and with deference to the list which is not really
about such issues - this is a rather naive view of the media.

To give a more mundane example at the height of the Thatcher government in
the UK little more than 40% of the British voters (not even 40% of the
electorate let alone the population as whole).  Yet of the national
newspapers only 2 opposed her government while 5 supported her (ie around
70%).  Why the disparity?  Well national newspapers are expensive to run and
require a relationship with finance capital that tends towards the right.

Your analysis of the free market reads like a kind of 18th century theory
version.  In reality the market is full of imbalances and barriers which
distort demand in favour of the products that business wants to produce.

I find it hard to buy fair trade despite the fact that when fair trade is
available it sells extremely well in this country.  I do believe that I have
a duty to try to translate this demand into supply but this is a political
battle as well as simply a market one.

Liam
----- Original Message -----
From: Salil Tripathi <salil61-AT-hotmail.com>
To: <postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
Sent: Friday, December 06, 2002 7:24 AM
Subject: Re: NYT Op-Ed Salman Rushdie 271102


>
>
>
> Maldoror,
>
> The funny thing about markets is that if a large number of people want to
> read Communist, revolutionary or other dissident stuff, it will be sold at
> every news stand. You've yourself said that this is dissident literature,
> and like other forms of dissident literature that does not conform to the
> majority's tastes (be it anarchist, right-wing, reactionary, fascist,
Hindu
> fundamentalist) it will not displayed prominently. As a vegetarian in
China
> I have to walk an extra mile to find a place where I can eat. If all
Chinese
> were vegetarians, it would be different. The same goes for news stands and
> revolutionary literature. Rather than complaining about the news stand or
> the media's unwillingness to display dissident stuff more prominently, we
> should ask why is it that this kind of a message is not more widely
popular.
> I write for some of the "small" publications, and sure, I'd like those
> publications to be displayed as prominently as some of the bigger ones I
> write for. But I don't believe it is fair to blame the news vendor.....
>
> Salil
>
>
>
> >From: Maldoror <insektus-AT-yahoo.com>
> >Reply-To: postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
> >To: postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
> >Subject: Re: NYT Op-Ed Salman Rushdie 271102
> >Date: Thu, 5 Dec 2002 21:24:04 -0800 (PST)
> >
> >
> > > well the good guys, both Little and Big and Small
> > > also work
> > > the same way, and therein
> > > lies the Problem.
> > > It s a duality business.
> >
> >do you ever have anything useful to say or contribute
> >other than your usual discombobulated rambling?
> >
> >if the 'good guys' as you call them worked in the same
> >way why are there no dissident magazines on newsstands
> >right next to the new york times? if i want dissident
> >literature why do i have to go to 'revolution books'
> >off the beaten path here in new york to get them? i
> >would hope one could find them in colombia bookstores
> >or nyu but it wouldn't surprise me if they weren't.
> >
> >if the 'good guys' worked in the same way there would
> >be more points of view out there for the masses to
> >consume other than that of the state media. where are
> >the anarchist magazines? the communist magazines? the
> >socialist magazines? the answer is in little
> >independent bookstores tucked away virtually out of
> >sight, keeping the dissident views to a mere whisper.
> >
> >and if you're going to respond do it in a concise way
> >instead of just babbling.
> >
> >gr3g
> >
> >====> >
> >'every government is a dictatorship. every leader, a
rant.'   -anonymous
> >
> >
> >__________________________________________________
> >Do you Yahoo!?
> >Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now.
> >http://mailplus.yahoo.com
> >
> >
> >      --- from list postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
>
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> MSN 8 with e-mail virus protection service: 2 months FREE*
> http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus
>
>
>
>      --- from list postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
>



     --- from list postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---