This video was posted on YouTube by K21desmog.

     Finally, someone with a healthy economic purpose! Ray Anderson is the CEO of Interface. Interface is the worlds largest commercial carpet manufacturer. Mr. Anderson feels as though corporations should all feel the need to think about the environment first, and think about plundering second.
     Plundering is the stealing of valuable objects from people. In many ways, I feel as though corporations are plunderers. They will do whatever it takes to earn money, but what are they really doing? Are they earning it or stealing it? In the case of PG&E, that corporation was stealing valuable things from people. No, PG&E wasn’t plundering money, but they were doing much worse. They were plundering the lives out of the residence in that area. In the article, PG&E and Erin Brockovich Battle Continues, written by Kettleman HIlls, the author goes into detail about the case, but also talkes about how the lives of innocent children were taken. This is exactly what PG&E did. They stole the lives of children.
     Everyone who is in control of a corporation, needs to have the same mindset as Ray Anderson. They need to ask themselves one question. What is our company doing to the environment? If everyone asked this question, than there would be no problems with corporations.
     We had a discussion in class today based on the following topic. The Bible says that God gave man the power to have dominion over the earth. Do you think that corporations are taking advantage of this?
     For most, I believe they are. Just because God gave us power over the earth does not mean that we are allowed to destroy it as we please. When you steal from others, you are destroying them. I believe the old saying is “with great power comes great responsibility”. If this is the case, than corporations need to be more responsible for their actions and focus on the interest of their customers and not the interest of their pockets. I believe that God gave man domain over the earth because man could reason, man could love, and man could care.
     If corporations are not putting reason, love or care into their work, they should not be a corporation with power. Love is a compasion for others and a since of "I'm going to try and make you happy and keep you safe". That is love's mantality.
     Once again, it all relies upon the leaders and people in the corporations. If we all thought like Ray Anderson, than we would all be on the right track towards saving this world. This affects our lives and the animals around us in ways that we couldn't even imagine. Just by the smoke in this picture below, corporations pollute the air. The smoke then destroys the ozone layer, allowing harsher sun rays into the Earth's atmosphere. This can cause skin cancer.

                                       Photo courtesy of Pepeketua via Flickr  
     Corporations pollute, destroy, and steal. Corruption is almost every where. Men like Ray Anderson bring hope that this world could one day be clean again, with lives and money saved.

This trailer was posted on YouTube by BomChickaWummWumm. The original film was stared by Julia Roberts, Ablert Finney and David Brisbin. It was directed by Steven Soderbergh and writen by Susannah Grant.

     As we watched this film in class, I had a hard time grasping the fact that this film is based on a true story. Erin Brockovich is a real woman who had her hard times in life, but found a way to manage family and a brand new career that would bring her to the top.
     It all started with her curiosity of wondering why there were medical bills in a real estate case. This lead to her intense investigation. She then found that the company PG&E was paying for the home owners medical bills, but why? Every home owner in that area was sick. There were 634 cases of sick individuals all in that area. None of the residence would have suspected that the kind people that were paying for their medical visits were actually doing the harm to them. PG&E told the residence of that area that their water was not harmful at all, in fact, they explained that their water was healthier than regular water. The chemical put in the water had vitamins, but the chemical they said was in the water was not that exact chemical. This makes me come back to the question why are they paying for these doctor bills?
     You see, there is a time period where if a company warns you about the problem and no one takes legal action within a year, than nothing can be done against the company about the problem. So, PG&E decided to pay for these patients’ doctors to lie to them, and PG&E was also trying to buy their houses to make them leave and not suspect them of doing things that were illegal.
     Oh yea, I forgot to mention that the victims of this awful thing were not just adults, but little girls and boys who just wanted to swim in a pool. You wouldn't get sick from only drinking the water, but from swimming in it and from bathing in it.
     This is revolting! How can a company be so spineless? Do you really want to save your own skin that much that children are getting cancer and dying from these diseases you are causing? All you had to do was admit your wrongs and tell everyone the truth about the water. What is so hard about that? Yes, you lose millions of dollars, but you are a billion dollar company that can afford that. Are you that selfish?
     Another example of this is the tobacco companies. They create these products called cigarettes. Cigarrets contain over 50 carcinogens. Chemicals such as tar are placed in these tobacco death traps. The sad part is that these cigarrette companies place nicotine in their products to specifically get their consumers addicted. Yes, they are open about the fact that their product cause several types of cancer, but they are placing these chemicals in there to get their customers "hooked". Are they really that uncaring and selfish to want to make a profit and act like the lives of the people using their product don't even matter?
     I have a friend who's parents smoked, and since they both did, she started too. Twenty years down the road, her father dies from lung cancer. As if that is bad enough, she tried to stop smoking after this event, but she couldn't. She is now spending over $35 a week on her own personal death chair we call cigarettes. In the article Court Finds Tobacco Comapny Responsible in Smoker Death, by Associated Press, they say that the lawers closing statement of the law suit was "Stuart Hess smoked heavily for 40 years and tried numerous times to quit, even trying hypnosis at one point. But they said the nicotine was too powerful, forcing Hess to continue smoking even as he was undergoing chemotherapy before he died in 1997 at age 55" (par. 7). This means the man died from cigarrets, and the court found the tobacco company legally responsibel, but did the cigarret companies stop selling their product? Obviously not because this happened in 1997, and my friend is still buying them.
     I can’t stand the thought of companies. Corporations are made up of people, and the people are making these decisions. So I am not only disgusted with our corporations in America, but I’m disgusted with the people running them.
     These victims could have been you or me, and even worse, our kids, our brothers, our sisters, our mothers, our fathers, our families and closest friends could have been exposed to something like this, and it scares me. How do we know that we're not being exposed to it right now?
     We don't have a choice but to be surrounded by corporations. They are everywhere and affect us in everything we do. When we put our lives in the hands of a corporation, we are playing with fire at that point. So the real question is, "Are we really safe in anything we do?"

What is a corporation?

This film was posted by Machbar on YouTube. The producer and co-director of the original film is Mark Achbar along with Jennifer Abbott and Joel Bakan.

     Ira Jackson, the Director and Center of Business and Government, talks about an eagle in this film. He compares the meaning of corporation to him with an eagle. He says, "the eagle: soaring; clear eyed; competitive; prepared to strike, but not a vulture; noble; a visionary, majestic that people can believe in, and be inspired by that creates such a lift that it soars." This was an inspiring quote. This was very convincing to me. This made me feel like I wanted to work for a corporation because they stood for power and morals, but right when he had me hooked, he flipped the script on me.
     Within 10 seconds, and yes I counted, he states, "Okay guys, enough bull shit." So which part is the "bull shit"? The fact that they are prepared to strike, but not vultures, or the fact that they are noble? This proved my point on corporations being cut throat companies who want to be treated like humans, but don't treat humans the same way. They will tell you anything you want to hear for a dollar bill.
     I don't think that we need experts to tells us that people have one thing in mind whenever they do anything. Everyone has "numero uno" in mind when they take action. It is habit. Your number one is yourself. Corporations are doing the same thing. They see the whole picture and think about others, but their real concern is "how is this going to benefit me?" We can't help but live this way. It is instinct, survival of the fittest to think about ourselves and our needs, but what corporations need to realize is that what they do, affects everything and everyone.
     On the other hand, there was another man, Robert Keys, the President, CEO' and Canadian Council for International Business, who truly seemed sincere in his definition of  the corporation. He in fact stated that he doesn't like the word corporation. He says that he never uses that word.  He is concerned that people only think about the agenda of corporations because that makes them impersonal. When the agenda is strictly business, there is no thought of real life, just money. He uses business, company, or business community because the word community sounds pleasant and "homey", more down to earth.
     Due to this information obtained from this video, I have come up with the conclusion of corporations are what you make of them. Corporations are based on the people in charge of the madness, and the people are responsible for the morals and power of the corporation. A corporation is a tool of power, success, money, poise, failure, adversity, courage, and truth. Behind the scenes is where it matters.
     That is the scary part. Have you ever heard the saying "What you don't see won't hurt you."? In this case, what you don't see, could make or break you. Too bad we may never know what goes on behind closed doors of some corporations.