#Aravinda's article about dams and illiteracy brings together #PaulFarmer on a #dam in #Haiti, and abuse of #MinamataDisease patients by #IshiharaShintaro. I read the article years ago (on Zcomm Znet) and it kept coming to mind even during those years when I couldn't find it again.
https://signalsinthefog.wordpress.com/2000/11/11/peoples-knowledge-in-the-paperless-society/

I wouldn't have found and read this great #DemocracyNow #transcript about #EleanorRoosevelt if it wasn't for finding #Aravinda's blog: #SignalsInTheFog :
'... the only other woman delegate to the convention / drafting committee was Hansa Mehta from India and it is thanks to her insistence that the UN declared the rights of human beings and not of “men.”
https://signalsinthefog.wordpress.com/2020/01/01/human-beings-amen-sister/

> ... villagers who came to meet #Kurdukar in Kevadia Colony ... had accepted resettlement in #gujarat only on paper... government records took priority over... reality... A #tribal person who does not defer to these records is called an illiterate … what do you call a judge who disregards the people in favor of the records?
https://signalsinthefog.wordpress.com/2000/11/11/peoples-knowledge-in-the-paperless-society/
#Aravinda writes of a #judge of #dams turned #bureucrat by #NeilPostman 's #definition #bureaucracy in the book #technopoly , #DavidGraeber

> ... on some level, all bureaucracies work on this principle: once you introduce formal measures of success, “reality”—for the organization—becomes that which exists on paper, and the human reality that lies behind it is a secondary consideration at best.
--- #DavidGraeber sounding like #NeilPostman on how bureaucracies are designed to disregard information. That's how big #dams can be built.
https://signalsinthefog.wordpress.com/2000/11/11/peoples-knowledge-in-the-paperless-society/
#Aravinda #India #Narmada #richguy #bureaucrat