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| Corporations | ||
| Center for Corporate Policy | ||
| This website is a storehouse of information about corporations and their policies. They have pages dedicated to corporate crime and abuse, the pay that executives are granted, concentration of corporate power, and other hot issues surrounding the modern corporation. The group behind this website calls themselves "a non-profit, non-partisan public interest organization working to curb corporate abuses and make corporations publicly accountable." ( http://www.corporatepolicy.org/ ) | ||
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| Public Citizen Global Trade Watch | ||
| This site tracks news and facts about global trade, the World Trade organization, NAFTA, and other global trade organizations. Global Trade Watch aims to promote democracy and challenge corporate globalization, "arguing that the current globalization model is neither a random or inevitability nor 'free trade.'" ( http://www.citizen.org/trade/ ) | ||
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| International Labor Rights Forum | ||
| This site provides information on child labor, sweatshops, trade union violence, and working women in the world. The ILRF is an organization dedicated to "just and humane treatment for workers worldwide." Their website contains articles, facts, and blogs about global labor rights and looks at various corporations (From Wal-Mart to American Eagle to Disney) and their labor practices. They also write a "Sweatshop Hall of Shame" that viewers can get to with the second URL link below; it is a PDF download. http://www.sweatfree.org/docs/Hall_of_Shame_Final_11%2718%2707.pdf ( http://www.laborrights.org/ ) | ||
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| Wal-MartWatch | ||
| Wal-Mart Watch started in 2005 as a national public education campaign with the goal of revealing the behind-the-scenes practices of the retail giant. It invites viewers "to explore the issues" about what is going on with the corporate giant and why these issues are important to all of us. This site tracks news stories, tax information, petitions, and even lawsuits filed by or against Wal-Mart, as well as publishing regular reports, statistics, and research. ( http://walmartwatch.com/ ) | ||
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| Free Trade Federation | ||
| Coffee and cocoa farmers and pickers in the developing world are among the workers known to have a particularly brutal existence because of global trade practices that favor exporters and corporations instead of the actual workers. Fair trade is a movement to try and change these and other inequities, and the Federation "envisions a just and sustainable global economic system in which purchasing and production choices are made with concern for the well-being of people and the environment, creating a world where all people have viable economic options to meet their own needs." This web site provides a very helpful FAQ section and includes a scroll-down feature that lets visitors select a product category and then find links of various organizations and facts about fair trade in that sphere of commerce. ( http://www.fairtradefederation.com/# ) | ||
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| Organic Consumers Association | ||
| This is the website for the OCA, and it contains regularly-updated links to news stories and blogs about organic consuming and the corporations that support or retard the progress of organics. It contains sections on organic standards, biodynamics, genetically modified foods, the chemical rGBH, the patent of genes and cloning, corporations such as Monsanto, and even nanotechnology. "The OCA deals with crucial issues of food safety, industrial agriculture, genetic engineering, children's health, corporate accountability, Fair Trade, environmental sustainability and other key topics." ( http://www.organicconsumers.org/ ) | ||
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| The Meatrix | ||
| Though disturbing in the facts it portrays, this clever website is the home to several witty, short animated films know as The Meatrix. These films spoof the popular "Matrix" films. The basic story is about a pig who lives a luxurious life on a bucolic farm only to learn this is an illusion; he wakes up in the real, horrifying world of factory farming that modern animals currently live in. This site has won numerous film and web awards and reveals the unappetizing truths behind the modern factory farm and the meat industry. ( http://www.themeatrix.com/ ) | ||
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| Farm Sanctuary | ||
| Modern day factory farms are thought by many to be inhumane and unsanitary, being unsafe for the workers, disastrous for the environment and water tables, and horribly cruel to animals. This group was founded in 1986 "to combat the abuse of factory farming and to encourage a new awareness and understanding about 'animal farms.'" Their website is full of facts about factory farming and ways to educate viewers about this institution. They also have a sub-site, FactoryFarming.com, which has a list of facts about the different meat industries; this site is listed under the main URL below. http://www.factoryfarming.com ( http://www.farmsanctuary.org/index.html ) | ||
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| Combat Monsanto | ||
| The Monsanto Corporation is one of the largest and most controversial corporations on earth. They develop chemicals and genetically modify farming crops and are famous for formulas such Roundup weed killer and infamous for the development of such products as Agent Orange, bovine growth hormones, terminator genes, and genetically modified foods. This website is a protest site that storehouses information, international protests, and news articles. While this site has very strong anti-Monsanto views, it also shows many of the controversies this corporation has started or gotten intertwined in with well-documented articles that have full citations. ( http://www.combat-monsanto.co.uk/ ) | ||
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| Slow Food International | ||
| This group "was founded in 1989 to counteract fast food and fast life, the disappearance of local food traditions and people's dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from, how it tastes and how our food choices affect the rest of the world." Their website contains regular updates of news articles, podcasts, RSS Feeds, and newsletters. The sites gives an international look at how food is grown and consumed and counters the corporate-run fast food lifestyle so many people live. ( http://www.slowfood.com/ ) | ||
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| CorpWatch | ||
| The goal of this organization is "Holding Corporations Accountable," and this website aims to do that by posting news articles and links to other sites exploring related issues. There are categories for consumerism, commercialism, the environment, globalization, health, human rights, labor, and corruption, as well as a dedicated focus on various industries, including big-box stores, tobacco, tourism and real estate, pharmaceuticals, and those industries that profit from wars and disasters. ( http://www.corpwatch.org/ ) | ||
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| Corporate Accountability International | ||
| With the goal of "challenging abuse, protecting people," the CAI's website is another gathering of information on corporate abuses of power. They have pages dedicated to human beings' right to water; tobacco industry abuses; the fast food industry; and a "Hall of Shame," with facts about the worst corporate offenders of recent years, including Blackwater (which renamed itself "Xe" after various major scandals, including its operative murder of Iraqi citizens), Wal-Mart, and even Nestle. Visitors are invited to submit nominations for the current year. The site's library has full reports in PDF form for free download and use. ( http://www.stopcorporateabuse.org/ ) | ||
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| List of Films:Documentary | ||
| The Corporation (2003) | ||
| This film, based on the book The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power, by Joel Bakan, explores the history, growth, and expansion of powers and legal rights of the modern corporation. "Taking its status as a legal 'person' to the logical conclusion, the film puts the corporation on the psychiatrist's couch to ask 'What kind of person is it?' The Corporation includes interviews with 40 corporate insiders and critics--including Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, Milton Friedman, Howard Zinn, Vandana Shiva and Michael Moore." ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0379225/ ) | ||
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| Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005) | ||
| This documentary, based on the best-selling book by Fortune reporters Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind, explores one of history's greatest corporate disasters. Corrupt top executives from what had been the nation's seventh largest company took over one billion dollars with them, while investors and employees were left with nothing when Enron went bankrupt, having faked its bookkeeping to report profits that never existed. 20,000 employees lost their jobs. The documentary also shows how Enron was able to exploit Californians due to the state's deregulated electricity market. This look at how top executives of powerful corporations operate inside an insider's culture of greed and guile is both riveting and profoundly troubling. (For example, the powerful and influential global financial services firm Merrill Lynch fired an analyst who questioned Enron's meteoric rise as being suspiciously too good to be true.) ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0413845/ ) | ||
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| Hacking Democracy (2006) | ||
| Nominated for an Emmy for outstanding investigative journalism, this HBO-produced documentary explores the electronic voting industry, focusing on the Diebold corporation. "Ultimately proving our votes can be stolen without a trace, Hacking Democracy culminates in the famous 'Hursti Hack'; a duel between the Diebold voting machines and a computer hacker from Finland --with America's democracy at stake." ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0808532/ ) | ||
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| In Debt We Trust (2006) | ||
| For well over a decade, an increasing number of Americans have been spending a lot more money than they have been either saving or making. In Debt We Trust was inspired by scholar Robert Manning's seminal book Credit Card Nation, and it explores his analysis of the impact of debt on young people and our society as a whole. It pays particular attention to the relationship between Congress and the credit card industry. With consumer debt so common, extending credit--even to those who cannot afford it--has become a highly lucrative business, complete with lobbyists. ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0829429/ ) | ||
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| An Inconvenient Truth (2006) | ||
| This multi-award winning film (including the 2007 Academy Award for Best Documentary) looks at Al Gore's crusade to educate the public about global climate change and the potentially-irrevocable disasters it might bring. Although global warming is its focus, corporations' role in lobbying for lethargy and confusion about the science are related issues. ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0497116/ ) | ||
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| Le Monde selon Monsanto (The World According to Monsanto) (2008) | ||
| This French film looks at the corporate chemical giant Monsanto and the various controversies surrounding it. ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1189345/ ) | ||
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| Maxed Out: Hard Time, Easy Credit and the Era of Predatory Lenders (2006) | ||
| This is a look at credit cards and the lending and borrowing practices of Americans and banking institutions. With the economic recession of recent times, this film could generate excellent classroom conversation. ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0762117/ ) | ||
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| McLibel (2005) | ||
| This documentary follows the real-life lawsuit that McDonald's filed against two British Citizens for handing out pamphlets that contain information about the restaurant chain. It became the longest running court case in British history, and the film crew follows most of it as it happens, providing insight on the lives of those caught in the lawsuit. ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0458425/ ) | ||
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| Roger and Me (1989) | ||
| Michael Moore's humorous, often surreal-seeming documentary has a very serious subject: the negative economic and social impact of General Motors CEO Roger Smith's action of closing several profitable auto plants in Flint, Michigan, in order to outsource the work to Mexico, costing over 30,000 people their jobs and devastating the city. While it has been accused of showing some events out of sequence, the film nevertheless depicts the human tragedies that can result from corporate decisions and raises many troubling questions about corporate responsibility. ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098213/ ) | ||
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| Sicko (2007) | ||
| According to the World Health Organization, the United States is 25th among industrialized nations for average life expectancy, 25th for average of good health years, and 27th for infant mortality. Controversial director Michael Moore's hilarious and horrifying film looks at America's system of private medical insurance and how it contributes to America's poor health-care ranking compared to other industrialized nations. ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0386032/ ) | ||
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| Super Size Me (2004) | ||
| What would happen to a healthy, physically fit thirty-three-year-old man who weighed 185 pounds and stood six feet, two inches tall if he decided to live on nothing but fast food from McDonald's for a single month? Filmmaker Morgan Spurlock films his own life as does just this, causing his weight and cholesterol count to rapidly shoot up as his health rapidly slides down hill. ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0390521/ ) | ||
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| Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Prices (2005) | ||
| Filmmaker Robert Greenwald explores the policies and practices of the world's largest retailer with interviews and real-life stories of people who have been hurt by Wal-Mart. This film examines everything for the big-box giant's impact on local economies to discrimination against women and minority employees to the (lack of security) at the store sites. ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0473107/ ) | ||
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| Who Killed the Electric Car? (2006) | ||
| "In 1996," as the documentary states, "electric cars began to appear on roads all over California. They were quiet and fast, produced no exhaust, and ran without gasoline. Ten years later, these futuristic cars were almost entirely gone. What happened? Why should we be haunted by the ghost of the electric car?" This documentary exposes some of the reasons that the auto and oil industries worked to kill off the electric car, as well as looking at the roles of members of the United States government with close ties to the auto and oil industries. ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0489037/ ) | ||
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| The Yes Men (2003) and The Yes Men Save the World (2009) | ||
| The Yes Men proudly boast that they engage in "impersonating big-time criminals in order to publicly humiliate them. Targets are leaders and big corporations who put profits ahead of everything else." These hilarious films follow these anti-corporate, "culture jamming" activists as they travel the world, often crashing major conferences, posing as spokespeople for such entities as The World Trade Organization, McDonalds, Dow Chemical, and the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development. Their targets include the people who profited from Hurricane Katrina (without providing adequate help to the actual victims) and those behind the environmental disaster in Bhopal. http://us.imdb.com/title/tt1352852/ ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0379593/ ) | ||
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| Feature Films | ||
| The Constant Gardner (2005) | ||
| Basd on a novel by John Le Carre, this thriller is intelligent, complex, and genuinely suspenseful. A British diplomat in Kenya investigates his wife's brutal murder, and discovers a deadly plot involving a multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical industry and members of his own government. ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387131/ ) | ||
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| Fast Food Nation (2006) | ||
| This film is a character-driven story based on the non-fiction best-selling book of the same name. It follows the story of regular fast food chain workers, fast food executives, and illegal immigrants working in horrible conditions at meat packing plants. ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0460792/ ) | ||
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| The Constant Gardner (2005) | ||
| Basd on a novel by John Le Carre, this thriller is intelligent, complex, and genuinely suspenseful. A British diplomat in Kenya investigates his wife's brutal murder, and he discovers a deadly plot involving a multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical industry and members of his own government. ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387131/ ) | ||
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| Thank You For Smoking (2005) | ||
| This satire follows a corporate lobbyist for a tobacco industry whose job it is to convince the public that smoking isn't related to lung cancer. A comedy with a serious purpose, it shows insights into the power corporations have to manipulate information and the methods they use to do so. ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0427944/ ) | ||
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