MM NOVEMBER 1997

NOVEMBER 1997 · VOLUME 18 · NUMBER 5

T H E L A W R E N C E S U M M E R S M E M O R I A L A W A R D

THE NOVEMBER 1997 LAWRENCE SUMMERS MEMORIAL AWARD* goes to the CBS Television Network.

Each year, The Media Foundation, the publishers of Adbusters Magazine, promotes Buy Nothing Day, held on the day after Thanksgiving, the biggest shopping day of the year in the United States. This year, it sought to air a Buy Nothing Day television commercial.

The CBS response: "This commercial asks the viewer to not make any purchases on November 28, 1997 as a demonstration in opposition to the current economic policy of the United States" (CBS/Broadcast Group, Program Practices Commercial Clearance Report Buy Nothing Day, November 5, 1997). CBS refused to air the ad, in keeping with its policy not to air advocacy ads.

* In a 1991 internal memorandum, then-World Bank economist and current Deputy Secretary of Treasury Lawrence Summers argued for the transfer of waste and dirty industries from industrialized to developing countries. "Just between you and me, shouldn't the World Bank be encouraging more migration of the dirty industries to the LDCs (lesser developed countries)?" Summers wrote. "I think the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that. ... I've always thought that underpopulated countries in Africa are vastly under polluted; their air quality is vastly inefficiently low [sic] compared to Los Angeles or Mexico City." Summers later said the memo was meant to be ironic.

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