Film: "The Corporation"

Doors open at 7:30 ~ Suggested donation $5 to $10 (no one turned away for lack of $$)

"The Corporation" explores the nature and spectacular rise of the dominant institution of our time. Footage from pop culture, advertising, TV news, and corporate propaganda illuminates the corporation's grip on our lives.

Taking its legal status as a "person" to its logical conclusion, the film puts the corporation on the psychiatrist's couch to ask "What kind of person is it?" Using standard diagnostic tools, the film shows that the operational principles of the corporation give it a highly anti-social personality. Using standard diagnostic tools of psychiatrists and psychologists, the film shows that the operational principles of the corporation give it a highly anti-social "personality": It is self-interested, inherently amoral, callous and deceitful; it breaches social and legal standards to get its way; it does not suffer from guilt, yet it can mimic the human qualities of empathy, caring and altruism.

Filmmakers Mark Achbar, Jennifer Abbott, and Joel Bakan explore in-depth the issues of corporate personhood, corporate obligations, environmental responsibility, and the conflict between pervasive perception management and democracy. Corporations have invested billions to shape public and political opinion. When they own everything, who will stand for the public good?

Provoking, witty, sweepingly informative, "The Corporation" includes forty interviews with corporate insiders and critics — including Milton Friedman, Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, and Michael Moore — plus true confessions, case studies and strategies for change. The film shows how, as global individuals take back local power, a growing re-invigoration of the concept of citizenship is taking root. (145 minutes; 2003.)

Please join us after the film for discussion, socializing, and organic snacks and drinks.

"'The Corporation' is just brilliant—visually, intellectually, and morally. This film has redefined the documentary genre." - Barbara Ehrenreich, Author of _Nickel and Dimed_

Cosponsored by:
Peninsula Peace and Justice Center // 650-326-8837 // http://www.peaceandjustice.org
World Centric // 650-283-3797 // http://www.worldcentric.org
Peace Umbrella of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Palo Alto // http://www.uucpa.org