film: the corporation

Film: The Corporation

'The Corporation' is a documentary which psycho analyses big business from the view point of corporations being people. It was billed as 'the Fahrenheit 9/11 that makes you think' and includes contributions from Michael Moore, Noam Chomsky, a corporate spy, a whistleblower and a stockbroker to name but a few.

This was certainly fascinating and intriguing in parts 'Coca Cola invented Fanta Orange so they could penetrate the German market in world war 2' and 'EMI charge $10'000 for the use of the song Happy Birthday in movies' were two of the more memorable snippets of info that I picked up on.

Definitely something worth seeing if you appreciate Michael Moore's liberal left wing tyrades and maybe even more so if you hate him but appreciate the sentiment in what he does. The only downside was the length of the movie. At two and a half hours it started to feel like a chore (my girlfriend fell asleep). However, it's guaranteed there will be something you can take from it.

BUMP for its special edition dvd release tommorow on region 2 ..region 1 has to wait till april 5th . disc 2 has 5.5 hours of extra interviews . well worth checkin out the website also

The Corporation

the dvd is fantastic: i think it includes all of the interview footage they shot. sounds good.

The film can now be found online on Youtube and Google video. It really is a must see as it goes into great detail of one of the biggest problems of our society. Its really a great injustice that corporations are endowed with all the same rights as "free" citizens, and yet are given special priviledges by our government. The 14th Ammendment was supposed to ban slavery, not create a system to condition a redefinition of it.

I highly reccomend this move to everyone. Corporations are not people, and We The People need to reassert that distinction, redefine a person as one with a soul, not a machine of many, a heartless conglomerated automoton.

The documentary can be found here:
Google video search: The Corporation

awesome, awesome doco.

makes michael moore look like playschool.

mulberryman said:

Corporations are not people, and We The People need to reassert that distinction, redefine a person as one with a soul, not a machine of many, a heartless conglomerated automoton.

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Actually in a lot of ways its good that corporations can be defined as persons - because that way they can sued and so on. If not, you'd have a situation where, say, the Exxon Valdez leaks oil everywhere, and you can only sue the captain, etc.

Well then why can't a system of corporate responsibility be implemented without the need to cluster corps with individuals? In other words, why must a corporation be classified as a person to be sued. Being as such it would be like suing an artificially created entity with countless faces, and impractical wealth. It's a farce.

adding poll*
sound pretty cool, im goin to watch it on youtube now

I absolutely loved this documentary

Infinite Jest said:

Actually in a lot of ways its good that corporations can be defined as persons - because that way they can sued and so on. If not, you'd have a situation where, say, the Exxon Valdez leaks oil everywhere, and you can only sue the captain, etc.

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Considering the Exxon still hasn't paid for it, i wouldn't mind imprisoning the entire board and just taking their money by force for it.

People need to be held accountable, not just the corporation. The corporation provides too much protection to individuals making decisions for the betterment of the company that harms the stakeholders. There needs to be people to incarcerate. Period. (On top of fines levied to counter what harm they've done to the public).

I think corporations could lose their quasi human status and protection under the constitution, and still have a system where they can be sued and made to be responsible for their actions. Before the 14th amendment there were corporations that were not defined as a legal person.

^^ truth! and Michael Moore is playschool, someone ought to sue that fat bastard for defaming the entire progressive cause, about the best thing he could do right now is move to San Francisco and get married to Rush Limbaugh!

you are aware he's a contributor to this film, no?

Well then thats cool, but he really shouldn't be making films himself, cause he sucks at it. His films make a joke out of valid points and generally piss people off who might have been otherwise convincible.

This should be pretty interesting, I hope they talk about SPE's.

Wow, no I don't think they mentioned them but not sure, maybe. After reading what a SPE is... I honestly have to wonder how would anyone argue that even the basic idea of the corporation isn't shady by its very definition. ...and too think I had a "conservative" person once tell me to never capitalize my last name, else I could be considered a corporation.. ..jeez, to think I must have been right all along, and "conservatives" are evil... why would anyone not want to confused for a corporation? Corporations aren't people, their better than people, they don't ever have to pay taxes or be responsible...

The Corporation should have been cut down to 1.5hrs. Vital message but way too much waste to keep many people's attention focused, imo.

Wow, no I don't think they mentioned them but not sure, maybe. After reading what a SPE is... I honestly have to wonder how would anyone argue that even the basic idea of the corporation isn't shady by its very definition.

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The only thing stopping corporations from really using SPE's to the max is "image." However, if image were unimportant, all the oil companies could walk away from oil spills without paying a dime. Why: using an SPE, Exxon can successfully purchase "companies" that are in fact composed entirely of... one oil tanker. And because the essence of an SPE is to separate the parent corporation from any sort of risks related to the "unrelated" company (which, once again consists of a single oil tanker, ship, truck, whatever), the threat of a trillion dollar lawsuit is legally, well, non-threatening, because it was the SPE that bought the oil tanker, so instead of worrying about what's fair the SPE can just claim bankruptcy - and the SPE is a separate individual from Exxon, you have to remember...

... but this kind of "walking away" is rare because all that matters is the value of the stock, and walking away while waving a big SPE flag looks bad and hurts stockholders. Of course, in small situations that don't make the news, "walking away" from an SPE's problems is not only popular, it's okay (legally).

(it's not all bad though, this is just one way to abuse SPE's. they're actually pretty cool and really helpful to companies when used ethically)

So, they can hire morons to drive the oil tankers at moron-rate pay, then when they spil the shit and get sued they can pay a little chunk to make themselves look good, say a few shiny words about how sorry they are, bla bla bla, then 2 months later when everybody forgot about it, pharm the whole thing out to one of theseSPE's and go right on doing all the same stupid things in the name of the exalted and glorious bottom line... Ugh!

Pretty surprising that a slanted documentary wouldn't want to at least take a jab at a big soft spot.