Wednesday, February 11, 2009

The Corporation

After watching The Corporation one of the first things I found interesting was how corporations began to be recognized as individuals by the courts and giving them rights. Throughout the film they were establishing parallels by the symptoms from the DSM-IV's and the corporations misbehavior's. So after looking at the symptoms of a corporation, it would be clinically diagnosed as a psychopath; so if it considered a human shouldn't it be locked up like a human would be for a while until it's able to be "normal" in society?

Another interesting part of the movie was how the American engineering and construction firm Bechtel took over Bolivia's privatized water infrastructure. Bolivians couldn't even collect rainwater because they were forbidden to by this multi-billon dollar corporation, they were only allowed to buy water at very high prices. How evil can someone be to take away a poor countries water? But finally after 40 years in 2006 Bolivians got their water back.

Another part of the movie that I found interesting was when the two journalists Jane Akre and Steve Wilson were fired by the Fox News television station they work for after refusing to change their investigative report on Posilac, a Bovine Growth Hormone made by Monsanto. Their research finds potential health and safety problems of drinking milk treated with the synthetic hormone and how it affected the cows (their utters became so swollen they could hardly stand up), but they were threatened with legal action from Monsanto, so Fox wants the reporters to play down the negative sides of the story. So Akre took them to court with a whistleblower case but the court eventually throws out Akre's whistle blower lawsuit after deciding that the media is allowed to lie.

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

No Logo

After reading No Logo the first passage I found interesting was "I had been doing some research on university campuses and had begun to notice that many of the students I was meeting were preoccupied with the inroads private corporations were making into their public schools. They were angry that ads were creeping into cafeterias, common rooms, even washrooms." The students should be preoccupied with there studies not advertisements in their school. This will in the long run wrong hurt someone's education because instead of paying attention to what they're studying they will be distracted by a poster that intrigues them and makes them lose there concentration.

Another passage I found interesting was about the "brand vision" and how companies aren't selling their product, they are selling us a lifestyle on what to wear, how to live, and how we should look. "Brand vision process taught us something: Polaroid is not a camera--it's a social lubricant. IBM isn't selling computers, it's selling business "solutions." Swatch is not about watches, it is about the idea of time." Society and the media have given into these "brands" and unless you're wearing this brand that brand then you're not someone who will fit in and hopefully someday that can change because it really doesn't matter what name someone has on their shirt.