Original subtitles

what if they Enlightenment promise US

promised us freedom on the basis of

being able to think for ourselves

thus govern ourselves

that was really the premise

that if we were released from

constraints of myth and tradition

released to be able to think and reason

and discover what was true for ourselves

that that was the source of our freedom

but something happened at the end of the

20th century

which was this new way of thinking about

society and human beings as a market

what does it mean to rule yourself if we

are all meant to think of ourselves as

Commodities and everything is marketized

what's really tragic about the

economization of every aspect of life

is that we're really seeing the

enlightened and dream come to a kind of

end

where the mandates of a financialized

society all but extinguish the real

freedom to make yourself according to

your own lights

foreign

[Music]

s we made a film

the corporation

we argued that large publicly traded

corporations are programmed relentlessly

to pursue profit and growth and have

become the dominant institutions of our

time

we showed that the corporation is deemed

by law to be a person

but it has the same rights as human

beings

sometimes even more

so we pose the question

if the corporation is legally a person

what kind of person is it

we analyzed it the way a psychiatrist

would analyze a patient

we found his character to be

pathologically self-interested

[Music]

now with the world in crisis

climate change spiraling inequality

a global pandemic

we re-examined the corporation

I was changed I was changing our world

and how it's changing our very sense of

Who We Are

[Music]

to begin this story we take you back to

the 2000s

at that time the corporation was in

crisis this mini will come to order this

is a case of America's largest corporate

bankruptcy Enron and Worldcom had

collapsed in corporate scandals of

unprecedented magnitude

corporations were being called out for

malfeasance that was destroying lives

and the environment

around the same time globalization was

sparking worldwide protests Against The

Growing Power and impunity of the

corporation

and our first film had just charged that

corporations are institutional

Psychopaths

I think calling corporations Psychopaths

absolutely had an impact and I can say

that for myself when when I had to

consume that particular thought

that was um

that was interesting to use a very soft

word I it was outrageous has it

influenced it yes

are we on the road to recovery I hope I

hope we are

about 2005 we started to see many of the

world's biggest branded companies

suddenly making very sweeping promises

promises such as 100 carbon neutrality

zero waste to landfill zero

deforestation 100 recycling

a real and significant shift

since that shift corporations have

mounted a major charm offensive

rebranding themselves and rebranding the

entire capitalist system is having

changed having evolved into something

new and improved

[Music]

yeah

I think there is genuinely a different

dialogue that's taking place about

corporations and the role that they play

in society

[Music]

that Cult of shareholder value has seen

its day as the narrow construct for how

companies operate in society wait what

did he say that Cult of shareholder

value has seen its day as the narrow

construct for how companies operate in

society

this idea that making money for

shareholders is no longer the

corporation's only goal it's the essence

of the new story the story that

corporations now tell about themselves

Klaus Schwab the man who first came up

with the idea of a new kind of

Corporation companies we coconise let's

say half a special responsibility how we

combine or how we plan money making and

social responsibility

to advance his ideas

Schwab built the world's most important

annual Gathering of corporate Titans and

world leaders

[Music]

it's one of the most important

Gatherings of the global super Elite

it's kind of the first stop in the

elites yearly migration route

[Music]

people who are successful and make a lot

of money are a dime a dozen but these

are the people who are the most

successful

[Music]

but Davos isn't only a meeting place for

the super Elite

it's also where corporate Chiefs and

government leaders come together each

year to promote the story of the new

Corporation

the corporations are conscientious now

longer greedy and selfish but poised to

help make the world a better place

[Music]

Sandra navidi is a Davos Insider and

author of a book about the world's most

powerful players these Financial Elites

have great power and in some instances

this power actually exceeds those of

democratically elected people or

institutions

this is Jamie dimon

he heads the biggest bank in the United

States and is a leading voice for

Corporate America

so the Jamie Diamond reception there

will be some introduction to the clients

right

this is Sanjay Jane

one of Diamond's top Executives at

JPMorgan Chase

he's advising a prospective client no

but I knew that we needed to be here

because Davos is the place where all

these people come together for a week

it's insane what happens here

and here's the client

Bebop Cresta hi

he's looking for investors in his

company that's developing a

transportation capsule that travels at

the speed of sound

sorry

sorry excuse me

foreign

JP Morgan and JB diamond in particular

kicked into Troy as the one city in the

entire country we were going to save and

so you need to say to Jamie I just want

you to know that we are building a

hyperloop to Detroit we care about

Detroit as much as you do that's

I don't know where there was a spec team

from a person like Jimmy diamond

I discovered a person that installed a

very great culture inside their company

the starting programs trying to improve

Society

creating a special program for Detroit

reconstructing completely I wasn't

expecting that I know what you've done

for Detroit and all the effort allegedly

to save it and it's not public yet but

we are we signed it here with Ohio to

actually build an item to Detroit you

know we are trying to contribute for

your example I think it's a very

important project it's a big big year

for us it's exciting I'll see you in a

couple weeks okay okay thank you thank

you very much Davos is a place of

interaction of dialogue we look at the

ecosystem of what's Happening

but always with a sense of

responsibility for us and us it means

not just one country not just one person

I think at the end we are all a globally

interdependent humankind

[Music]

so here in Davos we debated the motion

is the business of business still just

business and interestingly more than 80

percent said no in today's

transformative age the business has a

wider accountability and opportunity

we're in a new age of doing business

you need to give back you need to be

part of the solution

Society is demanding that companies both

public and private

serve a social purpose there is a new

possibility we can imagine something

different it takes courageous leadership

and it takes people who get it here and

you get it here and who understand that

life is short and precious and if we're

in positions of power and influence that

we should use that to help shift the

Paradigm and the possibility of what it

means to be a business on the planet and

what it means to be a human being

it all sounds so good this talk of a new

kind of Corporation

in Davos and everywhere else

for many businesses the commitment to

the triple bottom line of people profit

and planet is real the problem is the

capitalist system as a whole is not

committed to that

there are CEOs and corporate boards

attempting to do good in the world there

clearly are

but the notion that there is anything

inherently socially responsible about a

corporation is a counter-intuitive

proposition

by law the corporation exists for one

reason to return benefits to

shareholders

there is no such thing as Corporate

social responsibility

corporations don't have the leeway to

sacrifice sharehold returns for doing

whatever they want or whatever they

believe is socially responsible

of the corporation's new image

of the claying corporations have changed

since our last film

the American Psychiatric association has

added a new item to its diagnostic

checklist

[Applause]

[Music]

you always have to come back as a leader

to purpose why are we here why are we

doing business and we want to do

business for the long term values are

part of the purpose of a company

John Brown is a leading voice in today's

new Corporation movement

when he was CEO of the world's second

largest oil company

he professed deep environmental beliefs

while achieving record profits and

meteoric growth you basically for the

first time and welcome to Executives

step forward to say global warming is a

problem it's set BP apart uh I think

people are much more convinced now at

least around the world that there is a

real case to take precaution reaction to

avoid carbon uh concentrations going to

Beyond a critical level in the

atmosphere my sense is that John Brown's

concerns are genuine his interest in the

environment is genuine his concern for

workers and for people's safety

theoretically is genuine

but those desires are just inherently

conflicting with the need to make money

because turning a profit for those

corporations is always going to come

first

[Music]

[Applause]

2005 when I was CEO of BP we had a

terrible tragedy 15 people died in a

Refinery explosion in Texas City

this is the second time people have died

at this plant in less than a year in

that time it has been fined for more

than 14 safety violations

all of us at BP are very deeply saddened

by the loss of life and injury suffered

by so many people

after Texas City we were at pains at

pains to say safety must never be

compromised for financial performance we

were very concerned to make sure that

safety operational safety process safety

took privacy it's ridiculous for John

Brown to suggest that he had adequately

addressed process safety in the wake of

the Texas City Refinery it was less than

a year later his company had a spill in

Alaska on oil pipelines which it turns

out were not maintained technicians at

prudho Bay warned it was understaffed

lacking in routine maintenance leak

prone and vulnerable there was a

specific decision to save money by not

running corrosion tests in those

pipelines it's the same kind of thing

that led to the Texas City explosion

yet BP claimed it had learned its lesson

from Texas City

in 2007 I left BP and I thought this is

great this company has got it

foreign

people died

and while I wasn't there and I didn't

know what had happened

I could see some terrible Echoes of

History

while John Brown had left BP

some things hadn't changed

the poor decisions that led to the

Deepwater Horizon Echo and track what

John Brown instituted in the company a

decade or two before

John Brown pushed the largest cost cut

that I've heard of at any Corporation in

any kind of industry not just the oil

industry you can't do that without

cutting corners on maintenance of

equipment without pushing timetables

that's the culture that he built

thank you

when given that choice between doing

good and doing well for your company the

fact that publicly held companies have

an obligation to deliver to their

shareholders making those profits will

always be the highest priority those

trend lines are just headed in opposite

directions and I think they always will

be

[Music]

clear a for-profit Institution

and we are making an investment in

Detroit

remember Jamie dimon from JPMorgan Chase

he's the CEO who wants to save Detroit

was devastated by the 2008 financial

crisis

a third of its homes were abandoned

over the next five years it spiraled

towards rock bottom when the 2008

financial crisis hammered North America

long-suffering Detroit was hit

especially hard Detroit is officially

the largest city in history to file for

bankruptcy

after bankruptcy Jamie dimon and his

bank stepped in with vast amounts of

capital why Detroit so obviously it's

good for the bank but but it's poor

Humanity trying to help your city and

your people come back and recover from

it have been basically a terrible 20

years

Jamie Diamond wants to rescue Detroit

but what's misleading is he wants

America to believe that he and by

implication J.P Morgan Chase Bank are

somehow the good guys that they are

leading us in a direction we want to be

going in without without any memory that

he and the bank caused in part a huge

recession that wrecked the lives of

millions tens of millions of people at

one point the market fell as if down a

well the NASDAQ everything and more has

been completely wiped out three of the

five biggest independent firms on Wall

Street have now disappeared major

sectors of America's Financial system

are at risk of shutting down

2008 financial crisis was the result of

corporate misconduct and Reckless

speculation that malfeasance nearly

destroy the global economy

cost the American economy about 20

trillion dollars in terms of lost

housing value lost productivity from the

recession

millions of people lost their jobs

millions of others were thrown out of

their homes

people were really hurt

moments

the nation's biggest bank JP Morgan

Chase has agreed to a 13 billion dollar

settlement with U.S government for

misleading investors and mortgage

agencies about the safety of

mortgage-backed Securities it sold ahead

of the financial crisis that would be

the largest fine ever paid by a single

Bank to settle civil charges yet doesn't

even resolve a possible criminal case

with JPMorgan Chase's caring image

helped mask its self-interested nature

I think we have to acknowledge that as a

kind of private sector propaganda it has

been remarkably successful this is on

and geared at us an expert on how

Corporate Elites cloak profit making and

virtue when you have someone like Jamie

dimon who is running an institution

that paid fines

for its role in helping the cause of

financial crisis that wiped out

communities we're talking about

obliterated certain communities

when you have someone like that who then

turns around

and says that save Detroit what's so

amazing

is this kind of two-step

that this plutocratic group has been

able to pull up you first create

conditions in which people in a city

like Detroit are Shattered by your

speculation decisions and then you have

the gall

to Market yourself to those folks as

their as their Christ

we were here in the darkest moments for

everybody at all time we didn't run we

didn't hide and we figured you know if

we can help in Detroit you can help

anywhere

we participate

in this game

that allows the very people

abetting harm to our society or actively

harming our society to reinvent

themselves as saviors

[Applause]

well that's part of a larger game

corporations now play

make me feel good promises with Bright

Smiles

appearing to be different than what they

really are

foreign

had a Playbook

what might it look like

what would its key plays be

[Music]

I am here with Bill Gates I'd love you

to tell our readers what what the heck

creative capitalism is can we take some

of the caring and Innovation power the

resources of Corporations and get them

to focus more on that on the needs of

the poorest

Bill Gates put his idea of creative

capitalism to work according billions

into investments in Africa including a

multi-million dollar stake in a startup

company called Bridge International

academies

good morning class

how are you

I'm fine thank you Bridge is a flagship

of creative capitalism we serve children

living in poverty even people who are

living in poverty

they are earning cash and they're

earning cash for a reason they're

earning it to be able to spend it on

things they need in their lives five

years ago my co-founder Shannon and I

decided that an aggressive startup

company that could figure out how to

profitably deliver education at a high

quality could radically disrupt the

status quo and education ultimately

creating what could be a billion dollar

new Global education company

schools for the poor is a 51 billion

dollar a year Market no one's even

thought about it

in the global South what we've seen is

the emergence of chains of schools

for-profit schools to compete against

the public education system one of the

biggest players is Bridge International

academies

invest in Bridge schools Pearson the

World Bank Zuckerberg Gates and the list

goes on

we hear of creative capitalism

but that's promoting a world where the

market

would dictate terms

with respect to the provision of

Education

we take lessons that other large global

Service Providers use like McDonald's or

Starbucks

we build for scale we systematize we

standardize we call this vertically

integrated platform our Academy in a box

what is so interesting about this social

business thing

is on the surface it seems incredibly

Noble

they're saying money making should not

be the sole goal of a business it should

also have a social purpose

but what it is also saying

is that the kinds of change that we

ought to pursue are the kinds of change

that kick something back to the winners

but those interested financial reasons

are good for the world

if we succeed in serving 10 million

children which

I know we will it's still only about one

percent of children

who need improved services in their

government and Community Schools

so I hope we not only get there but far

transitive and in so doing be a good

partner for our shareholders and those

who've entrusted us with their capital

try to make a big impact

this is colonialism pure and simple

the fundamentally bridge is saying give

us your education system we will take

care of it public education is one of

the basic commitments of a Democratic

Society

education is not non-political it's not

apolitical you teach a set of values

when you're teaching you cannot rely on

Mark Zuckerberg Bill Gates the World

Bank to take over and provide the

education that you should be providing

yourself bridge is in business when you

want to utilize

poor citizens of this world as the

source of income

they're making money out of utilizing

unqualified teachers

we believe everyone is a teacher

and everyone could be there are certain

core skills you need to have you've got

to be able to read

might seem like a low bar but you have

to start somewhere

it's true Bridge teachers know how to

read

but they're required to do a little more

in their classrooms because they follow

scripted lesson plans read word for word

from a tablet

it's telling you all of these different

ways to behave move away from the board

circulate in the classroom give them

one-on-one coaching you cannot have

teachers who behave as robots

that tells you walk three steps to the

Glock board walk around the classroom

and that's just a teacher ought to be a

natural teacher

from an investment point of view

that because of a tragic failure of our

existing systems there's an incredible

need for services to solve these

problems

people have I just kind of said well if

hopefully the government will fix it but

fix it with what government can't fix

problems

it's a defining idea of the new

Corporation

a key play in its Playbook

and it goes back nearly half a century

in this present crisis

government is not the solution to our

problem

government is the problem

we believe that

achievement should be severely

live in the way in which they say that

they are entitled to impose their

judgment on what the people want if you

look at the real problems of poverty and

denial of freedom to people in this

country almost every single one of them

is a result of government action

in the 1980s corporations were

frustrated by the limits on profits that

they felt were imposed upon them by the

combination of labor unions increasing

regulation taxation

and that combination of things led to a

kind of rebellion

one that wouldn't overthrow democracy in

some overt way but choke it leash It

tone it down and above all replace it

with markets

corporations formed alliances with

governments they had helped elect

governments that were in fact

anti-government and that happily lifted

limits on corporate freedom

Prophet soared but a price was paid and

not by corporations what you get is this

profound anti-government program to

create deficits through the combination

of tax cuts and military spending so as

to make it impossible to use government

in a positive and constructive way to

deal with our social problems

Mr President

on behalf of the Business Leaders here

in this room let me particularly

congratulate you for the historic tax

reform passed last months

greatly reducing the tax burden of U.S

companies providing a tremendous boost

to the global economy I cannot wait to

sign these giant tax cuts it'll be the

largest tax cuts by far in the history

of our country J.P Morgan Chase they

just announced earnings and they were

incredible where where are you they were

very substantial will you say Thank you

Mr President at least thank you Mr

President maybe in order apparently he

believes he played a strong role in JP

Morgan's blowout quarter best profit for

any Bank ever in history

corporate profits are the highest

they've been in decades fast forward a

few months Global pandemic the rich keep

getting richer and our friends on the

other side said what do we do now let's

do a tax cut 36 million people

unemployed 40 percent of families who

have a worker that makes forty thousand

dollars a year and less lose their job

last month four million people didn't

pay their rent in the Republican Party

says we don't have any money to help you

are you kidding me

where do you guys live

and while corporations Lobby for and

profit from tax cuts at home

they further avoid taxes by stashing

profits abroad the corporate Elites is

best positioned to use the system that

we have to their advantage and one

manifestation of that is text Havens

every year corporations squirrel away

billions of dollars in tax Havens

and when that's combined with tax cuts

guess what happens

60 of some of America's biggest

companies reportedly paid no federal

income tax for 2018 despite earning

billions of dollars in profits this is

my first time at DeVos and uh and I find

it quite a bewildering experience to be

honest I mean 1500 private yets have

flown in here to here Sarah David

Attenborough speak about you know how

we're wrecking the planet and I mean I

hear people talking the language of

participation and Justice and equality

and transparency but then I mean almost

no one raises the real issue of tax

avoidance right and of the rich just not

paying their fair share we got to be

talking about Texas that's it taxes

taxes taxes all the rest is [ __ ] in

my opinion thank you government used to

have a lot of power to extract wealth in

the form of taxes and then be able to

use that wealth for the betterment of

the society as a whole but what's

happened now is that we have given more

power to corporations to control their

wealth and to take it out of the tax

system so what happens as a result of

that first of all

companies and rich people get a lot

richer not paying those taxes you might

have been paying second thing that

happens is the government has less money

the government's capacity is sort of

contracted and then social problems

start to grow in part because the

government has less money

now with that background

rich people step onto the scene and say

oh my gosh this is a shame

the situation we see here is a shame

we got all these social problems

and government my gosh you know the

government should be solving this stuff

but it isn't that is embarrassing well

I'm happy to solve these problems but of

course when we do solve it we're gonna

do it my way we're gonna privatize the

solution

foreign

often also called starve the Beast

you create a crisis of confidence how

much money do we need to be investing

right now in the United States in water

infrastructure by 2020 44 of all water

infrastructure in the United States will

be classified as poor very poor or

Beyond life

you deny resources for Quality public

services in the 1970s there were a lot

of pools of free Federal money that has

really no pun dried up and lo and behold

the answer is privatization

what we believe is that Private Industry

is part of the answer which is very

consistent with what the president's

plan is

American Waterworks is one of the

world's largest water corporations

it takes over public water assistance

and runs them for profit

and around the world

there are many other companies doing the

same thing

it's absolutely terrifying notion

privatization of water

moving in exactly the wrong direction

access to a portable

clean drinking water is a fundamental

human right what's this Insidious

that the corporate mind could even

conceive or imagine the notion of

privatizing it

corporations have figured out that

they're a really big business

opportunities in these public sectors in

part because they've been walled off

from corporate influence in the past

the private sector is voracious in

seeking to privatize almost everything

first privatized government services as

much as possible

and also the seizure and the

commodification of the public comments

your your Parks your public schools your

streets how can we get more money out of

the public comments

the for-profit motivation is always a

very bad reason for providing Public

Services there's a conflict of interest

between whether you're going to pay off

the shareholders or whether you're going

to invest in the public system

many responsibilities and obligations

must be public in order to maintain

equal access to the basic necessities of

life a healthy Democratic Society has a

thriving private sector and also a

thriving public sector

and as we permit the private sector to

encroach upon and to literally absorb

the responsibilities and obligations of

a Democratic Society

we lose our democracy

and the rise of big Tech corporations is

now accelerating this process

for example in schools

not only in Africa but elsewhere too

corporations have decided that they

should do remake of Education by using

technology

they want to have teacher-less

classrooms

But the teacher is the single most

important and expensive part of

Education in the tech industry's dream

if the teacher is removed from the

equation then you can cut costs

dramatically

these companies monopolize everything

first of all monopolize their sector and

the next thing is to look where's left

these giant corporations are frantically

searching for new sources of profit

because it's drying up

they say we need to take the education

system take the Health Care system take

the transport system and own it or we

die

Silicon Valley is the new Rome of our

time the valley has become

this extraordinary Power Center that has

a huge say over what kind of media

information we have in a democracy

over you know frankly how many of our

biggest problems are solved over how

election campaigns are run etc etc etc

technology is neutral and in many ways

it's great but there's a difference

between the technology and allowing a

few powerful players to manipulate it

for their own ends so we've gone from

this wide open world that opened up all

of these possibilities for people to

create things to share information to

share ideas and it has collapsed into

these walled Gardens that are controlled

by a few very powerful players

we're seeing Amazon for example gobbling

up every kind of business in sight

they're interested in getting to

Pharmaceuticals and they're making a big

Movement of food

they capture about half of everything

that Americans spend online and they're

growing into all these different

directions they control 35 percent of

the world's cloud computing capacity

they're building out shipping and

Logistics infrastructure that is scaled

to take on the postal service and ups

and increasingly they are the

intermediary for all of our smart

devices Alexa their voice system is 70

of the market

and on it goes they're making

investments in finance and Health Care

hit movies and television shows

Amazon is increasingly setting the rules

for what happens in its Marketplace and

pretending like that's a real Market but

of course it's not you know that's a

direct threat to democracy a very

fundamental threat to democracy

go elected by no one

corporations are now starting to be

treated like governments we're join our

live by the world's first ever Tech

Ambassador can I start simply by asking

you what exactly does a tech Ambassador

do well we're basically trying to treat

the technology and the tech companies in

a way which is similar to the way we

treat a bilateral relationship with

countries all over the world the value

of their stocks is always the same as

the GDP of France and we think that that

is being translated into influence over

political affairs

we think it is necessary to treat them

in a way which is similar to the way we

treat other countries

a lot of folks in the valley believe

that the companies they are building are

kind of Replacements of government I

think if we don't push back against the

kind of agenda that these companies have

we're going to live in a world in which

they are governing us

privately through the profit motive but

governing us

[Music]

the deal that the corporations want from

us is to hand everything to them all the

value to them

and we get a little bit of utility we

get usefulness it becomes easier to

study or easier to get to work or easier

to take a health test

that is a dangerous deal because nobody

can guarantee what is going to be done

with the information we're handing our

data with no checks no balances no

control over it I think that's going to

be one of the new challenges of life in

the 21st century I'm going to call them

the super social media corporations

the entities that really run our lives

right now

the scope of their reach cannot be

underestimated

they know everything about us

every single aspect of what we do who we

do it with where we do it what we buy

is a gold mine for aggregators

it lets them mold their policies and

their products

predicting how you are going to live the

rest of your life they're trying to

influence the decisions that you make

from now to when you die

so that it will best serve ultimately

the corporate bottom line

[Music]

technology provides us such a seductive

fantasy

okay

our smartphones are data-driven systems

our social media platforms they are all

designed to conceal the true cost of

these Technologies to our society as a

whole

privacy is usually the value that we use

to think through these issues but for me

it's not about privacy it's about

control the drive to make data

profitable leads these companies to say

who we are and Define who we are to

other people

let me use a real life example of a

hiring algorithm you'll do an interview

they'll analyze your video footage and

they'll say you challenge the status quo

you are a change agent

don't hire this person because they are

more likely to cause trouble at work

as far as the algorithm is concerned you

are not a human being you're just a

collection of data points and this is

one of the dangers that we face today

because we are now saying we need to

stop using human reason and we need to

rely more on these kinds of algorithmic

decision-making systems

[Music]

we are increasingly surrendering our

capacity to rely on human experience and

to trust in each other

so the question that these Technologies

are really raising for us is what does

it mean to be human

and this kind of Technology of strangers

is one of the ways in which we are

moving away from the genuine Heritage of

the Enlightenment

[Music]

we're taught that it is all about me

narcissism The Cult of the self the idea

that consumption can somehow help us

overcome our alienation

make us important

I thought you know what better way to

cure the darkness than to go shopping

you know help stimulate the economy

these were all

I hesitate the word values but these

were all consciously instilled

in the public

it up ends Traditional Values of thrift

self-effacement

communitarianism and replaces them with

the values that we now Define as

American values but which should

properly be called corporate values

foreign

[Music]

recent years we've drifted almost

without realizing it from having a

market economy to becoming a market

Society

the difference is this a market economy

is a tool a valuable and effective tool

for organizing productive activity but a

market Society is a place where almost

everything is up for sale

we aren't so steeped in this

commodification

that it's hard to distinguish between

being a consumer

and being a citizen

I'm not much of a believer in political

citizenship I I actually believe much

more in the power of the marketplace

this is Richard Edelman one of the

world's most influential business gurus

I think companies actually have filled a

void left by government business is at

the top rank government and media really

are at the back end of the trust rank

these are big changes in reliability of

business as potential good actor

it's a brilliant strategy they're going

to present themselves as good actors and

use that as part of their image and as

part of their branding

when we see a big Corporation doing

something it creates a sense of hope

that maybe we can solve the climate

crisis

or inequality or other kinds of problems

we maybe even think of their huge power

as being a plus because we know that the

scale of these challenges are so big and

we feel so powerless and frustrated

about the ability of our government

systems to actually solve them that we

start to sort of put our faith in

corporations but of course in the

process of doing that we're going

further down the path that led us here

I grew up in the 1950s and at that time

there was a sense that our society would

continually progress towards greater

equality a greater opportunity that

there would continue to be social

Mobility for those at the bottom

the average pay for a CEO in the 1950s

was 20 times that of the average worker

today the average pay of a CEO is 270

times that of the average worker

in some cases that Gap is much greater

for example Jamie Diamond makes more

than one thousand times the salary of

one of his lowest paid employees

Mr Diamond you're an expert on financial

statements and you run a 2.6 trillion

dollar Bank

I went to monster.com and I found a job

in my hometown of Irvine at JPMorgan

Chase that pays 16.50 an hour this is

U.S congresswoman Katie Porter providing

an example of a hypothetical employee a

single mother working as a teller at one

of Jamie diamonds Banks she rents a

one-bedroom apartment she and her

daughter sleep together in the same room

in Irvine California

going to be sixteen hundred dollars she

spends one hundred dollars congresswoman

Porter itemized typical monthly expenses

and showed they greatly exceed the

employee's salary my question for you Mr

Diamond is how should she manage this

budget shortfall while she's working

full-time at your bank

I uh

I don't know that all your numbers are

accurate that number is a start is it

generally a starter job she is a

starting employee she has a six-year-old

child this is her first job you can get

those jobs out of high school and she

may have my job one day

but the widening gap between CEOs and

their employees

is just one symptom of rising inequality

more generally right now in the United

States the richest country on the planet

half of American families couldn't pay a

400 bill that landed on their doorstep

without going into debt or selling

something

that's because corporate Executives and

corporate lobbyists are constantly able

to change the rules of the game in the

favor of the people who are already

wealthy and Powerful

making it harder to form a union making

it easier for Mega corporations to shut

out competition from smaller businesses

slashing the taxes on wealthy people and

corporations and shifting more of the

responsibility on working-class people

the result is economic inequality

it's a real moral outrage and it can't

be dealt with separate from race and

gender we can't really deal with these

inequalities separately because they're

also interwoven the black and brown

people who are impacted by police

brutality women who are impacted by

sexual harassment in the workplace the

enormous numbers of workers who are

struggling with poverty and homelessness

and all the degeneration that we see

under capitalism for no fault of their

we're talking about a global economy

that for all the wealth that were

generated last year a trillion dollars

of that new wealth went to just 500

individuals I know you have a lot I'd

love to call up and have a conversation

about our financial affairs and see if

we can be helpful see if you can find a

way for her to live on less than the

minimum that I've described

helpful the one percent and 0.01 is a

group of folks who talk an extraordinary

game and also act an extraordinary game

of trying to help out in an age of

inequality and who are willing to do

absolutely anything

to help accept stepping off the backs of

the working people of this country who

have been screwed and and passed over by

four decades worth of change there's a

great quote that was attributed to

Justice Brandeis that said you can have

democracy or you can have large

accumulations of wealth but you can't

have both

that wealth gives them a tremendous

amount of power both in promoting our

political leaders in promoting a

legislative agenda in every aspect of

our society

foreign

if I want to run a campaign that is

entirely funded by corporate political

action committees is that is there

anything that legally prevents me from

doing that

no so now I'm elected and I'm in I've

got the power to draft Lobby and shape

the laws that govern the United States

of America are there any limits on the

laws that I can write or influence

there's no limit so there's none so I

can be totally funded by big Pharma come

in write big Pharma laws and there's no

limits to that whatsoever that's right

is there anything preventing me from

holding stocks say in an oil or gas

company and then writing laws to

deregulate that that industry and

potentially cause the stock value to

soar and accrue a lot of money in that

time you could do that yes okay great

I think we've seen The Disappearance of

independent governments with the rise of

corporate rule

we have seen more and more takeover

of government takeover of electoral

processes the problem is a corporate

system and a political system where

governments see their main role as

facilitating

private corporations to basically do

whatever the hell

nothing more starkly

illustrates this than our federal

Treasurer picking up a lump of coal and

carrying it around Parliament House Mr

Speaker this is Cole Don't Be Afraid

don't be scared the treasurer knows the

rule on props it's cold Mr Speaker those

opposite have an ideological

pathological fear of coal affordable

energy is what Australian businesses

need to remain competitive

Scott Morrison

and prime minister

he heads a group of high-level

politicians with deep ties to Major coal

companies

take note of this one adani we'll return

to it later

what's happening in Australia is just

one part of a larger Global story

it's become accepted that corporations

are in charge

governments are incredibly subservient

to corporate rule

thank you

in the United States we've seen under

the Trump Administration the wholesale

corporate takeover of government on a

scale with no historic precedent

is beyond the wildest dreams of the

corporate sector especially in the area

of deregulation

I pledged to eliminate two unnecessary

regulations for every one new regulation

we have succeeded beyond our highest

expectations

instead of two for one we have cut 22

burdensome regulations for every one new

rule

I'm willing to bet that those are made

up numbers but the issue in regulation

or deregulation is not the number I mean

that's really absurd we want to know you

know if you want to have another

financial crisis well if you do let's

get rid of the financial regulations

corporations have said repeatedly

we are responsible now we understand the

public interest so we don't have to be

regulated we can self-regulate well

they've got an obvious self-interest in

saying that the reason they can't

self-regulate is that that's not what

they're about they're about trying to

make profit routinely When government

regulation fails companies in the

pursuit of profit endanger people and

that's not a hypothetical it means

people get poisoned they get diseases

they get sick Corners will be cut and

people will be injured and people will

be killed we see it over and over again

[Music]

[Applause]

thank you

[Music]

[Applause]

[Applause]

[Music]

oh

every industry has fought regulation

they all resist oversight by the

government because regulation increases

their cost of operating but I've never

seen an industry that's fought it more

than the oil and gas industry

[Music]

remember this

this too was a consequence of

deregulation

as a result of the Deepwater Horizon

catastrophe nearly 200 million gallons

of crude oil spilled into the Gulf of

Mexico

making it one of the worst environmental

and deregulation disasters in history

but deregulation wasn't the only problem

he was also recklessly breaking the law

and they're not alone in being corporate

lawbreakers

[Music]

[Music]

corporations will certainly do things

that are wrong that are unethical if

they're legal and permissible

and all the empirical evidence says that

they will also violate the law routinely

either intentionally or because they'll

just go over the lines if there's

profits to be made

[Music]

this opioid crisis is a killer

and it's a killer that does not

discriminate

[Music]

lives are being destroyed as

corporations profit from their playbook

moves

as they play to win

these corporate forces have no limits

and these forces

have put the very human species itself

at risk

giant equals Idol corporations they're

literally playing casino with life on

Earth

their logic of profits their process of

profits

is the death of nature

whenever you mess with nature you don't

know for sure what the exact impact will

be with chopped down for us we bring

livestock into new regions and we spread

these new diseases we're at the source

of this problem the major cities all

around the world are vulnerable to a

disease arriving in the city and then

causing a major epidemic and again we're

seeing that more and more the rate at

which new disease epidemics are

originating

many of them moving from forests and

wild species to humans

is partly because of corporate invasions

into ecosystems and violence to animals

the attack on other species is bouncing

back as an attack on us

ownings from Sao Paulo are dire in the

United States disaster has been declared

in all 50 states

when the corona virus hit in the spring

of 2020.

it laid bare the unjust and dangerous

fault lines of corporate capitalism

African Americans have been hit hardest

by the virus despite accounting for 14

of Michigan's population they represent

41 of its covered victims

[Music]

on prayer that is not

I haven't been in contact with nobody to

ask

I'll be honest with you I can barely

keep track

okay

this is the culmination of Decades of

tilting policy tilting public resources

in favor of the biggest corporations

fewer hospitals fewer hospital beds less

capacity to be able to respond in an

emergency like this

other systems are also breaking down

right now

essential workers people who are on the

front lines of getting our groceries to

us or really putting their lives on the

line without any kind of real backing

from the companies that employ them

this is partly the product of the

absence of Labor protections unions and

so on

what we're seeing is is a continuation

of the ways that corporations have

undermined ordinary people's ability to

have any say over their lives

this is actually not a crisis of full of

Novelties it's a crisis full of

Revelation

for example the same exact dynamic of

the 2008 financial crisis bailout where

the most powerful gained power as a net

result of those bailouts that is

literally happening again maybe worse

as Ordinary People suffered the Despair

and harsh effects of economic breakdown

giant corporations were thrown a

lifeline

president I have an update at last

we have a deal

what did the Senate majority fight for

one of the largest corporate bailouts

with as few strings as possible in

American history shameful the grief of

that fight is wrong for crumbs for our

families and the option that we have is

to either let them suffer with nothing

or to allow this greed and billions of

dollars which will be leveraged into

trillions of dollars to contribute to

the largest income inequality Gap in our

future

once again the very wealthy big

corporations did extraordinarily well

over the last year and a half they've

spent over a trillion dollars buying

back their shares of stock to

artificially boost their share prices so

that the top Executives and major

investors would benefit they could have

used that trillion dollars as a cushion

against the big rainy day the storm that

we now have they didn't instead they got

bailed out it's socialism for the rich

the corporate socialism but also the

harshest form of capitalism for most

working people and the poor

the crisis is highlighted that we're

absolutely unprepared to deal with

disasters like what we're facing right

now

and we also have this other even bigger

looming crisis which is the climate

catastrophe that's not going anywhere

it's no exaggeration to say that the

greed economy is killing us it's killing

off species it's depleting our natural

resources

it's poisoning our people

a handful of corporations are allowed to

put next quarter's profits ahead of the

Next Generation

when our children and grandchildren look

back in the history books and ask the

question

why didn't we stop the crisis of climate

change

the only answer we'll have for them is

that it was profitable for a handful of

Corporations to keep polluting our

planet

here are coming faster than anybody

thought the impacts from them are going

to be far worse than we thought

it's also going to change the entire

Global Dynamic around equality the world

is going to divide in ways that we have

a difficult time imagining now we're

headed for a world that sees a protected

privileged view surrounded by an

immensely impoverished majority of the

global population

with the impacts of climate change now

in plain view fossil fuel companies have

stopped actively denying that it's

happening

they've discovered that a better

strategy for them now in the age of

active climate breakdown is to charm us

all into believing that they're part of

the solution saying okay we're going to

invest in Renewables but meanwhile we

have to keep using fossil fuels for a

long time so you know we can use lighter

fuels like natural gas but we have to be

realistic it is impossible impossible to

displace carbon fully for a very long

time

gas is a very good

carbon fuel

you have to see this as one more arrow

in the large quiver of delay tactics and

ways to

preserve what's really the core of their

business not the core of the best

interest of society we need to

transition to the cleanest form of

carbon free energy as quickly as

possible if we were to do this by

tomorrow it wouldn't be fast enough I

mean we'd just be stupid if we look to

the coal and gas and oil industry for a

clean energy future that's not what they

do they have a business model they're

going to pursue that business model to

the end of time and they may do that if

we're not able to control them the

fossil fuel industry actually doesn't

plan to stop increasing production and

distraction anytime soon in fact they're

doubling down on it their goal is to

extract as much as possible before it

becomes just completely unviable for

them to do so

the fossil fuel industry is wrapping up

new Mega projects

some companies pursuing profits from

even the dirtiest fuels

like a Donnie

around 2011 there were plans for nine

new coal export ports up and down the

Great Barrier Reef Coast

adani's proposed Carmichael mine would

be a 60 million tonne a year thermal

coal mine in the middle of the Galilee

basin

the largest new proposed coal project in

the world

to be 40 kilometers by 13 kilometers

entirely encompassed within

wanganujagalingu country

it is on the doorstep of the Great

Barrier Reef an already very stressed

and vulnerable ecosystem and what we're

going to see is 500 more coal ships

every year trudging through a stress

Reef that what scientists are telling us

is already half dead the adani

Carmichael mine would drive global

warming it would destroy habitat for

endangered species it would destroy

groundwater and it would disenfranchise

wangan and juggling with traditional

owners of that country

[Music]

try and get rid of that problem

[Music]

we know that the mechanisms of the state

line up to work for mining companies and

corporations essentially to roll over

Aboriginal people to get past us

the government and the state and the

corporations devise ways saying oh we

want to put this mind and we just want

to do it we just want to put this

pipeline in and all these people are in

our way we need to remove them

they use the security they use our own

Aboriginal police against us they use

every means they can

to indigenous people it is clearly a

life and death struggle

that's what you're witnessing happening

around the world

that is destructive corporate agenda

that is completely out of control

[Music]

when a society begins to understand that

that good job that they had or their

parents at is never coming back

that they are going to be working 70

hours a week and still be consumed by

crippling Debt Pay image

that all of their dreams that Oprah and

everyone else has told them can come to

fruition are never going to arrive

and they scream for vengeance and moral

renewal and they look for the internal

enemies that have thwarted

the possibility of their own

aggrandizement so then you turn on the

vulnerable

you turn on Muslims

undocumented workers homosexuals

feminists intellectuals liberals

all of those forces that you are told

have a thwarted

the possibilities that were your right

to have

what you see is a frustration that grew

out of economic disempowerment

turning into a new wave of hate there's

no question that a lot of people around

the world have a feeling that we've

lived in this age that is incredibly

abundant in Innovation but short on

progress if progress means most people's

lives getting better

it's only a matter of time before people

want to shatter the system

there's no guarantee when people rise up

the shadow system whether you get

Medicare for all or a wall on the

southern border

[Applause]

[Music]

it's akin to the fascist movements of

the 1920s and 30s

where the alienated can feel a sense of

empowerment by identifying with the

great leader often in these big rallies

I mean it really is like snapshots out

of the 1930s this kind of politics of

hatred and reaction and Division

Donald Trump

wasn't the problem Donald Trump was the

symptom of the problem

the problem is a a breakdown in the

social cohesion

that makes democracy and Civil Society

possible

and that breakdown in Social cohesion in

turn was created by 40 Years of rising

economic inequality by the evisceration

of the middle class

collectively the nation lashed out by

electing the candidate who was lashing

out too

this angry right-wing eruption

completely agreed with the free market

fundamentalism of this new order and

represented themselves as a people whose

whiteness whose Traditional Values whose

Christianity whose nativism should be at

the heart of the country's concerns let

them call you racist

let them call you xenophobes

let them call you nativists

wear it as a badge of honor because

every day we get stronger and they get

weaker

parts of the population are actually

leaning towards strongman Donald Trump

the large part of the Turkish population

is supporting erdogan or we're seeing it

in Hungary with Orban we are proud to

stand together with the United States on

fighting against illegal migration

on terrorism

and to protect and help the Christian

communities all around the world all of

these right-wing regimes

represent a continuation of

privatization of the destruction of

welfare

the undermining of labor unions Etc

Unchained by the kinds of restrictions

that that workers rights posed or that

Environmental Protections pose or that

even structures for providing for the

poor opposed so now corporations have

freerra reign

money has replaced the vote

America is dominated by a system of

legalized bribery our three branches of

government are wholly captive to

corporate power so you have corporate

forces that purport to pay fealty to

electoral Politics the Constitution the

iconography and language of American

patriotism and yet internally have

rendered the citizen impede I don't

think that you can

honestly grasp the forces we're up

against including the unraveling of the

ecosystem

and not be filled with despair

the greatest existential crisis of our

time is to at once understand the

reality before us and then find the

capacity to resist

[Music]

so much of our Lives is about the

stories we tell ourselves

and corporations have done a very

effective job at defining the limits of

possibility and defining what we can

expect out of life

so if we believe that we are in a dog

eat dog world and it's patriarchal

machismo view of reality then that

constrains how we act and how we behave

social movements are created out of a

contagious mood and a new tactic part of

what that new tactic does is it wakes

people up and part of what that mood

does is gets them to dream again

in 2011 mass movements for change swept

across the globe in the aftermath of the

2008 financial crisis there was a cycle

of struggles

sometimes called the movement of squares

it starts in Tunisia

and passes to Egypt

passing then across the Mediterranean to

Spain

[Applause]

to Greece

before it finally arrives at Ducati Park

in the United States and what were these

movements about they were really about

the demand for a new kind of democracy

during October Wall Street we suddenly

thought what we can have a democracy in

this country that's not run by Corporate

Finance capitalism like it's amazing you

know

the moment was so ripe that within 24

hours activists in New York City took up

the idea and ran with it

these movements were a kind of refusal

of corporate culture consumerism and

that was their Essence

the Occupy Movement quickly spread from

zakati Park to cities across the United

States and then the world

foreign

[Music]

movement captured the feeling that

ordinary working people had and when the

recession happened in 2008 the very

banks that had caused the financial

collapse were the ones being rewarded

and the rest of us had got sold out

what was so important about occupy was

to crystallize the public anger occupy

did that and put an explanatory

narrative around the 99 versus the one

percent

an economic system that is fundamentally

fundamentally misaligned in the

corporate interest and against the

people's interests

[Applause]

[Music]

all right

[Applause]

[Music]

[Applause]

Occupy Wall Street was a constructive

failure but it taught us something very

important we need to pair protests with

gaining sovereignty which means either

pairing protests with winning elections

or pairing protests with winning wars

and you can choose as an activist I

would Advocate elections there's only so

many times you can have tear gas fired

into your face and get hit over the head

by a police bat on or be dragged up to

jail and after a while you say you know

what I'm going to do something at the

level of politics now

all those movements face the challenge

what do you stand for

are you actually going to challenge the

power of Corporations this is what the

2020s will be about

[Music]

we turn now to Seattle Washington where

a former Occupy Wall Street activist is

being sworn in today to the city council

we have shown that it's possible to

succeed as an independent Grassroots

openly socialist campaign not taking any

money from Big Business this moment

belongs to that way of organizing shama

becomes the first socialist elected to

uh to the Seattle City council since the

early 20th century her signature issue

was 15 an hour minimum wage

there were courageous workers of

McDonald's and other fast food Outlets

who went out on a one-day strike

15 and a union was their slogan

on the 15th of May 2014

thousands of fast food workers flooded

the streets of 150 U.S cities striking

to demand a 15 minimum wage better

working conditions and the right to form

a union

we organized Ordinary People workers

Rank and file union members and

activists who wanted to fight 415.

if you are actually going to be true to

the movement if you are going to be

accountable to all these people you

claim to represent once you're elected

it does require you to take a bold and

strong stance against the corporate

politicians if they are not on your side

then you have to fight against them

you're Duty bound also over billion

dollars of taxes that Amazon owes to the

IRS they now get a break of

789 million dollars

her campaign wins so many supporters

that Seattle becomes the first major

city in America to adopt 15 an hour

minimum wage

and that starts the ball rolling as more

and more cities Across the Nation have

followed the example of Seattle

if you Empower workers by giving them a

better standard of living it's not going

to stop there

it raises their sights the confidence of

working people towards a different kind

of society

you don't need a PhD in economics to

know that your life sucks under

capitalism and we've got to build a

movement to fight for it

[Music]

[Applause]

in 2019 shama sawant was elected to a

third term on Seattle City council

despite Amazon spending 1.5 million

dollars to try to unseat her

shama was pioneering the new Urban

Renaissance

starting around

2013 and 14 especially a whole new

movement developed of Grassroots

organizations from various movements

that then United to elect for the first

time representatives of their

perspectives into office you had a whole

wave of people all of whom were not

expected to have a chance all of them

running on more or less the same

platform that income inequality is the

moral issue of our time

and they were not just part of the U.S

movement but you had siddiq Khan from

the first Muslim elected to the

mayoralty of London you had an Hidalgo a

leading environmentalist and socialist

of Europe winning the mayoral City of

Paris Carmen Julene Cruz the mayor of

San Juan Puerto Rico and you have other

colau in uh in Barcelona

in the wake of the mortgage meltdown

worldwide there were thousands of

Spanish homeowners being evicted from

their houses by International Banks and

other colau begins to lead a resistance

movement of the homeowners

foreign

[Applause]

[Music]

through Mass protests and Civil

Disobedience she gains a name for

herself as a defender of the homeowners

[Music]

[Laughter]

gracias

[Applause]

foreign

[Music]

what's different about this movement is

that the progressives have seen the

necessity to actually capture office

then also once they get into office

they've understood the necessity for

continuing to be connected to the

Grassroots movements that got them there

Espanol

is

2019 more than 200 leading thinkers and

activists endorse Carlisle's bid for

re-election

Barcelona has become a Beacon of Hope

they wrote proving that we don't have to

be afraid of standing up to corporate

power

that there is another way of doing

politics

that puts people at the center

Kola was re-elected mayor in June 2019.

[Applause]

seeing the documentary of the

corporation it opened my eyes this is

Chris Barrett he appeared in our first

film

featured as one of the first corporate

sponsored college students

we saw Tiger Woods on TV with a hat with

a Nike logo on it and we figured you

know he probably gets like millions of

dollars just to wear the hat on the

press conference and therefore we

figured we can do that for someone else

and hopefully get money in turn so we

can go to school

you guys were poking fun at us but we

were 18 year old kids seeing the

corporation my my mind just like kind of

exploded it was just like

I had never been exposed to this mindset

before

I was having lunch with my grandfather

and I asked him who should the

Democratic nominee be and he told me at

the time that Bernie Sanders looks

pretty good I went home and I researched

Bernie's platform and I realized that

internally like I align with a lot that

Bernie says this great nation and its

government belonged to all of the people

and not to a handful of billionaires

and I got connected to Grassroots for

Sanders they offered me the position of

assistant fundraising manager where I

could be able to do the fundraising asks

on Reddit

[Music]

we were able to raise over 10 million

dollars directly to Bernie Sanders

campaign

at some of the field offices people

would come through the door and they

would say how do I get involved I have

never voted in my life

[Music]

one of Bernie's messages after he lost

his presidential run was that local

people could take back the power and we

could run for office I met a local

political organizer in my town of

Collingswood he was putting together a

slate of progressive candidates I

thought that was a brilliant idea it was

exactly what Barney wanted us to do and

we I signed the form and we were running

for office

I don't think when I was out there

getting a corporate sponsor that I

realized that in 16 years I would be an

elected official in New Jersey I'm going

to stay on this path and I'm going to

continue down this political route until

we have the Progressive Party of the

future

historically Progressive movements were

more interested about building power in

the streets which is an important thing

and they kind of neglected running for

office

I think now progresses are starting to

see the nature of power where it lies

and the reason to contest for it

now we have thousands of people saying

Hey I want to run for office

it's common to say you know that the

Senators campaign failed I think that's

a mistake I think it was an

extraordinary success completely shifted

the arena of debate and discussion

issues that were Unthinkable a couple of

years ago are now right in the middle of

attention

the Sanders campaign took to the larger

political stage the kind of politics

being practiced by local politicians

like so long

and Barrett

electoral politics interwoven with

Grassroots activism

[Music]

some form of green New Deal is essential

for the survival of humanity

now it's part of the general agenda boy

activist engagement young people they

receive support from Alexandria

ocasio-cortez and other young

legislators who came into office as part

of the Sanders inspired popular wave

I think the next wave of revolutions

really is going to be this kind of

strange thing where we wake up and we're

like oh my gosh there's this social

movement they're in the streets but

they're running election campaigns they

have candidates and they're winning

thank you

[Music]

whatever form it takes change Always

begins with organizing

it's going to be the year that we take

the toxic stultified politics of climate

change and turn it on its head and it

starts with stopping adani our aim is to

move the world away from fossil fuels as

fast as possible the wangan and

jagalingu people

have a different struggle which is to

protect their land and to win land

rights

adani has tried to rip our people apart

it's actually brought our people

together as well and we've been able to

think about what is our alternative

future

what do we want to build

and it's not extractive industries that

governments and other corporations would

like it to be

what we've set out to do is support a

whole range of organizations and

individuals to work together to achieve

much bigger change than any one

organization could achieve working alone

we want to

lose control of

it we figured that the only way we could

really stop the project is stopping them

getting Finance yes they need the

permits and the approvals

also needs

both starpadani and the wangan and

jagalingo people push to Halt funding of

the adani cormi we met with some of the

largest banks in the world and said you

need to acknowledge that any investment

in the adani Carmichael coal mine

will be a breach of your obligations to

us as the indigenous people who've said

no

within a month Standard Chartered came

out publicly and said that they would

not be giving any money to adani that

was after

they'd already given them 680 million

dollars the two campaigns together

succeeded in stopping funding from all

banks worldwide then they won again

blocking the Australian government's

attempt to fill the Gap with a one

billion dollar loan it was a huge

victory for us because we were told it

was something that couldn't be done

adani and his government allies

allies push for the money

the money yet

not a single lump of coal has been mined

to date

the resistance continues

all of my life I have been told

who I am through stories about the

people that I come from without their

resistance and their resilience I would

not be here it's come down to me

and I refuse to be the broken Link in

the chain

the fight over the adani coal mine has

become a symbol whether corporations can

continue to ride roughshod over the

wishes of the community and create a

future that is in their financial

interests alone or whether the community

actually can build enough power to say

no that is not the future we want we

want a safe future with a safe climate

for everybody

[Music]

there is this Global Network there's a

big fight brewing in Argentina against

fracking corporations against coal

expansion in South Africa and

Philippines in India and Poland

there's campaigns against pipelines in

Canada Kinder Morgan

Keystone XL the fight outstanding Rock

our indigenous people have been on the

front lines way before my time

it's about the land the water

our inherent jurisdiction as caretakers

of Mother Earth

but it's not just an indigenous struggle

it's a struggle of humanity we need to

come together to push back the corporate

agenda

all people

all races are beginning to realize we're

in this together

we cannot unring a bell

our civilization is being sacrificed for

the opportunity of a very small number

of people to continue making enormous

amounts of money

[Music]

we have not come here to beg we're

leaders to care

you have ignored us in the past and you

will ignore us again

you have run out of excuses and we are

running out of time

we have come here to let you know that

change is coming whether you like it or

not

the real power belongs to the people

[Music]

[Applause]

if you're really wanting to address the

Deep problems of social racial and

gender Injustice in our society then we

need to think of lessons from history

[Music]

one thing that's remarkable is just that

people keep struggling

that in the worst situations people

always fight

even when you thought

nothing is possible you look at the

political situation think how bad it is

then something beautiful and inspiring

comes out

in the spring of 2020 the world shut

down

but people's hearts opened wide

[Music]

thank you

one of the most beautiful things I've

seen during the crisis is the way

workers in a variety of sectors

have refused have refused to go along

with putting workers in danger

Amazon workers striking

FedEx workers working out

but also healthcare workers put in

dangerous situations

this foresees the kinds of struggles

that will emerge from this Christ that

confront the inequalities of this

economy

has revealed that there is Broad support

for the idea that we need to contain

corporate power

so that we live in a society where we

reinvigorate democracy where we have a

sense of the public purpose and that

we're not simply at the mercy of a few

corporations that increasingly run our

lives

this can change the way people think

about the system we owe one another

certain things certain minimum things

that's been lost in the last 40 Years of

deregulation and privatization and the

corporate takeover of our our political

culture and our political system

starting to Dawn on this

is because the pandemic has revealed

that the system is incapable of

addressing even the most basic needs of

our society

this film was being

as being George Floyd is brutally killed

by police

a flash point that ignites an uprising

thousands took to the streets demanding

Justice for George Floyd The Death of a

black man pleading that he can't breathe

as a white officer was kneeling on his

neck

imagine

angry

spread

to be to come

to come in the historical pandemic that

has had a disproportionately horrendous

impact in Black communities

[Music]

the democracy is trying to breathe

because of the weight of poverty on our

neck the denial of Health Care and I met

because what's happening is

metaphorically the whole culture is

saying we can't breathe

despite sometimes brutal police

repression

the protests grew and began to Target

broader injustices and distorted

priorities look at the gear and the

equipment that they have compared to

hospital workers dressing themselves in

garbage bags being forced to use the

same n95 masks for weeks at a time

the protests quickly became about more

than racist policing confronting the

Echoes of corporate capitalism's racist

past

capitalism is racial capitalism

the Industrial Revolution which pivoted

around the production of capital was

enabled by slave labor in the U.S

[Applause]

there are calls to rethink who we choose

to honor from our past

monuments to men who were once honored

now viewed by a new generation as

symbols of racism and colonialism

people only protest what they believe

can be changed

the folk didn't protest that meant we

really would be in trouble

I don't believe these are just protests

against police brutality we're seeing

the convergence of a class Rebellion

with racism at the center of it

[Music]

change will come on this run

this Pro just black people we can't be

the same coming out of this

too many people are suffering we must

make our political system respond we

must do it in our deepest mall and not

that I believe Traditions but it must

not be weak it has to be strong it has

to last for an election and Beyond an

election

there is a whole new spirit out there

that's saying 500 years of colonialism

is enough 200 years of corporate rule

is enough

200 years of the building of a fossil

fuel age is enough I see people who are

waking up to the realization that no you

don't

go start an app if you want to change

the world you actually try to change the

world and de-rig a rigged system and in

a moment like this if you're not working

at that level on those kinds of things

you have to really ask yourself

what was your role in this moment in

history

we've been here before we've been at a

place where my ancestors were bought and

sold for profit

we've been at a place where people

routinely died on the job and over time

movements of ordinary people have broken

the chains and have held corporations

and powerful people accountable and

change the rules so that more people can

flourish and feel truly free

I think we are in the midst of another

one of those movements right now where a

lot of people all across the world are

saying enough is enough