Planet Sodex(h)o

It doesn't feel like there are 1000 people at the UN climate negotiations in Bangkok. The UN building is spacious enough to seem empty most of the time. Not even the computers are oversusbcribed (ok, there is also wireless and most people that are here, quite rightly, are in the plenary rooms where the action is. Those are full - especially compared to any parliament I can think of during a climate debate ...). - It does feel, though, like Sodex(h)o is chasing me around the globe. They control the cafes here. They run the canteen in every public building I can think of in Berlin. They are one (of usually two) companies that issue lunch vouchers in many countries - from France to Belgium and India. To me, not being able to escape Sodexo anymore, is a clear sign of the kind of homogonizing globalization I dislike. But there are plenty of other reasons to dislike Sodexo (without an h as of 2008, apparently). I first heard of them as the people who profit from the discriminating project of paying asylumn seekers not money, but vouchers (no doubt I thought at the time, that I would never have to drink their coffee!). Asylumn seeker vouchers are particularly offensive to me as a human being of German extraction. (We have learned the hard way where stigmatizing minorities can lead ...) But Sod(h)exo has also been busy catering for US military in the Gulf and busting unions. Oh man, that next coffee is not going to taste good ...