Day: January 4, 2009

I saw two disturbing movies last night: Milk and The Corporation.

 

I did not know much at all about Harvey Milk’s life before the film, and while I knew he was killed at the end, I did not expect to be so affected by the film. Was he really that much of an upstanding citizen who fought for the rights of those who had no rights? If so, which I tend to believe from what I have since read, then his death really was premature and a sad loss.

The Corporation was a documentary that chronicled how multinational corporations abuse and take advantage of people and the environment to whatever extent is “legal,” however and wherever that may be defined, as they pursue profits at whatever cost. There were a number of heroic people who were shown to have stood up to corporate power and the financial influence that comes to governments that collude with them.

The take-away? The world is a more complex and hostile place than sometimes it seems, though there are people who tirelessly work to make our world more just and fair and balanced.  What a choice at the beginning of a New Year.