Gongos and Bongos

By stoat on November 14, 2010.

People have been trying to make me read Merchants of Doot for some time, but I still haven't (go on, someone, send me a copy for Christmas, me c/o CSR St Johns House will reach me :-). But TWD (in the midst of "turning serious") has a post on a particular tobacco-industry document apparently inspired by the GCC. Anyway, what *I* wanted to pick out(in some sort of law of conservation of silliness effect) was not the substance (off you go to WTD for that) but the wonderful terminology: see the doc, its page 17 for some wonderful acronyms, like Gongo and Bongo (Business-Orientated NGO, if you were wondering).

As far as I can see, they didn't actually take up the offer to construct such an NGO, presumably for the obvious reason: it would too obviously be a transparent creature of the tobacco folks. And indeed the rather bland tone of the document itself supports that: they obviously don't dare write what they really think down about how it would have to be funded and controlled, for fear of exposure.

Tags
climate politics
oreskes
tobacco

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Page 25.
I'd like to take a closer look at PoNGOs and FoNGOs.
It all sounds a bit odd in such an earnest dissertation.