Yesterday's outline: walked 5 miles & read 50 pages; spent 3 hours at the crisis line inventorying the fundraising files; went to see "The Corporation" at Cinema 21.
When I saw that "The Corporation" was playing, I recalled how Leopoldo had said that he wanted to make everyone he knew see it. The accolades were deserved; it's a very well done documentary. ...I noted in the credits that it's based on a book. I get the sense that the film probably follows the book's structure pretty closely, owing most of its quality to the source material.
Shocking -- but oddly enough, nothing shockingly new. Not sure where I picked up so much relevant information (NPR?), since the topics a bit out of my usual domains -- but I'd heard about pretty much everything that the movie covered before. It did a really good job of putting everything together into an organized whole, though.
I was interested to note that all the superstars of the (white male) intellectual Left were present: Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Michael Moore. It's been interesting to watch these folks really rise into celebrity during the Bush administration. Not that they weren't figures to begin with -- but still. [I wonder if someone like Cornel West has anything to say on the topic. The Left is funny, the way that minority thinkers are still only pulled out to talk about minority issues.]
Being a downer "the world is going to hell" movie, there was an obligatory attempt to come up with "inspiring stories of fighting the system and winning" at the end. Yep, they found some successes -- but they weren't nearly enough to counter the rest of the film. They actually felt a little tacked on. "But wait -- there's still hope -- really!" I kind of think that if you're going to document evil, then you should just do that. And if you're going to talk about alternatives and strategies for victory, just do that. Problem or Solution -- each is a whole, expansive topic unto itself. This is a problem I run into while writing about Youth Liberation... One implies the other, but you can't do justice to both in the same work, unless you're going for a superficial treatment.
One of the movie's real strengths was how well the source materials spoke for themselves. The old propaganda films about the virtues of capitalism, the contemporary CEOs just saying what they believe -- all quite amazing.
As for the movie's theses... There were actually a couple of them.
PROBLEM:
(1) The corporation is / has the rights of a person in the eyes of the law -- but it is a person whose sole reason for existing is to profit its stockholders.
(2) Acting on this motive, corporations evaluate criminal behavior based on risk vs. reward, not ethical vs. inethical -- ergo, horrendous abuse is and shall be routine.
(3) Corporate misdeeds are the result of a structure that individuals (even the CEO), though aware of, may feel unable to change -- "individuals in the corporation are not evil or to blame".
(4) The inherent objective of corporations is to privatize the whole of the world, slicing it up into property -- including rain water, and genetic code.
(5) Corporations supercede government. Some have actually conspired to overthrow governments; some have created wars for their own benefit; and by becoming international, they successfully transcend the authority of any one governing body.
SOLUTION:
Wish I could articulate a coherent proposal for change. However, there were only really two iffy suggestions:
(1) If there is a mass uprising (riots), even the corporate-controlled government can't suppress the people. "A people united can never be defeated." ...But there will be heavy casualties. [I'm actually really glad that they added this caveat.]
(2) By doing intensive investigative reporting and researching the law, there's a decent chance that you can win battles with the corporations in courte. One long, painful battle at a time.
I suppose you could say that there was another, implicit solution:
(3) The ripple effect. Watch this movie, and go tell your friends. Maybe some of you will become activists -- maybe the message will even cause a CEO or two to have personal epiphanies.
...Well, that's what I got from the movie, at least. (For my next trick, I think I'll diagram the grammar of a few sentences.)
When I saw that "The Corporation" was playing, I recalled how Leopoldo had said that he wanted to make everyone he knew see it. The accolades were deserved; it's a very well done documentary. ...I noted in the credits that it's based on a book. I get the sense that the film probably follows the book's structure pretty closely, owing most of its quality to the source material.
Shocking -- but oddly enough, nothing shockingly new. Not sure where I picked up so much relevant information (NPR?), since the topics a bit out of my usual domains -- but I'd heard about pretty much everything that the movie covered before. It did a really good job of putting everything together into an organized whole, though.
I was interested to note that all the superstars of the (white male) intellectual Left were present: Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Michael Moore. It's been interesting to watch these folks really rise into celebrity during the Bush administration. Not that they weren't figures to begin with -- but still. [I wonder if someone like Cornel West has anything to say on the topic. The Left is funny, the way that minority thinkers are still only pulled out to talk about minority issues.]
Being a downer "the world is going to hell" movie, there was an obligatory attempt to come up with "inspiring stories of fighting the system and winning" at the end. Yep, they found some successes -- but they weren't nearly enough to counter the rest of the film. They actually felt a little tacked on. "But wait -- there's still hope -- really!" I kind of think that if you're going to document evil, then you should just do that. And if you're going to talk about alternatives and strategies for victory, just do that. Problem or Solution -- each is a whole, expansive topic unto itself. This is a problem I run into while writing about Youth Liberation... One implies the other, but you can't do justice to both in the same work, unless you're going for a superficial treatment.
One of the movie's real strengths was how well the source materials spoke for themselves. The old propaganda films about the virtues of capitalism, the contemporary CEOs just saying what they believe -- all quite amazing.
As for the movie's theses... There were actually a couple of them.
PROBLEM:
(1) The corporation is / has the rights of a person in the eyes of the law -- but it is a person whose sole reason for existing is to profit its stockholders.
(2) Acting on this motive, corporations evaluate criminal behavior based on risk vs. reward, not ethical vs. inethical -- ergo, horrendous abuse is and shall be routine.
(3) Corporate misdeeds are the result of a structure that individuals (even the CEO), though aware of, may feel unable to change -- "individuals in the corporation are not evil or to blame".
(4) The inherent objective of corporations is to privatize the whole of the world, slicing it up into property -- including rain water, and genetic code.
(5) Corporations supercede government. Some have actually conspired to overthrow governments; some have created wars for their own benefit; and by becoming international, they successfully transcend the authority of any one governing body.
SOLUTION:
Wish I could articulate a coherent proposal for change. However, there were only really two iffy suggestions:
(1) If there is a mass uprising (riots), even the corporate-controlled government can't suppress the people. "A people united can never be defeated." ...But there will be heavy casualties. [I'm actually really glad that they added this caveat.]
(2) By doing intensive investigative reporting and researching the law, there's a decent chance that you can win battles with the corporations in courte. One long, painful battle at a time.
I suppose you could say that there was another, implicit solution:
(3) The ripple effect. Watch this movie, and go tell your friends. Maybe some of you will become activists -- maybe the message will even cause a CEO or two to have personal epiphanies.
...Well, that's what I got from the movie, at least. (For my next trick, I think I'll diagram the grammar of a few sentences.)
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