The Corporation: Documentary now out on DVD

[Guest guest]

[The Corporation: Documentary now out on DVD. Whether

you're on the right, or the left politically, everyone

should see this documentary. You can now rent it at

online rental clubs like www.netflix.com I know I've

sent this reminder out before to some of you, but this

is a doc worth checking out. Rick.]

 

Source > http://www.thecorporation.com/

 

 

THE CORPORATION explores the nature and spectacular

rise of the dominant institution of our time. Footage

from pop culture, advertising, TV news, and corporate

propaganda, illuminates the corporation's grip on our

lives. Taking its legal status as a " person " to its

logical conclusion, the film puts the corporation on

the psychiatrist's couch to ask " What kind of person

is it? " Provoking, witty, sweepingly informative, The

Corporation includes forty interviews with corporate

insiders and critics - including Milton Friedman, Noam

Chomsky, Naomi Klein, and Michael Moore - plus true

confessions, case studies and strategies for change.

 

Winner of 24 INTERNATIONAL AWARDS, 10 of them AUDIENCE

CHOICE AWARDS including the AUDIENCE AWARD for

DOCUMENTARY in WORLD CINEMA at the 2004 SUNDANCE FILM

FESTIVAL. The long-awaited DVD, available now in

Australia and coming in March to North America,

contains over 8 hour of additional footage.

 

The film is based on the book The Corporation: The

Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power by Joel

Bakan.

THE CORPORATION - DETAILED SYNOPSIS

In THE CORPORATION, case studies, anecdotes and true

confessions reveal behind-the-scenes tensions and

influences in several corporate and anti-corporate

dramas. Each illuminates an aspect of the

corporation's complex character.

 

Among the 40 interview subjects are CEOs and top-level

executives from a range of industries: oil,

pharmaceutical, computer, tire, manufacturing, public

relations, branding, advertising and undercover

marketing; in addition, a Nobel-prize winning

economist, the first management guru, a corporate spy,

and a range of academics, critics, historians and

thinkers are interviewed.

 

A LEGAL " PERSON "

In the mid-1800s the corporation emerged as a legal

" person. " Imbued with a " personality " of pure

self-interest, the next 100 years saw the

corporation's rise to dominance. The corporation

created unprecedented wealth. But at what cost? The

remorseless rationale of " externalities " —as Milton

Friedman explains: the unintended consequences of a

transaction between two parties on a third—is

responsible for countless cases of illness, death,

poverty, pollution, exploitation and lies.

 

THE PATHOLOGY OF COMMERCE: CASE HISTORIES

To more precisely assess the " personality " of the

corporate " person, " a checklist is employed, using

actual diagnostic criteria of the World Health

Organization and the DSM-IV, the standard diagnostic

tool of psychiatrists and psychologists. The

operational principles of the corporation give it a

highly anti-social " personality " : It is

self-interested, inherently amoral, callous and

deceitful; it breaches social and legal standards to

get its way; it does not suffer from guilt, yet it can

mimic the human qualities of empathy, caring and

altruism. Four case studies, drawn from a universe of

corporate activity, clearly demonstrate harm to

workers, human health, animals and the biosphere.

Concluding this point-by-point analysis, a disturbing

diagnosis is delivered: the institutional embodiment

of laissez-faire capitalism fully meets the diagnostic

criteria of a " psychopath. "

 

MINDSET

But what is the ethical mindset of corporate players?

Should the institution or the individuals within it be

held responsible?

 

The people who work for corporations may be good

people, upstanding citizens in their communities - but

none of that matters when they enter the corporation's

world. As Sam Gibara, Former CEO and Chairman of

Goodyear Tire, explains, " If you really had a free

hand, if you really did what you wanted to do that

suited your personal thoughts and your personal

priorities, you'd act differently. "

 

Ray Anderson, CEO of Interface, the world's largest

commercial carpet manufacturer, had an environmental

epiphany and re-organized his $1.4 billion company on

sustainable principles. His company may be a beacon of

corporate hope, but is it an exception to the rule?

 

MONSTROUS OBLIGATIONS

A case in point: Sir Mark Moody-Stuart recounts an

exchange between himself (at the time Chairman of

Royal Dutch Shell), his wife, and a motley crew of

Earth First activists who arrived on the doorstep of

their country home. The protesters chanted and

stretched a banner over their roof that read,

" MURDERERS. " The response of the surprised couple was

not to call the police, but to engage their uninvited

guests in a civil dialogue, share concerns about human

rights and the environment and eventually serve them

tea on their front lawn. Yet, as the Moody-Stuarts

apologize for not being able to provide soy milk for

their vegan critics' tea, Shell Nigeria is flaring

unrivaled amounts of gas, making it one of the world's

single worst sources of pollution. And all the

professed concerns about the environment do not spare

Ken Saro Wiwa and eight other activists from being

hanged for opposing Shell's environmental practices in

the Niger Delta.

 

The Corporation exists to create wealth, and even

world disasters can be profit centers. Carlton Brown,

a commodities trader, recounts with unabashed honesty

the mindset of gold traders while the twin towers

crushed their occupants. The first thing that came to

their minds, he tells us, was: " How much is gold up? "

 

PLANET INC.

You'd think that things like disasters, or the purity

of childhood, or even milk, let alone water or air,

would be sacred. But no. Corporations have no built-in

limits on what, who, or how much they can exploit for

profit. In the fifteenth century, the enclosure

movement began to put fences around public grazing

lands so that they might be privately owned and

exploited. Today, every molecule on the planet is up

for grabs. In a bid to own it all, corporations are

patenting animals, plants, even your DNA.

 

Around things too precious, vulnerable, sacred or

important to the public interest, governments have, in

the past, drawn protective boundaries against

corporate exploitation. Today, governments are

inviting corporations into domains from which they

were previously barred.

 

PERCEPTION MANAGEMENT

The Initiative Corporation spends $22 billion

worldwide placing its clients' advertising in every

imaginable - and some unimaginable - media. One new

medium: very young children. Their " Nag Factor " study

dropped jaws in the world of child psychiatry. It was

designed not to help parents cope with their

children's nagging, but to help corporations formulate

their ads and promotions so that children would nag

for their products more effectively. Initiative Vice

President Lucy Hughes elaborates: " You can manipulate

consumers into wanting, and therefore buying your

products. It's a game. "

 

Today people can become brands (Martha Stewart). And

brands can build cities (Celebration, Florida). And

university students can pay for their educations by

shilling on national television for a credit card

company (Chris and Luke). And a corporation even owns

the rights to the popular song " Happy Birthday " (a

division of AOL-Time-Warner). Do you ever get the

feeling it's all a bit much?

 

Corporations have invested billions to shape public

and political opinion. When they own everything, who

will stand for the public good?

 

THE PRICE OF WHISTLEBLOWING

It turns out that standing for the public good is an

expensive proposition. Ask Jane Akre and Steve Wilson,

two investigative reporters fired by Fox News after

they refused to water down a story on rBGH, a

controversial synthetic hormone widely used in the

United States (but banned in Europe and Canada) to rev

up cows' metabolism and boost their milk production.

Because of the increased production, the cows suffer

from mastitis, a painful infection of the udders.

Antibiotics must then be injected, which find their

way into the milk, and ultimately reduce people's

resistance to disease.

 

Fox demanded that they rewrite the story, and

ultimately fired Akre and Wilson. Akre and Wilson

subsequently sued Fox under Florida's whistle-blower

statute. They proved to a jury that the version of the

story Fox would have had them put on the air was

false, distorted or slanted. Akre was awarded

$425,000. Then Fox appealed, the verdict was

overturned on a technicality, and Akre lost her award.

[For an update on the case see Disc 2 where we learn

that at one point, Jane and Steve became liable for

Fox's $1.8 million court costs, later to be reduced to

$200,000.]

 

DEMOCRACY LTD.

Democracy is a value that the corporation just doesn't

understand. In fact, corporations have often tried to

undo democracy if it is an obstacle to their

single-minded drive for profit. From a 1934

business-backed plot to install a military dictator in

the White House (undone by the integrity of one U.S.

Marine Corps General, Smedley Darlington Butler) to

present-day law-drafting, corporations have bought

military might, political muscle and public opinion.

 

And corporations do not hesitate to take advantage of

democracy's absence either. One of the most shocking

stories of the twentieth century is Edwin Black's

recounting IBM's strategic alliance with Nazi

Germany—one that began in 1933 in the first weeks that

Hitler came to power and continued well into World War

II.

 

FISSURES

The corporation may be trying to render governments

impotent, but since the landmark WTO protest in

Seattle, a rising wave of networked individuals and

groups have decided to make their voices heard.

Movements to challenge the very foundations of the

corporation are afoot: The corporate charter

revocation movement tried to bring down oil giant

Unocal; a groundbreaking ballot initiative in Arcata,

California, put the corporate agenda in the public

spotlight in a series of town hall meetings; in

Bolivia, the population fought and won a battle

against a huge transnational corporation brought in by

their government to privatize the water system; in

India nearly 99% of the basmati patent of RiceTek was

overturned; and W. R. Grace and the U.S. government's

patent on Neem was revoked.

 

As global individuals take back local power, a growing

re-invigoration of the concept of citizenship is

taking root. It has the power to not only strip the

corporation of its seeming omnipotence, but to create

a feeling and an ideology of democracy that is much

more than its mere institutional version.

 

THE DVD

Along with the groundbreaking 145-minute theatrical

version of the film, the two-disc set has eight hours

of never-before-seen footage. All of your favourite

heroes and villains are back. In addition to two

commentary tracks, deleted scenes, Q's and A's,

additional languages and descriptive audio for the

visually impaired, 165 never seen before clips and

updates are sorted " by person " AND " by topic. " Get the

details you want to know on the issues you care about.

Then, check out the web links for follow-up research

and action.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

great movie..if a little slow to get rolling...

i love the guy wh owns the largest carpet manufacturing company in the world,

cuz he saw *the light* and just rails against his fellow CEO's

cheers

fraggle

 

 

Rick Stevens <ecology1st2004

May 4, 2005 7:34 PM

ecology1st2004

The Corporation: Documentary now out on DVD

 

[The Corporation: Documentary now out on DVD. Whether

you're on the right, or the left politically, everyone

should see this documentary. You can now rent it at

online rental clubs like www.netflix.com I know I've

sent this reminder out before to some of you, but this

is a doc worth checking out. Rick.]

 

Source > http://www.thecorporation.com/

 

 

THE CORPORATION explores the nature and spectacular

rise of the dominant institution of our time. Footage

from pop culture, advertising, TV news, and corporate

propaganda, illuminates the corporation's grip on our

lives. Taking its legal status as a " person " to its

logical conclusion, the film puts the corporation on

the psychiatrist's couch to ask " What kind of person

is it? " Provoking, witty, sweepingly informative, The

Corporation includes forty interviews with corporate

insiders and critics - including Milton Friedman, Noam

Chomsky, Naomi Klein, and Michael Moore - plus true

confessions, case studies and strategies for change.

 

 

 

And Bugs Bunny is a friend of mine

Eating him I'd feel like Frankenstein

Eating flesh seems pretty foul to me