Michael Clayton

I generally don't like movies that are preachy or trying to tell you how bad corporations are, but this one had George Clooney in it, and that's good enough for me. I just assume that the government and corporations are doing things that are in my best interest, even if they hide some of their activities from me. In the film, Clayton works for a law firm called Kenner, Bach & Ledeen, where he is employed as a "fixer," a person who deals with the problems of their clients when their regular lawyers are not available. The movies plot revolves around a case about an agrochemical company called UNorth, that the firm has been dealing with for years. The main lawyer on the case is Arthur Edens, who has a mental breakdown during a meeting for a class action suit. Michael is called in to bring Edens, an old friend, back to New York and to convince him to get back on his medication. Edens escapes and leaves Clayton in the dust, at which point his (Eden) briefcase is discovered by Crowder and it contains a document outlining UNorths production of a carcinogenic weed killer that is killing people. This leads to their discovery that he is building a case against UNorth so Crowder has two men follow and eventually kill Edens. After this, Clayton becomes suspicious, looks around Edens apartment and finds a receipt for 3,000 copies of the troublesome document. He attempts to show it to his boss but is instead given $80,000 to renew his contract and remain silent. He then goes to play poker, and while hes away, the two men who killed Arthur plant a bomb in his car but don't finish its installment in time. It then reverts back to the scene from the beginning of the movie, and we see his car blowing up as he gets out to look at some horses. After this, he goes to the settlement meeting and meets Crowder after shes made her proposal. He tells her he knows that she killed Edens and that he has access to multiple copies of the revealing document. She makes a $10 million dollar offer to keep him silent and then he shows her the phone that has been recording their whole conversation and she is arrested.
The plot of this movie is scary when you think about it because things like this go on every day without our knowing because it isn't something businesses want people to know. We complain about factories polluting the environment so we pass legislation here to make stricter policies that just get the pollution sent elsewhere. It's even more disturbing to think that companies have so many fail-safes to prevent the exposure of these toxic events that should really be brought into the light. I'm sure there are people like Arthur out there too that work on these cases for ages only to discover that they're defending a company that is responsible for the murder of countless people. That's a situation you don't want to find yourself in; defending a company that defies everything you stand for, both professionally and personally, knowing full well that exposing them could mean your demise. Unfortunately, films like this draw attention to these issues only for a brief period of time; essentially, for however long it can keep us entertained. Before watching it in class, I had never heard of the film, but admittedly, I'm not much of a movie buff. In reality, we're probably never going to reach a point where we, as a human race, will care enough to change problems like these. It's a lot easier to sit back and think that there is nothing you can do or that there are only scattered instances of transgressions against mankind like these.

Eric Schlosser

I'm very torn when it comes to issues such as animal rights and organic farming because it's not something I think of very often. I love animals; all animals. One time my freshman year I watched a PETA video on t.v. and cried about it. I've also been handed PETA fliers on Court Street on my way to eat at Wendy's and sat there reading the literature. I'm a walking contradiction.

I've only seen bits and pieces of Fast Food Nation and it never piqued my interest enough to read the book itself but I found the lecture to be pretty engaging. Save for all the talk about the McDonald's corporation ruining our country's land, people, and culture, he gave a little history about the companies beginning and expansion.

He started his lecture by saying that he too was once a McDonald's fan and his favorite meal is still probably a burger and fries; this gave him some credibility. He then went on to tell the audience about how he became jaded; that fateful summer in 1997 when the editor of Rolling Stone asked him to do a "behind the counter" story on the McDonald's corporation. He assured us he had no preconceived ideas about the fast food industry till that day.

He then pointed out something I had never really thought about; the way we ate hadn't drastically changed for thousands of years until the advent of fast food, which drastically changed the way we eat... and look. As our nation became industrialized, people stopped relying on subsistence farming as they moved into cities and the suburbs. As McDonald's grew, they changed the way that people ate and how that food was produced. Apparently, McDonald's is the biggest purchaser of things like beef, apples, lettuce, tomatoes, etc, in our country, so I see how they could have a lot of leverage in the way its produced. For instance, there are 4 major meatpacking companies that control 90% of the market, so one would presume that if McDonald's is the biggest purchaser, they would call a lot of the shots.

Essentially, McD's have turned human beings and animals into commodities. They don't care about health and quality, they care about minimizing costs and increasing efficiency, which doesn't bode well for our stomachs. But it's a brilliant business model... Any way, I've seen videos of the way they treat animals in these factories and its really gross, but somehow it hasn't been enough to curb my appetite. The living conditions of the animals are deplorable to say the least; they live in overcrowded quarters, being pumped full of antibiotics and hormones, running around in their own excrement. That doesn't sound like something I should be eating