SUBTITLES:
Subtitles generated by robot
00:00
[Music]
150 years ago the business corporation
was a relatively insignificant
institution today it is all pervasive
like the church the monarchy and the
Communist Party and other times and
places the corporation is today's
dominant institution this documentary
examines the nature evolution impacts
and possible futures of the modern
business corporation initially given a
00:42
narrow legal mandate what has allowed
today's corporation to achieve such
extraordinary power and influence over
our lives to begin our inquiry is
scandals threatened to trigger a wide
debate about the lack of public control
of the big corporations over the market
of distrust
listen 95% some % huge percentage of the
business community or honest and reveal
01:12
all their assets got compensation
programs that are balanced but there are
some bad the media debate about the base
of operating principles of the corporate
world was quickly reduced to a game of
follow-the-leader I still happen to
think the United States is the greatest
place in the world to invest we have
some shake ups that are going on because
of a few bad apples
[Music]
these are not just a bunch of bad apples
02:00
this is just a few bad apples it's not
just a few bad apples we've got to get
rid of the bad apples you can start with
Tyco bad apples we know all about
Worldcom Xerox Corporation Anderson
Apple obviously bad apples Kmart
corporation that fruit cart is getting a
little more full I don't think it's just
a few apples unfortunately I think this
is the worst crisis of confidence in
business what's wrong with this picture
can't we pick a better metaphor to
02:30
describe the dominant institution of our
time through the voices of CEOs
whistleblowers brokers gurus and spies
insiders and outsiders we present the
corporation as a paradox an institution
that creates great wealth but causes
enormous and often hidden harms
I see the cooperation is part of the
03:09
jigsaw in society as a whole which if
you remove it the pictures incomplete
but equally if it's the only part it's
not gonna work a sports team some of us
are blocking and tackling some of us are
running the ball some of us are throwing
the ball but we all have a common
purpose which is to succeed as an
organization the corporation is like a
family unit people in the corporation
work together for a common end like the
03:43
telephone system it reaches almost
everywhere
it's extraordinarily powerful it's
pretty hard to avoid and it transforms
the lives of people I think on balance
for the better the eagle soaring
clear-eyed competitive prepared to
strike but not a vulture noble visionary
majestic that people can believe in and
04:14
be inspired by that creates such a lift
that its source I could see that being a
good logo for the principle company okay
guys enough [ __ ] corporations are
artificial creations you might say
they're monsters trying to devour as
much profit as possible
at anyone's expense
04:48
I think of a whale gentle big fish which
could swallow you in an instant
dr. Frankenstein's creation has
overwhelmed and overpowered him as the
corporate form has done with us
[Music]
the word corporate gets attached in
almost you know in a pejorative sense -
05:22
and gets married with the word agenda
and when here's a lot about the
corporate agenda as though it is even as
though it is agenda which is trying to
take over the world
personally I don't use the word
corporation I use the word business I
will use the word use the word company
I'll use the words business community
because I think that is a much fairer
representation than zeroing in on just
05:55
this word corporation but he is a
cooperation it's funny that I've taught
in a business school for as long as I
have without ever having been asked so
so pointedly to say what I think a
corporation is it's a group of
individuals working together to serve a
variety of objectives the principal one
of which is earning large growing
06:28
sustained legal returns for the people
who own the business
the modern corporation has grown out of
the Industrial Age the Industrial Age
began in 1712 when an Englishman named
Thomas Newcomen
invented a steam driven pump to pump
water out of the English coal mine so
the English coal mines could get it more
cold to man rather than hauling buckets
of water out of the mine it was all
about productivity more coal per
07:06
man-hour
that was the dawn of the Industrial Age
and then it became more steel for me an
hour more textiles per man-hour more
automobiles per man now and today yes
more chips per man-hour more gizmos from
an hour the system is basically saying
producing more sophisticated products
today the dominant role of corporations
in our lives is essentially a product of
the roughly the past century
07:36
corporations were originally
associations of people who were
chartered by a state to perform some
particular function like a group of
people want to build a bridge over the
Charles River or something like that
there were very few chartered
corporations in early United States
history and the ones that existed had
clear stipulations in their state issued
charters how long they could operate the
amount of capitalization what they made
08:06
or did or maintained at Turnpike or
whatever was in their charter and they
didn't do anything else they didn't own
or couldn't own another corporation
their shareholders were liable and so on
in both law and the culture the
corporation was considered a subordinate
entity that was a gift from the people
in order to serve the public good
so you have that history and we
shouldn't be misled by it it's not as if
those are the halcyon days when all
corporations served the public trust but
08:42
there's a lot to learn from that the
Civil War and the Industrial Revolution
created enormous growth in corporations
and so there was an explosion of
railroads who got large federal
subsidies of land banking heavy
manufacturing and corporate lawyers a
century and a half ago realized they
needed more power to operate and wanted
to remove some of the constraints that
had historically been placed on the
09:15
corporate form the 14th amendment was
passed at the end of the Civil War to
give equal rights to black people and
therefore if said no state can deprive
any person of life liberty or property
without due process of law and I was
intended to prevent the states from
taking away life liberty or property
from black people as they had done for
so much of our history and what happens
is the corporation's come into court and
corporation lawyers are very clever and
09:47
they say oh you can't deprive a person
of life liberty or property we are a
person a corporation as a person and
Supreme Court goes along with that and
what was particularly grotesque about
this was that the 14th amendment was
passed to protect newly freed slaves so
for instance between 1890 and 1910 there
were 307 cases brought before the court
10:17
under the 14th amendment 288 of these
brought by corporations 19 by African
Americans
600,000 people were killed to get rights
for people and then with strokes of the
pen over the next 30 years
judges applied those rights to capital
and property while stripping them from
people
everybody makes mistake once in a while
but I just can't be personally
11:06
responsible that's one of the weaknesses
of a partnership isn't it SID well maybe
you'd better incorporate the store
incorporate yes incorporating would give
you the big advantage of what you want
right now Limited Liability you start
with a group of people want to invest
their money in a company then these
people apply for a charter as a
corporation this government issues a
charter to that corporation now that
11:38
corporation operates legally as an
individual person it is not a group of
people it is under the law a legal
person Imperial Steel incorporated many
of the legal rights of a person it can
buy and sell property it can borrow
money it can sue in court and be sued it
carries on a business Imperial steel
along with thousands of other legal
12:07
persons is a part of our daily living it
is a member of our society having
acquired the legal rights and
protections of a person the question
arises what kind of person is the
corporation corporations were given the
rights of immortal persons but then
special kinds of persons persons who
have no moral conscience these are
special kind of persons which are
12:40
designed and by law to be concerned only
for their stockholders and not say what
are sometimes call their stakeholders
like the community or the workforce or
whatever
the great problem of having corporate
citizens is that they aren't like the
rest of us as Baron Thurlow in England
is supposed to have said they have no
soul to save and they have no body to
incarcerate I believe the mistake that a
lot of people make when they think about
corporations is they say they think you
13:12
know corporations are like us General
Electric is a kind old man with lots of
stories nike young energetic Microsoft
aggressive Donald's young outgoing
enthusiastic Monsanto immaculately
dressed we have feelings they have
13:48
politics they have belief systems they
really only have one thing the bottom
line how to make as much money as they
can in any given quarter that's it of
course they make a profit and it's a
good thing that's the incentive that
makes capitalism work to give us more of
the things that we need that's the
incentive that other economic systems
lack people accuse us of only paying
attention to the economic leg because
they think that's what a business
person's mindset is it's just money and
14:19
it's not so because we as business
people know that we need to certainly
address the environment but also we we
need to be seen as constructive members
of society there are companies that that
do good for the communities they produce
services and goods that are a value to
all of us that make our lives better and
that's a good thing the problem comes in
in the profit motivation here because
14:52
these people there's no such thing as
enough
and I always counter point out there's
no organization on this planet that can
neglect its economic foundation even
someone you know living under a banyan
tree is dependent on support from
someone the economic leg has to be
addressed by everyone it's not just a
business issue but unlike someone under
a banyan tree all publicly traded
15:24
corporations have been structured
through a series of legal decisions to
have a peculiar and disturbing
characteristic they are required by law
to place the financial interests of
their owners above competing interests
in fact the corporation is legally bound
to put its bottom line ahead of
everything else even the public good
that's not a law of nature that's a very
specific decision in fact the judicial
15:54
position so they're concerned only for
the short-term profit of their
stockholders who are very highly
concentrated
to whom to these companies Oh loyalty
what does loyalty mean well it turns out
that that was a rather naive concept
anyway as corporations are always Oh
obligation to themselves to get large
and to get profitable in doing this it
tends to be more profitable to the
extent it can make the other people pay
the bills for its impact on society
16:31
there's a terrible word that economists
use for this called externalities an
externality is it it is the effect of a
transaction between the two individuals
on a third party who has not consented
to or played any role in the carrying
out of that transaction and there are
real problems in that area there is no
doubt about it running a business is a
tough proposition there are costs to be
17:01
minimized at every turn and at some
point the corporation says you know let
somebody else deal with that let's let
somebody else supply the military power
to the Middle East to protect the oil at
its source let's let somebody else build
the roads that we can drive these
automobiles on let's let somebody else
have those problems and that is where
externalities come from that notion of
let somebody else deal with that I got
17:32
all I can handle myself a corporation is
an externalizing machine in the same way
that a shark is a killing machine
each one is designed in a very efficient
way to accomplish particular objectives
in the achievement of those objectives
there isn't any question of malevolence
or of will the enterprise has within it
and the shark has within
those characteristics that enable it to
do that for which it was designed so the
pressures on the corporation to deliver
18:04
results now and to externalize any cost
that this unwary or uncaring public will
allow it to externalize to determine the
kind of personality that drives the
corporation to behave like an
externalizing machine we can analyze it
like a psychiatrist would a patient we
can even formulate a diagnosis on the
18:37
basis of typical case histories of harm
it is inflicted on others selected from
a universe of corporate activity
[Music]
well this is the office of the national
labor committee here in the garment area
of New York City it's a little bit
disheveled these are all from different
campaigns to make this stuff concrete as
19:16
possible we purchase all of the products
from the factories that we're talking
about this shirt sells for $14.99 and
the women who made the shark I paid
three cents Liz Claiborne jackets made
in El Salvador the jackets are one
hundred and seventy-eight dollars and
the workers were paid 74 cents for every
jacket they made alpine cost arrows
thirty one cents now it's not just Incas
it's not just a perilous it's everything
we were in Honduras and some workers
19:54
they knew other kind of workmen we did
and they approached us these young
workers and they said conditions now
facture horrible will you please meet
with us and we said we would but you
can't meet in the developing world you
can't walk up to an a factory with your
notebook and workers come out you
interview them I mean there's goons
despise the military please so you do
everything in Afghanistan matter we're
about to start the meeting and in work
three guys very tough looking guys
the company had found out about a
meeting and sent these spies obviously
we didn't have the meeting but these
20:25
young girls were really bright and as
they were leaving away from the eyesight
of the spies they started to put their
hands underneath the table and I put my
palm under they put my hand under there
and they put into my my hand their pay
stubs so we'd know who they were what
they were paid and the labels that they
made in the factory so we'd know who
they work for and I took my hand out
after everyone had left and then the
palm of my hand was to face a Kathie Lee
Gifford but the bottom of it is the
interesting part a portion of the
proceeds from the sale of this garment
20:55
will be donated to various children's
charities it's very touching get sure
right here
Walmart is telling you if you purchased
these pants and Kathie Lee is telling
you purchased
you're going to help children the
problem was that people handed us the
label or 13 years of age too many people
have family work just me used to fun how
many people do support people how do you
drill with that sour
let's look at it from a different point
of view let's look at it from the point
21:28
of view of the the people in Bangladesh
who are starving to death the people in
China who are starving to death and the
only thing that they have to offer to
anybody that is worth anything is their
low-cost labor and in effect what they
are saying to the world is they have
this big flag that says come over and
hire us we will work for 10 cents an
22:01
hour because 10 cents an hour will buy
us the rice that we need not to starve
and come and rescue us from our
circumstance and so when Nike comes in
they are regarded by everybody in the
community as an enormous godsend
[Music]
we went through the garbage dump in the
Dominican Republic we always do this
kind of stuff we dig around one day we
found a big pile of Nikes internal
pricing documents Nike assigns a time
23:02
frame Teesha operation they don't talk
about minutes they break the time frame
into ten thousandth of a second you get
to the bottom of all 22 operations to
give the workers 6.6 minutes to make the
shirt it's 70 cents an hour in the
Dominican Republic that's six point six
minutes equals eight cents these are
Nikes documents that means the way just
pump the three tenths of 1% of the
retail price this is the reality it's
the science of exploitation
[Music]
[Applause]
23:33
[Music]
what happens in the areas where these
corporations go in and are successful
they soon find that they can't do any
more in that country because the wages
are too high now and what's that another
way of saying well the people are no
longer desperate so oK we've used up all
the disparate people there they're all
plump and healthy and wealthy let's move
on to the next desperate a lot and
employ them and raise their level up
[Music]
24:17
well the whole idea of the export
processing zone is that that will be the
first step towards this wonderful new
development through the investment
that's attracted to these countries
there will be a trickle-down effect into
the communities but because so many
countries are now in the game of
creating these free trade enclaves they
have to keep providing more and more
incentives for companies to come to
their little D nationalize pocket and
that the tax holidays get longer so the
24:47
workers rarely make enough money to buy
three meals a day let alone feed their
local economy
[Music]
[Music]
[Music]
something happened in 1940 which marked
the beginning of a new era the era
offered the ability to synthesize and
create on an unlimited scale new
25:38
chemicals that had never existed before
the world and using the magic of
research oil companies compete with each
other in taking the petroleum molecule
apart and rearranging it into well you
name it so suddenly it became possible
to produce any new chemicals synthetic
chemicals the likes of which had never
existed before in the world for any
purpose and at virtually no cost fabric
toothbrushes tires insecticide cosmetics
26:11
weed killers a whole galaxy of things to
make a better life on earth rundas if
you wanted to go to our chemist and say
look I want to have a chemical say a
pesticide which will persist throughout
the food chain and I don't want it to
have to renew it very very often I'd
like it to be relatively non-destructive
all and then he'd put two benzene
molecules on the blackboard and add a
chlorine here and a chlorine that and
that was DDT when the Eighth Army needed
26:44
[ __ ] civilians to help them out in our
occupation they called on native doctors
to administer DDT under the supervision
of our men to stem a potential typhus
epidemic dusting like this goes a long
way in checking disease and the labs are
them pardon our dust
[Music]
as the petrochemical era glue and grew
warning signs emerged that some of these
chemicals could pose hazards the data
27:25
initially were trivial anecdotal but
gradually a body of data started
accumulating to the extent that we now
know that these synthetic chemicals
which have permeated our workplace our
consumer products our air our water
produced cancer and also birth defects
and some other toxic effects
[Music]
furthermore industry has known about
28:18
this police most industries have known
about this and have attempted to
trivialize these risks
[Music]
if I take a gun and shoot you that's
criminal if I expose you to some
chemicals which knowingly are going to
kill you what difference is there the
difference is that it takes longer to
kill you we are now in the midst of a
major cancer epidemic and I have no
28:51
doubt and I have documented the basis
for this that industry is largely
responsible for this overwhelming
epidemic of cancer in which one and
every two men get cancer in their
lifetimes
and one in every three women get cancer
in their lifetimes
[Music]
towards the end of 1989 great box of
29:30
documents arrived at my office without
any indication where they came from and
I opened them and found in it a complete
set of Monsanto files particularly a set
of files dealing with toxicological
testing of cows who've been given rb/gh
BST trade name posi lakh is being used
in more than a quarter of the dairy
herds in the United States according to
Monsanto the milk has been drunk by a
large portion of the American population
since the Food and Drug Administration
declared it safe for both cows and
30:02
humans for you and at that time on Santa
was saying there's no evidence
whatsoever any adverse effects we don't
use antibiotics and this clearly showed
that they had lied through their teeth
[Applause]
the files described areas of chronic
information in the heart lung kidney
spleen also reproductive effects also a
whole series of other problems it's the
most comprehensive independent
assessment of the drug concludes that
30:36
BST results in unnecessary pain
suffering and distress for the cows this
is not acceptable for a drug designed
simply to increase milk production is a
silly product we have a the industrial
world is awash in milk
we're over producing milk we are
actually have governments around the
world who pay farmers not to produce
milk so the first product Monsanto comes
up with is a product that produces more
of what we don't need of course you'll
want to inject pause alike to every
31:07
eligible cow as each cow not treated
it's a lost income opportunity but the
problem was that use of the artificial
hormone caused all kinds of problems for
the cows it caused something called
mastitis which is a very painful
affection of the utters when you milk
the cow if the cow has bad mastitis some
of the and I don't know how to say this
in a you know I hope people are watching
at dinnertime but the pus from the
infection of the udders ends up in the
milk and the somatic cell count they
31:39
call it the bacterial count inside your
milk goes up there's a cost to the cows
the cows gets sicker when they're
injected with rb/gh they're injected
with antibiotics we know that people are
consuming antibiotics through their food
and we know that that's contributing to
antibiotic resistant bacteria and
diseases and we know we're at a crisis
when somebody can go into a hospital and
get a staph infection and it can't be
cured and they die that's a crisis bad
32:11
for the cow bad for the farmer bad
potentially for the consumer the jury is
out we see a lot of conflicting evidence
about potential health risks and of
course as a consumer my belief is why
should I take any risk
[Music]
factory farm cows have not been the only
victims of Monsanto products large areas
of Vietnam were divorce did by the US
military using Monsanto's Agent Orange
the toxic herbicide reportedly caused
32:46
over 50,000 birth defects as well as
hundreds of thousands of cancers in
Vietnamese civilians and soldiers an
informer American troops serving in
Southeast Asia
unlike the Vietnamese victims u.s.
Vietnam veterans exposed to Agent Orange
were able to sue Monsanto for causing
their illnesses
Monsanto settled out of court paying
eighty million dollars in damages but it
never admitted guilt
[Music]
33:37
sleeping in a motel in Brewer Maine one
night I woke up with terrible hay fever
in my eyes were burning and I looked out
at the river and there were great mounds
of white foam going right down the river
and the next morning I got up and I said
my god what was that happening last
night he said I was just the river and I
said what do you mean said well look
every night the paper company send the
stuff down the river I said what are you
talking about and he said don't you
understand that's how we get rid of the
effluent from the paper mills
well I knew at that time I've been in a
business I'd sold oil to the paper mills
34:09
I knew all the owners I've been in
politics I know the people in the towns
I knew not one constituent of the paper
mills wanted to have the river polluted
and yet here the river was being
polluted and it was more or less as if
we created a doom machine in our search
for wealth and and for prosperity we
created saying I was going to destroy us
the traders who are involved in the
market are not guys who tomorrow fiber
when it comes to environmental
conditions are gonna be be rattled at
34:46
all their to seeing dollars and they're
making money brokers don't stay away
from copper because it it violates their
religious beliefs or their environmental
policies no and you think about it but
it's fleeting it really is a fleeting
moment it's like yeah yeah yeah well
they're totally being polluted down
there in Peru but hey this guy needs to
buy some copper getting paid a
commission to our information that we
35:17
receive does not include anything about
the environmental conditions because on
until the environmental conditions
become a commodity themselves or being
traded then obviously we will not have
anything to do with that it doesn't come
into our psyche at all you know it's so
far away and it's you hardly hear
anything about I mean keep in mind I
mean there are things going on right in
our backyard for God's sake we trade
live hogs I mean there's so many pigs in
the state of Carolina that is polluting
35:47
the rivers but how often do you find out
about that
[Music]
at multinational monitor we put together
a list of the top corporate criminals of
the 1990s we went back and looked at all
of the criminal fines that corporations
had paid in the decade Exxon pled guilty
in connection to federal criminal
charges with the Valdez spill and paid
125 million dollars in criminal fines
General Electric was guilty of
36:19
defrauding the federal government and
paid nine point five million dollars in
criminal fines Chevron was guilty of
environmental violations and paid six
point five million dollars ASA B she was
guilty of antitrust violation and then
paid one point eight IBM was guilty of
illegal exports and paid his guilty
criminal an environmental violation
either the drug manufacturer was guilty
of antitrust by Wallace who still T
million-dollar food and drug regulatory
violation Ceres was guilt in Leon
36:47
financial fraud was guilty of antitrust
violation paid 500 million dollars in
criminal fines again and again we have
the problem that whether you obey the
law or not isn't matter whether it's
cost-effective if the chance of getting
caught and the penalty are less than it
costs to comply people think of it as
37:22
being just a business decision
drawing the metaphor of the early
attempts to fly
the man going off of a very high cliff
in his airplane with the wings flapping
and the guys flapping the wings and the
wind is in his face in this poor fool
thinks he's flying but in fact he's in
freefall and he just doesn't know it yet
because the ground is so far away but of
course the craft is doomed to crash
38:04
that's the way our civilization is the
very high cliff represents that
virtually unlimited resources we seem to
have when we began this journey the
craft isn't flying because it's not
built according to the laws of
aerodynamics and it's subject to the law
of gravity our civilization is not
flying because it's not built according
the loss of aerodynamics for
civilizations that would fly and of
course the ground is still a long way
away but some people have seen that
38:36
ground rushing up sooner than the rest
of us have the visionaries have seen it
and have told us it's coming there's not
a single scientific peer-reviewed paper
published in the last 25 years that
would contradict this scenario every
living system of Earth is in decline
every life-support system of Earth is in
39:06
decline and these together constitute
the biosphere the biosphere that
supports and nurtures all of life and
not just our life but perhaps 30 million
other species that share this planet
with us
the typical company of the 20th century
extractive wasteful abusive rulinea in
all of its processes taking from the
earth making wasting sinan its products
back to the biosphere waste to a
landfill
39:40
I myself was amazed to learn just how
much stuff the earth has to produce
through our extraction process to
produce a dollar of revenue for our
company when I learned I was
flabbergasted
we're leaving a terrible legacy of
poison and diminishment of the
environment for our grandchildren's
grandchildren generations not yet born
40:20
some people have called that at a
generational tyranny a form of taxation
without representation levied by some
generations yet to be it's the wrong
thing to do one of the questions that
comes up periodically as to what extent
could corporation be considered to be
psychopathic and if we look at a
corporation as a legal person that it
40:52
may not be that difficult to actually
draw the transition between psychology
in the individual to psychically and a
corporation we can go through the
characteristics that define this
particular disorder one by one and see
how they might apply to corporations
they would have all the characteristics
and in fact in many respects corporation
of that sort is that the prototypical
psychopath
if the dominant institution of our time
has been created in the image of a
psychopath who bears the moral
41:35
responsibility for its actions can a
building have moral opinions can a
building have social responsibility if a
building can't have social
responsibility
what doesn't mean to say that a
corporation can a corporation is simply
a artificial legal structure but the
people who are engaged in it whether the
stockholders what are the executives in
it what are the employees they all have
moral responsibilities it's a fair
42:09
assumption that every human being really
young beings flesh-and-blood ones not
corporations but every flesh-and-blood
human being as a moral person got the
same genes were more or less the same
but error you know our nature the nature
of humans allows all kinds of behavior I
mean every one of us under some
circumstances could be you know the gas
chamber attendant Dennis ain't no job in
42:39
my experience with Goodyear has been as
frustrating as the CEO job because even
though the perception is that you have
absolute power to do whatever you want
the reality is you don't have that power
sometimes if you had really a free hand
if you really did what you wanted to do
that suits you person sorts a new
personal priorities you'd act
differently but as I see oh you cannot
do that layoffs have become so
43:11
widespread that people tend to believe
that CEOs make these decisions without
any consideration to the human
implications of their decisions
it is never a decision that any CEO
makes lightly it is a tough decision but
it is the consequence of modern
capitalism when you look at the
corporation just like when you
at a slave-owner you want to distinguish
43:42
between the institution and individual
so slavery for example or other forms of
tyranny are inherently monsters but the
individuals participating in them may be
the nicest guys you can imagine
benevolent friendly nice to the children
even nice to their slaves caring about
other people
I mean as individuals they may be any
the as in in their institutional role
they're monsters because the
institution's monsters and the same is
44:14
true here my wife and I some years ago
had a Tahoe a demonstration 25 people
arrived they hung a big banner on the
top of our house saying murderers they
44:29
danced around outside the public
demonstration it wasn't very effective -
this is a very rural area - people in
the dog and it's not a very big house
which I think rather surprised them but
then we sat down and talked to them for
45:18
a couple of hours and you know we gave
them tea and coffee and they had lunch
on that long
there's no sorry about the soya anyway
for you to see well why didn't you just
ask me whether I was 20 minutes they
said well the problem is not you you
know it's shouts I said no no wait a
minute let's talk about what is shell
it's made up make people like me in the
end what we found in that discussion was
all the things that they were worried
45:55
about it I was worried about as well
climate you know oppressive regimes
human rights the big difference between
us was I feel that I actually can make a
contribution to this these people were
frustrated because they felt they had no
nothing to do so an individual CEO let's
say may really care about the
environment and in fact since they have
such extraordinary resources they can
even devote some of their resources to
that without violating their
46:25
responsibility to be totally human which
is why as the moody stewards serve tea
to protesters shown Nigeria can flare
unrivaled amounts of gas making it one
of the world's single worst sources of
pollution and all the professor pne's
about the environment do not spare Ken
sorrow we WA and eight other activists
from being hanged for opposing shells
environmental practices
in the Niger Delta
[Music]
47:01
the corporation is not a person it
doesn't think people in it think and for
them it is legitimate to create
Terminator technology so that farmers
are not able to save their seeds seeds
that will destroy themselves through a
suicide gene seeds that are designed to
only produce crop in one season you
really need to have a brutal mind it's a
war against evolution to even think in
47:31
those terms but quite clearly profits
are so much higher in their minds the
profit motive which drove Pudsey to
accomplish so much may bring out the
evil my work spans all industry sectors
I mean I I virtually have worked for
like I'd say twenty five percent of the
fortune 500 I've posed as an investment
48:03
banker I've posed as a venture
capitalist I set up front companies that
are executive recruiting firms
essentially I'm a spy
I'll locate your employees and I will
tell them that I'm calling from Acme
recruiting agency and that I've got a
job that pays them considerably more
than what they're paying would they mind
meeting me for an interview and when the
executive shows up what he doesn't
48:36
realize is I'm actually debriefing him
on behalf of a competitor and that there
is no job and at the office that he's at
has been rented and and the the picture
on my desk of my family is a phony and
it's it's all just a big elaborate ruse
to glean competitive information from
from him I don't feel any guilt it's you
know what I mean you have to expect the
guys like me are out there we're
49:09
predators
[Music]
it's about competition it's about market
share it's about being aggressive it's
about shareholder value
what is your stock at today if you're a
CEO I mean do you think your your your
shareholders really care whether you're
Billy Buttercup or not you know do you
think that they really they would prefer
you to be a nice guy over over having
49:43
money in their pocket I don't think so
I think people want money that's the
bottom line
the fact that most of these companies
are run by white men white rich men
means that they are out of touch with
what the majority of the world is
because the majority of this planet are
not a bunch of rich white guys they're
people of other colors they're the
majority women are the majority and the
poor in working poor make up the
majority of this planet so the decisions
50:13
that they make come from not the reality
that exists throughout the world how
much is enough you know how much is
enough if you are a billionaire would it
be okay just to be a half a billionaire
would it be okay for your company to
make a little less money if it meant
when I bought those two airplane tickets
for film light and myself to fly to
Indonesia I was prepared for him to say
okay let's go and I can change it to
50:44
another day and call me on it call my
bluff he's a smart guy
I mean he's not he's not stupid and so I
thought okay get ready for this
especially because you know I bought
first-class tickets so you know be a
comfortable ride at least you know and
of course he tells me then on camera I'm
playing taken aback by this I can't
believe that the guy is the head of the
company has never walked through his own
factories oh you've gotta go now
when we were done filming he calls me up
51:16
a couple weeks later in heels I may have
a chance to go there with you to the
factories I'm going to the Australian
Open to watch some tennis and you know
maybe I can get up there or at least you
can go there would you like to go to the
Australian Open for 21 years I never
gave a thought to what we were taking
51:46
from the earth or doing to the earth in
the making of our products and then in
the summer of 1994 we began to hear
questions from our customers we had
never heard before
what's your company doing for the
environment and we didn't have answers
the real answer was not very much and it
really disturbed many of our people not
me so much as them and a group in our
research department decided to convene a
a task force and bring people from our
52:17
businesses around the world to come
together to assess my company's
worldwide environmental position to
begin to frame answers for those
customers they asked me if I would come
and speak to that group and give them a
kickoff speech to launch this new task
force with an environmental vision and I
didn't have an environmental vision I
did not want to make that speech and at
sort of the propitious moment this book
landed on my desk it was Paul Hawkens
52:48
book the ecology of Commerce and I began
to read the ecology of Commerce a really
desperate for inspiration and very
quickly into that book I found the
phrase the death of birth
it was the Oh Wilson's expression for
species extinction the death of birth
and it was a point of a spear into my
chest and I read on and the spear went
deeper and it became an epiphany
experienced a total change of mindset
for myself
53:20
and a change of paradigm can any product
be made sustainably well not any and
every product can you make landmines
sustainably well I don't think so
there's a more fundamental question than
that about landmines some products will
not be made at all unless we can make
carpets sustainably you know perhaps we
don't have a place in a sustainable
world but neither does anybody else
53:54
making products unsustainably one day
early in this journey it dawned on me
that talk the way I've been running
interface is the way of the plunderer
plundering something that's not man
something that belongs to every creature
on earth and I said to myself my
goodness the day must come when this is
illegal
when plundering is not allowed I mean it
54:25
must come so I said to myself my
goodness someday people like me will end
up in jail
I gotta be honest with you when the
September 11 situation happened I didn't
know the dick and I must say I'd have
whenever I know what I want to say this
because it's I want to take it lightly
it's not a light situation it's a
devastating act it was really a bad
55:03
thing even worse things I've seen in my
lifetime you know but I will tell you
and every trader will tell you who was
not in that building and who was buying
gold and who owned gold and silver that
when it happened the first thing you
thought about was well how much is gold
up the first thing that came to mind was
my god gold must be exploding
fortunately for us all our clients are
in gold so when he went up they all
doubled their money everybody doubled
55:34
their money it was a blessing in
disguise
devastating
crushing hard shattering but on a
financial sense for the my clients are
in the market they're all made money now
I wasn't looking for this type of help
but it happened when the u.s. bombed
Iraq back in 1991 the price of oil went
from $13 to $40 a barrel for Christ's
sake now we couldn't wait for the bomb
56:09
to start raining down and said I'm we're
saying
[Music]
we were all excited we wanted to them to
really create problems do whatever you
have to do set fire to some more oil
wells because the price gonna go higher
every broker was sanding that there was
not a broker that I know of that wasn't
excited about that this was a disaster
this was something that was you know
catastrophe happening bombing wars in
56:41
devastation there is opportunity the
pursuit of profit is an old story but
there was a time when many things were
regarded either as too sacred or too
essential for the public good to be
considered business opportunities they
were protected by tradition and public
regulation
[Music]
we can really begin to take a look at
the emergence of the modern age with the
57:15
enclosure movements of the great
European Commons in the 1415 and 16th
century medieval life was a collectively
lived life it was a brutish nasty affair
but there was a collective
responsibility people belong to the land
the land did not belong to people and in
this European world people farmed the
land in a collective way because they
saw it as a Commons it belonged to God
and then it was administered by the
church the aristocracy and then the
local manors as stewards of God's
57:46
creation beginning with Tudor England we
began to see a phenomenal emerge and
that is the enclosure of the great
Commons by parliamentary acts in England
and then in Europe and so first we began
to take the great land masses of the
world which were Commons and shared and
we reduced those to private property
then we went after the oceans the great
oceanic Commons and we created laws and
regulations there would allow countries
to claim a certain amount of water
outside their coastal limits for
exploitation in this century we went
after the air and we divided it two air
58:19
corridors that could be bought and sold
for commercial traffic for airplanes and
then of course the rest is history
[Music]
with deregulation privatization free
trade what we're seeing is yet another
enclosure and if you like private taking
of the Commons one of the things I find
very interesting in our current debates
is this concept of who creates wealth
58:56
that wealth is only created when it's
owned privately what would you call
clean water fresh air a safe environment
and they not a form of wealth and why
does it only become wealth when some
entity puts a fence around it and
declares a private property well you
know that's not wealth creation that's
wealth usurp ssin over the centuries we
have put more and more things in that
public realm and lately just lately in
the last let's say three or four decades
59:27
started pulling them out again so
firefighters for instance firefighters
started as private companies and if you
didn't have the medallion of a given
fire fire brigade on your house and it
was on fire and those firefighters would
just you know ride on by because you
didn't have a deal well we gradually
evolved a public trust for the provision
59:58
of safety on that very specific level
this isn't this is important we should
not go back from that and and start
saying well you know why don't we put
that back in the market and see what
that does maybe it'll make it more
efficient
[Music]
the privatization does not mean you take
a public institution and give it to some
nice person
it means you take a public institution
01:00:31
and give it to an unaccountable tyranny
public institutions have many side
benefits for one thing they may
purposely run a loss they're not out for
profit they may purposely run at a loss
because of the side benefits so for
example if a public steel industry runs
at a loss it's providing cheap steel to
other industries maybe that's a good
thing public institutions can have a
counter cyclic property so that means
that they can maintain employment in
01:01:08
periods of recession which increases
demand which helps you get out of
recession recession throughout the
workforce will you make money there are
those who intend that one day everything
will be owned by somebody and we're not
just talking Goods here we're talking
human rights human services essential
services for life education Public
Health social assistance pensions
01:01:37
housing we're also talking about the the
the survival of the planet the areas
that we can we believe are must be
maintained in the Commons or under
common control or we will collectively
die water and air
even in the case of air there's been
some progress and here the idea is to
say look we can't avoid the dumping of
carbon dioxide we can't avoid the
dumping of sulfur oxides at least we
can't at the moment afford to stop in
01:02:13
that so we're dumping a certain amount
of stuff into the environment so we're
going to say with the current tonnage of
sulfur oxides for example we will say
that is the limit and create permits for
that amount would give them to the
people who've been doing the polluting
and now we will permit them to be traded
and so now there's a price attached to
polluting the environment now wouldn't
it be marvelous we have one of those
prices for everything it sounds like
01:02:45
you're advocating private ownership of
every square inch of the planet
absolutely every cubic foot of air water
it sounds outlandish to say we want to
have the whole universe the whole of the
earth owned that doesn't mean I want to
have Joe Bloggs owning this square foot
but it means that you the interests that
are involved in that stream are owned by
some group or by some people who have an
interest in maintaining it and that you
01:03:16
know that is not such a loonie idea it's
in fact the solution to a lot of these
problems
[Music]
imagine a world in which one of the
things owned by a corporation was the
song happy birthday in fact an AOL Time
Warner subsidiary holds the copyright in
the past but is demanded over $10,000 to
allow you to hear anyone sing this
01:03:53
popular song in a film we didn't pay
we prefer to use the money to fly our
crew to Boston and Los Angeles to bring
you the following story man that takes
real teamwork and here's a team of
junior spacemen with an
out-of-this-world breakfast comparing
the marketing of yesteryear to the
marketing of today is like comparing a
BB gun to a smart bomb it's not the same
01:04:28
as when I was a kid or even when the
people who are young adults today were
kids
[Music]
it's much more sophisticated and it's
much more pervasive it's not that
products themselves are bad or good it's
the notion of manipulating children into
buying the products in 1998 Western
international media Century City and
01:05:01
Lieberman research worldwide conducted a
study uh nagging we asked parents to
keep a diary for three weeks and to
record every time you could imagine
every time their child nagged them for a
product we asked them to record when
where and why this study was not to help
parents cope with nagging it was to help
01:05:30
corporations help children nag for their
products more effectively anywhere from
20% to 40% of purchases would not have
occurred unless the child had nag their
parents that is we found for example a
quarter of all visits to theme parks
wouldn't have curd unless a child nag
the parents or at attend visits to
places like Chuckie Cheese would not
have occurred and any parent would
understand that you know when I think of
Chuckie Cheese oh my goodness it's noise
01:06:02
and there's so many kids why would I
want to spend two hours there but if the
child nags enough you're gonna go we saw
the same thing with movies with home
video with fast food we do have to break
through this barrier where that where
they do tell us or they say they don't
like it when their kids nag well that's
just a general attitude that they
possess it doesn't mean that they
necessarily act on product 100% of the
01:06:30
time you can manipulate consumers into
wanting and therefore buying your
products it's a game children are not
little adults their minds aren't
developed and what's happening is that
marketers are playing to their
developmental vulnerabilities the
advertising that children are exposed to
today is honed by psychologists it's
enhanced by media technology that nobody
01:07:04
ever thought was possible the more
insight you have about the consumer the
more creative you'll be in your
communication strategies so if that
takes a psychologist yeah we want one of
those on staff I'm not saying that it's
wrong to make things for children you
know and I also think it's important to
distinguish between psychologists who
work on products for children who help
help you know toy corporations make toys
that are developmentally appropriate I
01:07:35
think that's great that's different from
selling the toys directly to the
children initiative is huge I think in
the u.s. we place about 12 billion
dollars of media time so we'll put it on
TV we'll put it in print we'll put it up
in outdoor what will buy radio time so
we're the biggest buyers of advertising
time and space in the US and in the
world
one family cannot combat an industry
that spends 12 billion dollars a year
trying to get their children they can't
01:08:07
do it they are tomorrow's adult consumer
so start talking with them now build
that relationship when they're younger
and you've got them as an adult somebody
asked me Lucy is that ethical you're
essentially manipulating these children
well yeah is it ethical I don't know
but our role at initiative is to move
products and if we know the move
products with a certain creative
execution place in a certain type of
01:08:37
media vehicle then we've done our job
every institution provides the people
who are members of it with a social role
to occupy and typically institutions
that are vibrant and and have a lot of
power will specify that role in in some
sense as as a list of virtues it's true
for churches for schools for for any
institution that has power over over
people and shapes them the corporation
01:09:10
likewise it provides us with a list of
virtues a kind of social role which is
the good consumer like the waters of a
mighty ocean people also represent from
endless force the understanding of which
is of greatest importance to the
American Way of life
this horse is known as consumer power
the goal for corporations is to maximize
profit and market share and they also
have a goal for their target namely the
01:09:41
population they have to be turned into
completely
mindless consumers of goods that they do
not want you have to develop were called
created ones so you have to create once
you have to impose on people what's
called a philosophy of futility I have
to focus them on the insignificant
things of life like fashionable
consumption I'm just basically quoting
01:10:12
business literature and it makes perfect
sense the ideal is to have individuals
who are totally dissociated from one
another whose conception of themselves
the sense of value is just how many
created wants can i satisfy these people
are customers because they are willing
to trade money for widgets and all the
customers take their widgets home to all
01:10:42
parts of the country look at all that
money the widget builder has taken in
from the sale of his widgets we have
huge industries public relations
industry is a Monstress industry
advertising and so on is which are
designed from infancy to try to mold
people into this desired pattern
[Applause]
we saw Tiger Woods on TV with a hat with
a Nike logo on it and we figured he
probably gets like millions of dollars
01:11:16
just to wear the hat on the press
conference and therefore we figured we
can do that for someone else and
hopefully get money in turns so we can
go to school and that's how we came up
with being corporately sponsored we made
our sponsor announcement on Today Show
on June 18 and there college-bound first
USA is our spot so we're proud to be
working with our sponsors first USA so
we were really thrilled to announce
first USA as a sponsor thrilled to be
01:11:47
working with first USA and so we get
first USA good name in the media and
include them in our news stories and
then through there they get as much
advertising as we can give them they'll
be conforming not to the wishes of
demanding parents but to the wishes of
an image conscious corporation they're
not just out there for the money and
they're just the I mean they want to
work with us and be our friends and that
didn't let us help them help us and vice
versa we became walking billboards to
pay for our college tuition cool senator
Dayton kept us at school site and Yahoo
01:12:19
picked us and we were in USA Today when
we did a photo shoot for People magazine
this is where we stood up on top I stood
up here and we smile we smiled and took
the picture
our parents have war stories and stuff
to tell us we have our corporate sponsor
story exactly and I have a lot of faith
from the corporate world because it's
always gonna be there so you may as well
have faith in it because if you don't
then that's just not good some of the
01:12:52
best creative minds are employed to
assure our faith in the corporate world
view they seduce us with beguiling
illusions designed to divert our minds
and manufacture our consent corporations
don't advertise products particularly
their advertising a way of life a way of
thinking you know a story of you know
who we are as people and how we got here
and what's the source of our so-called
01:13:23
liberty and also called freedom you know
so you have decades and decades and
decades of propaganda and education
teaching us to think in a certain way
when applied to the large corporation
it's that the corporation was inevitable
that it's indispensable that is somehow
is remarkably efficient and that it is
responsible for progress and a good life
[Music]
01:13:56
perception management is a very
interesting concept it's basically a
methodology which helps us when we work
with our clients to go through a very
systematic thoughtful process in order
to be able to help our clients identify
what the resources are that they have
what the barriers to their success are
and how we can use communications to
help them accomplish their objectives
[Music]
if Michael or Angelica came to me and
01:14:34
said dad what do you do and why is it
important my answer to that question is
basically that I help corporations have
a voice
[Music]
and I help corporations share the point
of view about how they feel about things
[Music]
they're selling themselves the selling
their domination the selling their rule
and the creating an image for themselves
as just regular folks down the block hi
01:15:09
how're you all doing today good to see
you how are you doing today hi how you
doing today we're from Pfizer we're your
neighbors you're in the new houses are
you in the new houses oh these are some
neighbors what did we say hello did we
say hello just for a minute so what do
you think of the neighborhood now yeah I
think it's been getting better over the
last 20 years that I've been coming here
yeah so I think together you know
01:15:42
working with you and Pfizer and our
other partnership will make this a
better place okay nice to see you miss
Fraser bye there used to be a lot of
crime at this subway one night as I was
going home I got caught it was almost
bug and so we decided to make a change
to make this community better
we're looking at turn styles that
prevent fair beating it used to be that
01:16:16
you could just pop right over
so Pfizer in collaboration with the
Transit Authority actually purchased
these machines
this is a talkback box that allows us to
speak to the Pfizer guard which is
approximately five hundred yards from
here now I haven't seen the Pfizer guard
today but I'm going to see if I can call
him if he's not all have to go away come
up hello hello Tom Klein speaking so I'm
01:16:51
sure before he'll were through he'll
call back but particularly on the off
hours this allows a passenger to call
directly to the Pfizer desk for
assistance and then the Pfizer guard
calls the Transit Police and the transit
police respond to any crime situation as
a result of all this crime is down in
the station it's much safer for our
community partners
press the other buttons just to be sure
Tom speaking hello
we'll stop over and see it personally
01:17:33
[Music]
it's tough you know they're putting you
know some taxpayer and shareholder money
into helping and to can say but that
money should be going to the taxpayers
to decide what to do and while they're
doing those sort of nice things they're
also playing a role in lowering taxes
for corporations and lowering taxes for
wealthy people you know in reconfiguring
public policy what we don't see is all
that reconfiguring going on we don't see
them vacuum out the money vacuum out the
01:18:07
insides of public processes but we do
see the nice facade
[Music]
when I was researching the takeover
public space when I started off I
thought okay this is just advertising
we've always had advertising it's just
more advertising but when I started to
understand and what I understand now is
01:18:52
that branding is not advertising its
production and very successful
corporations the corporation's of the
future do not produce products they
produce brand meaning the dissemination
of the idea of themselves is their act
of production and the dissemination of
the idea of themselves is an enormous ly
invasive project so how do you make a
brand idea real well a good place to
start is by building a three-dimensional
manifestation of your brand for a
01:19:22
company like Disney it goes even further
where it's actually building a town
celebration Florida currently there are
about 5,000 residents who call
celebration home and there are about
1300 single-family homes a town center
that's a place where people gather that
has about four or five restaurants and
about a dozen other shops their
inspiration their brand image is the
all-american family and these sort of
bygone American town
01:19:55
[Music]
their brand driver his family magic and
everything that that company does is in
and around those two words if you take
that a branded environment such as a
Disney World or Disneyland is a logical
extension of that brand film animated
01:20:32
film family oriented film is a very
logical extension of that as a business
though they also know that if they they
want to get into other forms of
entertainment that does not fit family
magic they do not brand it Disney they
want to get into adult more serious type
fare when it comes to film they branded
touchstone the Disney brand speaks of
reassurance
it speaks of tradition it speaks of
quality and you can see that here in
01:21:04
this community that we've dealt and
that's where you see the truly
imperialist aspirations of branding
which is about building these privatized
branded cocoons which maybe you start by
shopping in and then you you continue by
holidaying in but eventually want why
not just move in what happens if we wake
up one day and we find out that
virtually all of our relationships that
are mediated between us and our fellow
human beings are commercial we find out
01:21:37
that virtually every relationship we
have is a commercially arbitrated
relationship with our fellow human being
can civilization survive on that
narrower definition of how we interact
with each other wow what a dream
I could give you a day in the life of a
person who might be the target of
undercover marketing and I will tell you
that some of these things are happening
right now
around you so you walk out of your
building in the morning some city and
01:22:11
you walk by the dorm you say thank you
good morning and you notice there's a
bunch of boxes at his feet from some
online or mail-order retailer and
there's a bunch of boxes there with of
course a big brand message on it you
walk out a lot of people must be
ordering from that company what you
don't know is that we paid the doorman
and keep those empty boxes there you
walk out into the street and you hear
some people having kind of a loud
conversation about a musical act and
they're kind of passing the headphones
back and forth this is great
01:22:42
hey do you know that that I heard the CD
is really hard to find but I heard they
sell that story
you hear that you register it and you
know you might kind of pick up on that
maybe later on you'll think hey what the
hot act is bang that might be in your
head now you get into your office and
there's a certain brand of water in
their fridge right what is that take it
out you drink you slug it to Addis
they're not really thinking about wow
that's pretty good water
who knows maybe someone plays the water
there you kind of go out for your lunch
01:23:15
break you're sitting the park and people
are got out there talking in the park
and bang all the sudden you see another
message by the time you go to bed you've
probably received eight or nine
different undercover messages people are
always thinking well oh I know private
place that's when they put stuff in
movies well yes kind of I mean that's
definitely traditional product placement
but real-life private placement is just
that placing stuff in movies but the
movies actually your life will take a
group of attainable but still
01:23:47
aspirational people they're not
supermodels they're kind of people just
like you they're doing something for us
whether they're having a certain kind of
drink or they're using a certain laundry
term whatever it may be there that they
are kind of the roach motel if you will
people are gonna come over to them and
they're gonna give them this little
piece of brand bait could be a sound
byte of knowledge or a ritual consumers
will get that piece of Roach bait and
then they would take it they are pretty
cool and then they go out and they
spread it to their friends if you want
to be critical if you want to go through
01:24:18
your life like that sure be critical of
every single person that walks up to you
but if they're showing you something
that fits and something that works and
something that makes your life better in
some way well then who cares we again
just say thanks
today the job of building this nation
geographically is completed there are no
new frontiers within our borders
so to what new horizons can we look now
where are tomorrow's opportunities
what's ahead for you for your children
01:24:56
the frontiers of the future are
they're in the test tubes and
laboratories of the great industries the
Jacobi Rd case was one of the great
judicial moments in world history and
the public was totally unaware it was
actually happening as the process was
being engaged General Electric and a
professor Jack of Rd went to the Patent
Office with a little microbe that eats
up oil spills
01:25:27
they said they had modified this microbe
in the laboratory and therefore it was
an invention the Patent Office the US
government took a look at this quote
invention they said no way the patent
statutes don't cover living things this
is not an invention turned down then
General Electric and dr. Jack Abadi
appealed to the u.s. customs court of
appeal and to everyone surprised by a
three-to-two decision they overrode the
Patent Office and they said this microbe
01:25:58
looks more like a detergent or a reagent
than a horse or honey bee I laughed
because they didn't understand basic
biology it looked like a chemical to
them had it had an antenna or eyes of
wings or legs it would never have
crossed their table and been patented
then the Patent Office appealed and what
the public should realize now is the
Patent Office was very clear that you
can't patent life my organization
provided the main amicus curiae I brief
if you allow the patent on this microbe
01:26:29
we argue it means that without any
congressional guidance or public
discussion corporations will own the
blueprints of life when they made the
decision we lost by five to four and
Chief Justice Warren Berger said sure
some of these are big issues but we
think this is a small decision seven
years later the US Patent Office issued
a one-sentence decree you can patent
anything in the world that's alive
except a full birth human being
[Music]
01:27:22
[Music]
we've all been hearing about the
announcement that we have mapped the
01:28:29
human genome but what the public doesn't
know is now there's a great race by
genomic companies and biotech companies
and life science companies to find the
treasure in the map the treasure are the
individual genes that make up the
blueprint of the human race
every time they capture a gene and
isolated these biotech companies claim
it as intellectual property the breast
cancer gene the cystic fibrosis gene it
goes on and on and on if this goes
unchallenged in the world community
within less than ten years
a handful of global companies will own
01:29:01
directly or through licensed the actual
genes that make up the evolution of our
species and they're now beginning to
patent the genomes of every other
creature on this planet in the age of
biology the politics is going to sort
out between those who believe life first
has intrinsic value and therefore we
should choose technologies and
commercial venues that honor the
intrinsic value and then we're going to
have people who believe look life is
simple utility its commercial fair and
they will line up with the idea that let
the marketplace be the ultimate arbiter
01:29:33
of all of the age of biology in a world
economy where information is filtered by
global media corporations keenly attuned
to their powerful advertisers who will
defend the public's right to know and
what price must be paid to preserve our
ability to make informed choices
[Music]
what Fox television told us was that we
were just the people to be the
investigators do any stories you want
asked tough questions and get answers so
we thought this is great this is a dream
01:30:15
job fantastic
the very first thing they had us do was
not to research stories but to shoot
this promo which was the investigators
and they had a film crew and a smoke
machine and we were silhouetted one of
the first stories that Jane came up with
was the revelation that most of the milk
in the state of Florida and throughout
much of the country was adulterated with
the effects of bovine growth hormone
with Monsanto I didn't realize how
effectively a corporation could work to
01:30:50
get something on the marketplace the
levels of coordination they had to have
they had to get university professors
into the fold they had to get experts
into the fold they had to get reporters
into the fold they had to get the public
into the fold and of course the FDA
let's not leave them out they had to get
the federal regulators convinced that
this was a fine and safe product to get
it onto the marketplace and they did
that they did that very very well
pazzo lack is a single most tested new
product in history and it's now
available to you specifically so you can
01:31:21
increase your profit potential the
federal government basically
rubber-stamped it before they put it on
the marketplace the longest test they
did for human toxicity was 90 days on 30
rats and then either Monsanto Miss
reported the results to the FDA or the
FDA didn't bother to look in depth at
Monsanto's own studies the scientists
within Health Canada looked very
carefully at bovine growth hormone and
came to very different conclusions than
the Food and Drug Administration in the
u.s. did Monsanto's engineered growth
01:31:52
hormone did not comply with safety
requirements it could be absorbed by the
body and therefore did have implications
for human health mysteriously that
conclusion
was deleted from the final published
version of their report I personally was
very concerned that there's a very
serious problem of secrecy conspiracy
and things of that nature
we have been pressured and coerced to
pass drugs of questionable safety
including the rbsp we wrote the story we
01:32:23
had it ready a week beforehand they
bought ants farmers in the milk industry
say it's since but studies suggest a
link to cancer don't miss their special
report from the impact that Friday night
before the Monday this series was to
begin the
fax machine spit out a letter from this
very high-priced lawyer in New York that
Monsanto had hired it contained a lot of
things that were just off-the-wall false
just demonstrable false but if you
didn't know the story and you didn't
know how we had gone about producing it
would have scared you as a broadcaster
01:32:55
as a manager and they decided that they
would pull the story and they would just
check it one more time but the bottom
line was that there was no factual
errors in that story both sides had been
heard from both sides it had an
opportunity to speak one week later
Monsanto sent the second letter and this
was even more strongly worded and it
said there will be dire consequences for
Fox News if the story airs in Florida
and this time they Freight they were
afraid of being sued and they were also
01:33:27
afraid of losing advertising dollars at
all of the stations owned by Rupert
Murdoch and he owned more television
stations than any other group in America
that's 22 television stations that's a
lot of advertising dollars for roundup
aspartame nutrasweet and other products
so we got into a battle and the first
deal was the new general manager and his
name's Dave and dave is a Salesman and
you know a pump man how you doing how
you doing called us upstairs to his
office and he said what would you say if
01:33:57
I killed this piece what if it never ran
and we said well you know we wouldn't be
very happy about that and he said well I
could kill it you know and we said yes
of course you're the manager you could
kill it it would never air and he's him
in and he's fine in his back and his
foot and we couldn't figure out what is
this all about and finally he blurted
out look would you tell anybody you know
I said I'm not gonna lie for you about a
week later calls us back to the office
and says okay we'd like you to make
these changes in fact you will make
01:34:28
these changes we said well let us show
you the research that we have that shows
that this information you want us to
broadcast isn't true to which he replies
I don't care about that
that's it pardon me and he said though
that's what I have lawyers for it just
write it the way the lawyers want it
written I said you know this is news
this is important this is stuff people
need to know and I'll never forget he
didn't pause a beat and he said we just
paid three billion dollars for these
television stations will tell you what
01:34:58
the news is the news is what we say it
is I said I'm not doing that
and he said well he said if you refuse
to present this story the way we think
it should be presented you'll be fired
for insubordination I said I will go to
the Federal Communications Commission
and I will report that I was fired from
my job by you the licensee of these
public airwaves because I refused a line
of people in the air and it's thank you
very much you'll hear from us right away
well 24 hours came and went we didn't
01:35:29
hear a thing and about a week later he
calls us back and now we've changed
strategies how about if we pay you some
money and you just go away and I said
how much money because you know when
somebody offers to bribe you like that I
always want to know if it might be worth
it he was gonna offer us the rest of our
year's salary if we agreed not to talk
about what Monsanto had done to not talk
01:35:59
about the Fox corporate response in
suppressing the story and to not talk
about the story not talk about BGH again
anywhere not take the story to another
news organization just zip up I said you
mean if I want to go to my daughter's
PTA meetings and explain what's in the
school milk at the school lunch program
I can't know you can never speak about
this anywhere and Steve says okay write
it up and I'm like what are you talking
01:36:30
about write it up and I didn't say
anything and Dave he wrote it up and he
fed Ecsta to us a couple days later and
he said are you gonna sign
and we said now Dave we're not gonna
sign that and he said we'll send it back
okay said no Dave we're not gonna send
that back it was okay we can't buy you
out we can't shut you up let's get the
story on the air in a way that we can
all agree it will go on the air and we
01:37:00
started rewriting and edited with their
lawyers well during this eight month
review process I say jokingly they did
things like for example they wanted to
take out the word cancer you don't have
to identify what the potential problem
is but just say human health
implications any criticism of Monsanto
or its product they either removed it or
minimized it and it was very very clear
I would say almost every edit they made
to the piece that was the aim and we
01:37:32
changed this and this and this and then
that wasn't good enough okay now change
this and this and this now change this
in this version after version after
version 83 times 83 times is unheard of
it doesn't happen you shouldn't have to
rewrite something 83 times obviously
they didn't want to put the thing on the
air and they were trying to drive us
crazy and get us to quit or wait until
the first window in our contract so that
they could fire us they in effect
announced that they were going to fire
us for no cause wow this was a little
01:38:05
much
and Steve wrote a letter to the lawyer
in Atlanta whose name is Carolyn Forrest
the Fox corporate lawyer can I said Ian
ha this isn't about being fired for no
cause you're firing us because we
refused to put on the air something that
we knew and demonstrated to be false and
misleading that's what this is about and
because we put up a fight because we
stood up to this big corporation and we
set up to your editors and we stood up
to your lawyers and we said to you look
there ought to be a principle higher
than just making money
01:38:35
and she wrote a letter back and said you
were right that's exactly what it was
you stood up to us on this story and
that's why we're letting you go big
mistake big mistake that says
retaliation you can't retaliate against
employees if they're standing up for
something that they believe is illegal
that they don't want to participate in
so that gave us the whistleblower status
that we needed in the state of Florida
to file a whistleblower claim against
our employer two or three years later we
01:39:06
got to trial five weeks of testimony led
to a jury verdict of four hundred and
twenty five thousand dollars in which
the jury determined that the story they
pressured us to broadcast the story we
resisted telling was in fact false
distorted or slanted Fox News appealed
the verdict five major news media
corporations filed briefs with the court
in support of Fox's appeal
[Music]
01:39:37
you may recall the chain a Korea former
reporter here sued Fox 13 and a
whistleblower lawsuit claiming she was
fired for refusing to distort her report
the appeals court today threw that case
out saying the say Korea had no
whistleblower claim against the station
based on News Distortion
Fox 13 vice president and general
manager Bob linger says the station has
been completely vindicated by the ruling
what Fox neglected to report is this
Jane sued Fox under Florida's
whistleblower statute which protects
01:40:08
those who try to prevent others from
breaking the law but her appeal court
judges found that falsifying news isn't
actually against the law so they deny
Jane her whistleblower status overturn
the case and withdrew her 425 thousand
dollar award Canada and Europe have
upheld the ban on our bgh yet it remains
hidden in much of the milk supply of the
01:40:35
United States the prospect that
two-thirds of the world's population
will have no access to fresh drinking
water by 2025 has provoked the initial
confrontations in a worldwide battle for
control over the planet's most basic
resource when Bolivia sought to
refinance the public water service of
its third-largest City the World Bank
required that it be privatized which is
how the Bechtel corporation of San
Francisco gained controlled over all of
01:41:10
Cochabamba s-- water even that which
fell from the sky
Estel a este contrato pro avian a la
gente accumulate lago de la lluvia por
lo tanto el agua de la lluvia tambien
say puberty Sabah
la factura de agua la dama un bel or
legal a la empresa para que pueda a pro
PR say de su de su propia da de su
vivienda Zima Tondo la misma la gente de
via
Akhtar PO a decision de comer menos la
01:41:41
guarda lava pagar por servicios bossy
hos dejar de mandarava needle escuela no
assist a hospital a seeker Arsena propia
casa o en todo caso de gente who balada
poor m+ una Zenta muy muy baja debería a
buscar Tarragona skies
[Applause]
oh la cocina de la gusta Kanako saleh
las casas de los caminos e protester
the price this beleaguered country paid
01:42:22
for world bank loans was the
privatization of the state oil industry
and it's airline railroad electric and
phone companies but the government
failed to convince Bolivians that water
is a commodity like any other entonces
que si BMO's que el gobierno de fin de
los interests de la nación Arabic tell
01:42:50
porque la gente que de agua mo gases la
gente Correa Justicia in nobilis
prácticamente stubo City Allah Bolivia
was determined to defend the
corporation's right to charge families
living on $2 a day as much as
one-quarter of their income for water
the greater the popular resistance to
the water privatization scheme the more
violent became the standoff yogoro
01:43:33
centenares de dos hombres que a sus dis
a decir Tainos perdieron Brazos
perdieron piernas K Dharan paralytic
okay Darin lesson ah de la cabeza de por
vida y murió mr. Rogow dasa
[Music]
transnational corporations have a long
and dark history of condoning tyrannical
governments is it narcissism that
compels them to seek their reflection in
the regimented structures of fascist
regimes
[Music]
01:44:45
there was an interesting connection
between the rise of fascism in Europe
and the consciousness of politically
radical people about corporate power
because there was a recognition that
fascism arose in Europe with the help of
enormous corporations mostly it was
greatly admired all across the spectrum
business loved him
investments shot up and certainly when
Hitler came in in Germany the same thing
01:45:15
happened there the investments shot up
in Germany he had the work force under
control he was getting rid of dangerous
left-wing elements investment
opportunities were improving there was
no problems these are wonderful
countries I think one of the greatest
untold stories of the 20th century is
the collusion between corporations
especially in America and Nazi Germany
first in terms of how the corporations
from America helped to essentially
rebuild Germany and support the early
01:45:48
Nazi regime and then when the war broke
out figured out a way to keep everything
going
so General Motors was able to keep Opel
going Ford was able to keep their thing
going and companies like coca-cola can
they couldn't keep the coca-cola going
so what they did was they invented Fanta
orange for the Germans and that's how
coke was able to keep their profits
coming in to coca-cola so when you drink
Fanta orange that's the Nazi drink that
01:46:20
was created so that Coke could continue
making money while millions of people
died when Hitler came to power in 1933
his goal was to dismantle and destroy
the Jewish community this was an
enterprise so fast that it required the
resources of a computer but in 1933
there was no computer what there was was
the IBM punch card system which
controlled in stored information based
upon the holes that were punched in
01:46:49
various rows and columns naturally there
was no off-the-shelf software as there
is
each application was custom designed an
engineer had to personally configure it
millions of people of all religions and
nationalities and characteristics went
through the concentration camp system
that's an extraordinary traffic
management program that required an IBM
system in every railroad direction and
01:47:20
an IBM system in every concentration
camp
[Music]
now this is a typical prisoner card
there are little boxes where all the
information is to be punched in we
compare this information to the co-chief
or concentration camps and here you see
ostriches one booking bud to Dachau is
three now what kinds of prisoners were
they they could be a Jehovah's Witness
for to a homosexual for three communists
for six or a Jew would be eight
01:47:56
now what was their status one was
released two was transferred four was
executed five was suicide and six code
six
Zondervan blank special treatment meant
the gas chamber or sometimes a bullet
they would punch that number in the
material was tabulated the machines were
set and of course the punch cards by the
millions had to be printed and they were
printed exclusively by IBM and the
01:48:28
profits were recovered just after the
war I really do believe that that
particular accusation has been fairly
discredited as a serious accusation that
is the fact that they have used
equipment you know that is a fact
but how they got it how much cooperation
they got and any kind of collusion
trying to connect dots that are not
connected I think that's the part that
is discredited generally you sell
01:49:01
computers and they're using a variety of
ways and you always hope they're using
the more positive ways possible if you
ever found that they are used in ways
that are not positive then you would
hope that you stop supporting that but
do you always know can you always tell
can you always find out
IBM would of course say that it had no
control over its German subsidiary but
here in October 9th of 1941 a letter is
being written directly to Thomas J
01:49:35
Watson with all sorts of detail about
the activities of the German subsidiary
none of these machines were sold they
were all leased by IBM and they had to
be serviced on site once a month even if
that was at a concentration camp such as
Dachau Buchenwald
this is a typical contract with IBM and
the Third Reich which was instituted in
nine in 1942 it's not with the Dutch
subsidiary it's not what's the German
subsidiary it is with the IBM
01:50:05
corporation in New York I know that
story I discussed it more than once with
old mr. Watson and I was around at the
time I'm not saying that Watson didn't
know that the German government used
punch cards probably did know after we
had very few customers Watson didn't
want to do it was not because he thought
it was immoral or not but because Watson
is a very keen sense of public relations
01:50:38
thought it was risky should not surprise
us that corporate allegiance to profits
will trump their allegiance to any flag
a recent US Treasury Department report
revealed that in one week alone 57 US
corporations were fined for trading with
official enemies of the United States
including terrorists tyrants and
despotic regimes
you can roughly locate any community
somewhere along a scale running all the
01:51:12
way from democracy to despotism this man
makes it his job to study these things
well for one thing avoid the comfortable
idea that the mere form of government
can of itself safeguard a nation against
despotism for big business despotism was
often a useful tool for securing foreign
markets and pursuing profits one of the
US Marine Corps most highly decorated
generals Smedley Darlington Butler by
01:51:47
his own account helped pacify Mexico for
American oil companies Haiti and Cuba
for National City Bank Nicaragua for the
Brown Brothers brokerage the Dominican
Republic for sugar interests Honduras
for US fruit companies and China for
Standard Oil general Butler services
were also in demand in the United States
itself in the 1930s as President
Franklin Delano Roosevelt sought to
relieve the misery of the depression
through public enterprise and tougher
01:52:20
regulations on corporate exploitation
and misdeeds the entire country's behind
you
and the people but the country was not
entirely behind the populist president
large parts of the corporate elite
despised what Roosevelt's New Deal stood
for and so in 1934 a group of
conspirators sought to involve general
Butler in a treasonous plan to
01:52:53
intimidate the government but the
corporate cabal had picked the wrong man
Butler was fed up with being what he
called a gangster for capitalism which I
believe might lead to an attempt to set
up a fascist dictatorship the upshot of
the whole thing was that I was supposed
01:53:24
to lead an organization of 500,000 men
which would be able to take over the
functions of government a congressional
committee ultimately found evidence of a
plot to overthrow Roosevelt
according to Butler the conspiracy
included representatives of some of
America's top corporations including JP
Morgan DuPont and Goodyear Tire as
today's chairman of Goodyear Tire knows
for corporations to dominate government
01:53:56
a coup is no longer necessary
corporations have gone global and by
going global the governments have lost
some control of corporations regardless
of whether the corporation can be
trusted or cannot be trusted governments
today do not have over the compilations
the power that they had and the leverage
that they had 50 or 60 years ago and
that's a major change so governments
have become powerless compared to where
01:54:28
they were before capitalism today
commands the towering Heights and has
displaced politics and politicians as
the new high priests and reigning
oligarchs of our system so cap
and it's principal protagonists and
players corporate CEOs have been
accorded unusual power and access issues
not to deny the significance of
government and politicians but these are
the new high priests I was invited to
01:55:01
Washington DC to attend this meeting
that was being put together by the
National Security Agency called the
critical thinking consortium I remember
standing there in this room and looking
over on one side of the room and we had
CIA NSA dia FBI Customs Secret Service
and then on the other side of the room
we had coca-cola Mobil Oil GTE and Kodak
then I remember thinking I am like in
01:55:32
the epicenter of the intelligence
industry right now I mean the line is
not just blurring it's just not there
anymore and to me it spoke volumes as to
how industry and government we're
consulting with each other and working
with each other
as 34 nations of the Western Hemisphere
gathered to draft a far-reaching trade
agreement one that would lay the
groundwork to privatize every resource
and service imaginable thousands of
people from hundreds of grassroots
01:56:16
organizations joined to oppose it
Canada's top business lobbyists and its
chief Trade Representative discount the
dissent in the streets for them the
Americas 800 million citizens speak with
one voice truth justice wisdom and all
01:56:39
those things what an extraordinary yes
and from the most developed to the least
it was it was extraordinary there are
now that we see the benefits of trade
more and more people want to buy because
we do realize it it helps everyone from
the poor route to the better off so a
lot of these countries are not saying we
01:57:22
wanna be wrong they want to get on
exactly
see
I'm inside this is all outsides that's
that's the way it is
so what do you think when you look at
all this well it's I mean I think it's I
think it's too bad that this has that
this has erupted
[Music]
does there need to be some measure of
accountability yes and I think the
business community recognizes that but
that accountability is in the
01:59:01
marketplace it's with their shareholders
it's with the public perception and the
public image that they are projecting
that's if if if companies don't do what
they should be doing they're going to be
punished in the marketplace and that's
not what any company wants there's a new
market these guys and gals out there
because government's putting a gun to
their head or because they've suddenly
read a book about Transcendental
01:59:30
Meditation and global morality my inner
voice as I like a Wendy's bacon mushroom
out there there because they understand
the market requires them to be there
that there's competitive advantage to be
there I am listening to your concerns I
worry about climate I worry about
pollution I do not have all the answers
to this but we are prepared to work with
you with society with NGOs with
governments to address it so you rebuild
02:00:04
the trust so that you come back to a new
kind of trust and then the ultimate goal
is then to become a corporation of
choice he believes it almost half our
energy can one day come from renewable
sources he's been called the dreamer
crank and more recently a project
manager for shell I ask myself
oftentimes why so many companies
02:00:37
subscribed corporate social
responsibility I'm not sure it's because
they necessarily want to be responsible
in an ultimate way but because they want
to be identified and seem to be
responsible but who am I to judge Who am
I to judge it's better they belong than
not belong it's better that they make
some public profession then social
02:01:10
responsibility isn't a deep shift
because it's a voluntary tactic a tactic
a reaction to a certain market at this
point and as the corporation reads the
market differently it can go back one
day you see Bambi next day you see
Godzilla
how do you define socially responsible
what business is it of the corporation
to decide what so socially responsible
02:01:41
that isn't their expertise that isn't
what their stockholders asked them to do
so I think they're going out of their
range and it certainly is not democratic
I don't really care what the chairman of
General Motors thinks is an appropriate
level of emissions to come off the
tailpipe of General Motors automobiles
he may have a lot of scientists he may
be a very good person but I didn't elect
him to anything he doesn't have any
power to speak for me these are
02:02:12
decisions that must be made by
government and not by corporations you
take this to its logical conclusion one
would have an image that we are in fact
that at this at this the end of the
world is nigh and and we are we are all
completely brainwashed and there's no
space left and and and I don't believe
we're there yet and I think it's really
important that we don't overstate the
case and that we admit that there are
cracks and fissures and all of these
02:02:42
corporate structures and sometimes when
a corporation is concentrating on one
particular project they look the other
way and all kinds of interesting things
happen in the corner it is the case in
every period of history where injustice
based on falsehoods based on taking away
the right and freedoms of people to live
and survive with dignity but eventually
when you call a bluff the tables turn
02:03:10
[Music]
ultimately capital puts its foot down
somewhere and anywhere it puts its foot
down it can be held accountable
originally Walmart and Kathie Lee
Gifford had said why should we believe
you that children work in this factory
what we didn't tell him was that when he
deals in the center the fixture was on a
plane to the United States this is when
they Diaz she comes to the United States
she's unstoppable Congress heard
02:03:51
testimony today from children who
testified they were exported by
sweatshops overseas Kathie Lee Gifford
apologized 20 days it was most amazing
thing I'd seen this powerful celebrity
leans over and says Wendy please believe
me
I didn't know these conditions existed
and now that I do I'm going to work with
you I'm going to work with these other
people and it'll never happen again
and that night we signed an agreement
with Kathie Lee Gifford
as far as Walmart goes in Kathie Lee
pretty much everything returned to
sweatshop conditions but because this
02:04:30
was fought out on television for weeks
this incident with Kathie Lee Gifford
actually took the sweatshop tissue to
every single part of the country and so
frankly after that there's hardly a
single person in this country who
doesn't know about child labor or
sweatshops or starvation wages
[Music]
[Music]
so what we need to do is to look at the
very roots of the legal form that
created this beast and we need to think
who can hold them accountable they're
02:05:18
not Craven stone they can be dismantled
in fact most states have laws which
require that they be dismantled for too
long now giant corporations have been
allowed to undermine democracy here in
the United States and all over the world
but today the National Lawyers Guild in
29 other groups and individuals are
fighting back we are calling upon state
attorney general dan lundgren to comply
with California law and to revoke the
02:05:50
corporate charter of the Union Oil
Company of California for its repeated
and breathe us offenses this is a statue
that is well known it has been used it
can be used what this will mean is the
dissolution of the Union Oil Company of
California the sale of its assets under
careful court orders to others who will
carry on in the public interest
[Music]
this is nothing more than just a smear
campaign this company has been part of
California's economy for over a hundred
02:06:21
years thousands of jobs doesn't mean
it's never made any mistakes paid for
those mistakes but this demonizing of a
company I think I'm in a time warp or
something that I I fell asleep when I
woke up fifty years ago and we heard
that kind of rhetoric well we have a
very very broad set of people angry well
there is this corporation on the left of
the spectrum who who don't produce
anything except hot air from its
complicity and unspeakable human rights
violations overseas against women gays
laborers and indigenous peoples to its
efforts to subvert u.s. foreign policy
02:06:52
and deceive the courts the public and
its own stockholders Unocal is
emblematic of corporate abuse business
dearest Burma Army is immoral Unicode
cannot do business in drama without
supporting that hopeless regime it
cannot justify
[Music]
the curse for me has been the fact that
02:07:29
in making these you know documentary
films I've seen that they actually can
impact change so I'm just compelled to
you know keep making them yep that's me
doing what I do all year long I give big
companies a hard time but at
Christmastime I like to set aside my
differences and reach out to big
business like cigarette companies
[Applause]
I went to Littleton Colorado where the
Columbine shooting took place and I
didn't know this but when I arrived I
02:08:10
learned what the primary job is of the
parents of the kids who go to Columbine
High School the number one job in
Littleton Colorado they worked for
Lockheed Martin building weapons of mass
destruction but they don't see the
connect between what they do for a
living and what their kids do at school
or did at school and so I'm kind of you
know all up on my you know high horse
you don't thinking about this and I
thought you know I said to my wife you
02:08:41
know we both are you know sons and
daughters of Auto Workers in Flint
Michigan
there is no single one of us back in
Flint any of us including us who ever
stopped to think this thing we do for a
living the building of automobiles is
probably the single biggest reason why
the polar ice caps are going to melt and
end that civilization as we know it
there's no connect between I'm just an
assembler on an assembly line building a
02:09:11
car which is good for people in society
moves them around but never stopped to
think about the larger picture and the
larger responsibility of what we're
doing ultimately we have to as
individuals accept responsibility for
our collective action and and the larger
harm that it causes you know in our
world today the first of two historic
town hall meetings will get underway in
Arcadia California sixty-one percent of
our Kayden's voted in favor of publicly
02:09:42
discussing whether democracy is even
possible when large corporations wield
so much wealth and power under law they
also voted to form a committee to ensure
democratic control over corporations in
Arcata corporations are not accountable
to the democratic process that's what
this is about I don't want to make
decisions about everything that goes on
in their corporation but I do have a
strong belief that they need to be held
accountable to us
if we don't like certain product if you
don't like a Pepsi Cola or BankAmerica
02:10:14
well if you don't like what they do
don't use them that's the way I see the
you know people's power is you have a
lot more money than me you have more
votes than I do if we use the model of
boycott and voting with their dollars
that's that's an undemocratic situation
what are we afraid of I mean all the
business is gonna leave our kata I don't
think so and if they did we'd deal with
it or we figure it out or we do
something different we're creative
people if you think it stops making a
02:10:44
decision where to buy your stuff today
how tough do you think it is when
there's only one provider and it's the
state and by the way you don't get to
have this little democracy forum in
those communities either people that say
they fear their government I really hope
that they understand that they're
allowed to participate in their
government they're not allowed to
participate in anything that
corporations do so don't fear the
government help it be the government
that you won't fear if this made people
on the country would do this instead of
watching Super Bowl Sunday our nation
02:11:15
would be controlled by the people not by
the corporation no more chain
restaurants in Arcata after all
[Music]
[Music]
over the past decade we have been
gaining ground and when I say we I mean
ordinary people committed to the welfare
of all of humanity all people
irrespective of gender and class and
race and religion all species on the
planet we managed to take the biggest
02:11:59
government and one of the largest
chemical companies to court on the case
of neem and win a case against them
WR race in the US government's patent
our name was revoked by a case we
brought along with the Greens of
European Parliament and the
International organic agriculture
movement we won because we work together
[Music]
we have overturned nearly 99% of the
basmati patent of rice Tech again
02:12:31
because we worked as a worldwide
coalition old women in Texas scientists
in India activists sitting in Vancouver
little Basma the action group we stopped
the third world being viewed as the
pirate and we showed the corporation's
were the pirate
look how little it took for Gandhi to
work against the salt loss of the
British where the British decided the
way they would make their armies and
police forces bigger it's just tax the
sort and all the Gandhi did was walk to
02:13:09
the beach pick up the salt and say
Nature gives it for free we need it
we've always made it we will violate
your laws we will continue to make salt
we've had a similar commitment for the
last decade in India let any law that
makes it illegal to save seed is a lord
not worth following
we will violate it because saving seed
is a duty to the earth and to future
generations we thought it would really
be symbolic it is more than symbolic it
02:13:41
is becoming a survival option farmers
who grow their own seeds
save their own seeds don't buy
pesticides have three fold more incomes
than farmers who are locked into the
chemical trade but depending on Monsanto
and Cargill we have managed to create
alternatives that work for people there
are many tools for for bringing back
community but the importance is not the
tools I mean there's litigation there's
legislation there's direct action
there's education boycotts social
02:14:14
investment there's many many ways to to
address issues of corporate power but in
the final analysis what's really
important is the vision you have to have
a better story do I know you well enough
to call you fellow plunderers there is
not an industrial company on earth not
an institution of any kind not man not
yours not anyone's that is sustainable I
stand convicted by me myself alone not
02:14:47
by anyone else it's a plunder of the
earth but not by our civilizations
definition by our civilizations
definition I'm a captain of industry and
as a many a kind of modern-day hero but
really really the first Industrial
Revolution is flawed it is not working
it is unsustainable it is the mistake
and we must move on to another and
02:15:18
better Industrial Revolution and get it
right this time
when I think of what could be now
visualize an organization of people
committed to a purpose and the purpose
is doing no harm as the company that has
severed the umbilical cord to earth for
its raw materials taking raw materials
that have already been extracted and
02:15:50
using them over and over again driving
that process with renewable energy it is
our plan it remains our plan to climb
Mount sustainability that mountain
that's higher than Everest infinitely
higher than Everest far more difficult
to scale that point at the top
symbolizing zero footprint
so we gotta undo a lot of things in
order to be smart enough to do this
02:16:29
really dangerous and risky and difficult
work you know the best way that we
possibly can and that means people
coming together and learning on a
hopeful whole lot of stuff that we just
don't know that it's been driven out of
the culture driven out of the society
driven out of our minds that to me is
the most exciting thing that is
happening it's happening all over the
world in cierto momento de la luciano me
el momento mescal mean aunty L ahead
Zito's cuartel o la policia tambien mo
02:17:01
salió de su de su cuartel los
congresista de Cepeda Ciaran l go burn
adores oculto say mushi or go burn adore
no había autoridades a logical Toni Dodd
legitimate heir a Cuervo estaba un
Cavill dokay estaba en la plaza y que
toma ballot Ecco nays in grandes Azam
bless ya final decidió sobre la go Yau a
la gente joven se nos picos de mucho
02:17:29
tiempo podemos seborrhea podemos hacer
knows necessarily democracia
emissary de una empresa what other
person hold liquor from polymers
técnicos kampala machine see arrows and
pull Emma's lead Alice the compromise
and initiative estamos Camden Town
porque si the most ramos que la gente en
SI de trabajo Dora like a poder de suopo
lemons for the most star and a squirt as
02:18:10
they paid heed the católica de casa
privately so to a karaoke 7 do Java
karaoke style manos de las corporaciones
vuelven a las manos de la población
yummy AI Apprendi una elección muy
importante que unos Padres confía en la
capacidad de Puebla a slogan que siempre
y OB le petit dhola's la smart way bro
you need Ohama Sara Ben C dou Y ver a so
02:18:40
pareve queda muy Grande's
[Music]
sometimes it surprises me how effective
you can actually be after we beat the
gap I walk past these gap stores and I
look at them I think oh my god there's
like 2,000 engine stores across the
country look at all that concrete look
at the glass look at all the staff
02:19:17
people look at all the clothing look at
that power you can still reach these
companies you can still have an effect
okay Seymour ganado tanga no no pequeñas
Battaglia's mundo pero yo creo que la
gente para no la Gazza ESO SI yo veo el
futuro represent a photo para nuestros
hijos mu pero con viola capacidad de
02:19:48
selección la capacidad de indignation
Anakapalli under a hint we can change
the government that's the only way we're
gonna redesign rethink reconstitute what
capital and property can do 15
corporations would like to control the
conditions of our life and millions of
people are saying not only do we not
need you we can do it better we are
going to create systems that nourish the
earth and nourish human beings and these
02:20:20
are not marginal experiments they are
the mainstay of large numbers of
communities across the world that is
where the future lies you know I've
often thought it's very ironic that I'm
able to do all this and yet what am I on
I'm on networks I'm distributed by
studios that are owned by large
corporate entities now why would they
put me out there when I am opposed to
everything that they stand for and I
spend my time on their dime opposing
what they believe in
okay well it's because they don't
02:20:52
believe in anything
they put me on there because they know
that there's millions of people that
want to see my film or watch the TV show
and so they're gonna make money and I've
been able to get my stuff out there
because I'm driving my truck through
this incredible flaw in capitalism
the greed flaw the thing that says the
rich man will sell you the rope to hang
himself with if he thinks he can make a
buck off it along the rope
I hope I'm part of the rope and they
also believe that when people watch my
stuff or maybe watch this film or
02:21:23
whatever they think that you know well
you know what they'll watch this and
they won't do anything you know because
we've done such a good job of numbing
their minds and dumbing them down you
know they'll never affect they know
people aren't going to leave the couch
and go and do something political
they're convinced of that I'm convinced
of the opposite I'm convinced that a few
people are gonna leave this movie
theater or get up off the couch and go
and do something anything to get this
world back in our hands
02:21:51
[Music]
02:22:59
[Music]
Watch, read, educate! © 2021