If I must be honest, it was incredibly difficult to watch this documentary without getting seriously angry. This was a perfect example of neo-colonialism. The power Glencore has is terrifying, but reflective of the direction global governments and power influences are heading toward. It's frightening how much an entity in possession of a large amount of money can influence other factors, including a presidential pardon, an investment from the Church of England, and continued growth and income despite a troubled history of blatant corruption, pollution, and abuse of a country and its increasingly impoverished people. It is very troubling how a country's people can suffer in so many ways from a big company's power and greed. Not only are huge corporations like Glencore exploiting these countries' natural resources and not paying them enough in return, but they are causing day to day suffering in the form of poisoned water and toxic air, which is a sickening form of disrespect.
It makes me wonder where all of this will lead to. Just how powerful are companies, and how much more powerful will they become? They seem bigger than governments now, with laws acting as minor inconveniences or roadblocks rather than something serious to keep the companies' behaviors in check. World leaders can be influenced with under the table deals and even being reported to organizations investigating corruption or malpractices means little when one party's noncooperation in the investigation simply means said investigation is forcibly dropped.
It all makes me wonder as well: how can we change this? How can we help the people who sincerely are suffering? These growing monsters of companies continue to rake in ludicrous profits while returning scarcely little to the people from whom they take these profits from. The documentary showed that there was a continuing fight for a higher tax repayment to Zambia, but is that what is right? Perhaps there should be a general limitation on how much another country or international company is allowed to take from another country's resources. It seems to me like the people of Zambia should be allowed to harvest and profit from their own resources to become self-sufficient. The layers and layers of entanglement and corruption involved with big companies digging their claws and heels into foreign soil that they know can be exploited with little consequence is horrifying. How can something like this be changed? What steps can be taken? Is it already too late and out of control? Is this simply the future for many impoverished countries? Can laws even be made to limit such power and greed, or are these same companies already too far dug into lawmakers' pockets themselves? This documentary is a chilling wake-up call to how many people can be exploited and suffer day to day with insufficient income, all because the growing neo-colonial nature of mega-corporations who continue to skirt laws and do what they please. What can be done? -Rainshadow007
I agree with you that changes need to be made to protect these third world countries from being exploited by billion dollar companies. Laws need to be put in place to limit how much control a foreign company can have over another's natural resources, like no more than 50%, and there needs to be corrections to how these companies are prosecuted when they violate the tax agreements. If they don't show up, that should incur an additional cost penalty that the tax audit companies should just be able to pull from the corporate bank accounts without them giving their "ok". Rescue007
Rescue has some good points there, but that kind of stuff would require a functioning Congress that passes useful laws. Even then, we as a country aren't really able to deal with Europe's ongoing exploitation of Africa (remember, it wasn't just Switzerland-- the IMF, the World Bank, and the London Metal Exchange were all in on this too). It's an attitude, one that needs changing. I would have no idea how to talk those in power out of exploitation. Perhaps it is through litigation (suing them). The US currently doesn't participate in the International Criminal Court, however, so it would be a bit disingenuous to call out other countries on it.
Regardless of your politics, look at the banks' reaction to Elizabeth Warren the other day, threatening to withdraw money from all Democratic candidates nationwide if she doesn't, essentially, shut up. That's what it looks like when you try and fight it here. I'm not saying we shouldn't, we definitely should. But it would be nice if it were more than just one person that we could rally around to stop the rich from exploiting us in our own country.
One suggestion: put in a call to your senator (I'm guessing calling Aaron Schock wouldn't do much at the moment). They do listen. One of ours is Dick Durbin, and he's pretty high up. I've heard he responds sometimes. If they know you care, so will they. Such is the idea, at least. Or get involved yourself, but I have no idea where you'd even begin to start without a small fortune and an army of pro bono lawyers.
Glencore is clearly the easiest target for blame when it comes to this situation; however, they truly are not the ones responsible for it. You have a country like Zambia that is run into the ground so far by a corrupt government that they had to sell out to Glencore. Glencore didn't set the country on a downward spiral, its own government did. The vice president himself was practically begging for foreign investment. When you beg for foreign investment from people who are all about business, what do you expect will happen? They are business men which means they will always do what is best for business. Glencore didn't just come out of nowhere and take over the country, they were basically handed the keys to the country by its own government. So rather than blame a company for making the decision that was best for their own business, I prefer to blame those responsible for putting Zambia in the position in the first place, its own government. Dynasty007
I completely understand where you're coming from. The government has obviously turned their backs on their own people. It then makes you wonder if maybe there's some type of payment going to the government of Zambia that just isn't getting back to the people. Obviously the government hasn't stepped up to handle problems that have occurred with Glencore being there. So is the government getting something and pocketing the money instead of putting it where its supposed to go? Or are they really not getting anything from this company and still letting them stay there? whichever is the case, clearly the government is ignorant enough to let this all continue and do nothing about it. I'm surprised that the people haven't spoken up or taken actions to try to resolve it themselves since their own government isn't looking out for their best interests. Lou007
This was definitely a controversial and eye opening documentary. It shows that corporate greed knows no bounds, and has absolutely no guilt or empathy. GlenCore spent the whole time exploiting Zambia and making sure to avoid paying Zambia the money that they rightfully were owed. It is definitely a pure example of neo-colonialism, showing that once an multinational corporation owns something in another country, they exploit them as much as they can. Even when the public finds out about this exploitation, the laws say if GlenCore don't show up, they can't be prosecuted, and so they basically continue to walk away free. Zambia is in absolute poverty, and these corporate CEO's are buying a million dollars in suits, fancy cars, and long vacations when they should be helping the country that's making them so much money. Rescue007
At first it seems as though they are going to attempt to help those in more need than themselves. Then they take it all for themselves instead. The statistics they show when profits tripled and the country the resources came from still gets nothing. For those places to get nothing is plain ignorant. Yet if the tables were turned they would want the same thing. Clearly the corporations aren’t thinking as though their people are suffering as those people in those countries. Glencore clearly plays a big part in this particular corporation. Even stating the presidents and those in the fancy suits are clearly getting the shares and aren’t even blinking a thought of possibly giving some of those shares to someone who needs them more than themselves. The government obviously hasn’t stepped in to handle the issue either and is just as much to blame if not more to blame for the ongoing problems there. The contamination of these places seems almost like a daily event. Many of the population effected by it and they seem to merely put a band aid on it to “fix the problem”. Almost everything is public, so it’s surprising that the corporations are able to keep their findings a secret. Obviously because the findings would negatively impact the company they are going to try their hardest to keep those numbers a secret. The people need to make a stand to their government to make things right for their people. They have multiple options on how to solve the problem. They just are sitting there waiting for a miracle. This is then where the people need to make the stand to get things better for themselves and their families. The entire idea of this is very upsetting and wasn’t easy to imagine a place like this even exists now days. Lou007
The government knows how bad it is,and do not care. They are only seeing dollar signs..sickening. It s like one loses their soul when they become filthy rich. That company alone could do much muh more than they do, or have done to help these people. But, it is a way to control this population,government likes control.:( The way of the world needs a diar severe change for the better. Neocolonism at its finest. awful how people suffer for others to reap benefits. The amount of resources we go take from them,,they should be living in palaces like out govrnmnt put saddam in for oil and such. Its alll a money rackett. I pray for those who suffer. I wish there was more done. Trinity9007
Whenever a conspiracy theorist talks about some "shadow government" that secretly runs the world, I usually just respond that it's all public already. It's just hidden in hundreds of pages of boring documents in a huge number of languages. For me, honestly, the most depressing thing about it is that Glencore is clearly not the only company at this.
This kind of corruption truly isn't limited to Switzerland and Zambia. I can't help thinking of Marx here. Marx has his flaws, but even a broken clock (even if you disagree with him) is right sometimes. This was what Marx predicted would be the logical end result of capitalism. The ultra-rich control the government, who then exploit the poor as much as possible. It's a cycle that's gone on all over the world throughout human history, from the forced passage of the Magna Carta on through the Atlantic slave trade, through American segregation and European and Middle Eastern revolutions. Africa has been hit particularly hard by European exploitation throughout its history, and it saddens me greatly to see it continue to this day.
But what is actually at stake here is a belief system. It involves the system of not necessarily seeing everyone as equal, but seeing some people as lesser. There's a quick section in the film where the documentarian asks the Zambian VP about his skin color; the VP says times have changed. This very well may be true, and I have seen it myself outside the US, we're pretty much the only ones who care about race (most people care about ethnic or political differences). Global legalization is quite obviously racist, however. Those Swedish people in their idyllic town, calmly voting down giving 2% of their tax break away, are almost satirically contrasted by the fact that most of them have outlived at least four of Zambia's presidents, by my count, and most probably many generations of Zambian people. One would think the idea of a 92% unemployment rate would disturb this almost-totally employed Swedish town, but no, nothing of the sort. The Swedish people are entitled to their standard of living, so they say.
As easy as it is to point fingers, it should be noted that many American people are complicit in this "but I didn't know!"-type guilt. Take a look at where the computer you're using was built. We push for a higher minimum wage here, but we couldn't care less about factory workers in other countries getting more money (they are, in point of fact; China may not be as all-encompassing in the very near future). The clothes we wear, things we use daily, we don't really think about where they come from. Someone, somewhere, had to make that cell phone in your pocket. I'm not arguing that these factories are inherently a bad thing. Many people are thankful for any work, as opposed to no work. But no one here is out protesting to raise China's minimum wage. As great as Obama has been for this country, the reaction appears mixed everywhere else. We're so myopic that we don't even really think over this kind of stuff.
To bring it back around, that's exactly why we're complicit in this: we've started electing paid actors to be our politicians. Have you ever watched a Senate hearing? If you're like about 99% of people (including me), probably not. It's because it's so structured that it's, well, boring. Even the guy I stole the "hiding it in the boring" idea from, John Oliver, couched it in comedy to keep it interesting. And he was talking about cable companies and how they were trying to game the American public on net neutrality. So the cycle continues...
On a happier note, time marches on. Dr. King said the arc of time bends toward justice. The trick is to keep paying attention for that time (by the way, this video may have sealed someone not voting for Hillary if she comes up in 2016-- that is some shady, shady stuff, and there's no way she had no knowledge of it).
If I must be honest, it was incredibly difficult to watch this documentary without getting seriously angry. This was a perfect example of neo-colonialism. The power Glencore has is terrifying, but reflective of the direction global governments and power influences are heading toward. It's frightening how much an entity in possession of a large amount of money can influence other factors, including a presidential pardon, an investment from the Church of England, and continued growth and income despite a troubled history of blatant corruption, pollution, and abuse of a country and its increasingly impoverished people. It is very troubling how a country's people can suffer in so many ways from a big company's power and greed. Not only are huge corporations like Glencore exploiting these countries' natural resources and not paying them enough in return, but they are causing day to day suffering in the form of poisoned water and toxic air, which is a sickening form of disrespect.
ReplyDeleteIt makes me wonder where all of this will lead to. Just how powerful are companies, and how much more powerful will they become? They seem bigger than governments now, with laws acting as minor inconveniences or roadblocks rather than something serious to keep the companies' behaviors in check. World leaders can be influenced with under the table deals and even being reported to organizations investigating corruption or malpractices means little when one party's noncooperation in the investigation simply means said investigation is forcibly dropped.
It all makes me wonder as well: how can we change this? How can we help the people who sincerely are suffering? These growing monsters of companies continue to rake in ludicrous profits while returning scarcely little to the people from whom they take these profits from. The documentary showed that there was a continuing fight for a higher tax repayment to Zambia, but is that what is right? Perhaps there should be a general limitation on how much another country or international company is allowed to take from another country's resources. It seems to me like the people of Zambia should be allowed to harvest and profit from their own resources to become self-sufficient. The layers and layers of entanglement and corruption involved with big companies digging their claws and heels into foreign soil that they know can be exploited with little consequence is horrifying. How can something like this be changed? What steps can be taken? Is it already too late and out of control? Is this simply the future for many impoverished countries? Can laws even be made to limit such power and greed, or are these same companies already too far dug into lawmakers' pockets themselves? This documentary is a chilling wake-up call to how many people can be exploited and suffer day to day with insufficient income, all because the growing neo-colonial nature of mega-corporations who continue to skirt laws and do what they please. What can be done? -Rainshadow007
I agree with you that changes need to be made to protect these third world countries from being exploited by billion dollar companies. Laws need to be put in place to limit how much control a foreign company can have over another's natural resources, like no more than 50%, and there needs to be corrections to how these companies are prosecuted when they violate the tax agreements. If they don't show up, that should incur an additional cost penalty that the tax audit companies should just be able to pull from the corporate bank accounts without them giving their "ok". Rescue007
DeleteRescue has some good points there, but that kind of stuff would require a functioning Congress that passes useful laws. Even then, we as a country aren't really able to deal with Europe's ongoing exploitation of Africa (remember, it wasn't just Switzerland-- the IMF, the World Bank, and the London Metal Exchange were all in on this too). It's an attitude, one that needs changing. I would have no idea how to talk those in power out of exploitation. Perhaps it is through litigation (suing them). The US currently doesn't participate in the International Criminal Court, however, so it would be a bit disingenuous to call out other countries on it.
DeleteRegardless of your politics, look at the banks' reaction to Elizabeth Warren the other day, threatening to withdraw money from all Democratic candidates nationwide if she doesn't, essentially, shut up. That's what it looks like when you try and fight it here. I'm not saying we shouldn't, we definitely should. But it would be nice if it were more than just one person that we could rally around to stop the rich from exploiting us in our own country.
One suggestion: put in a call to your senator (I'm guessing calling Aaron Schock wouldn't do much at the moment). They do listen. One of ours is Dick Durbin, and he's pretty high up. I've heard he responds sometimes. If they know you care, so will they. Such is the idea, at least. Or get involved yourself, but I have no idea where you'd even begin to start without a small fortune and an army of pro bono lawyers.
-LittleJimmyBond007
Glencore is clearly the easiest target for blame when it comes to this situation; however, they truly are not the ones responsible for it. You have a country like Zambia that is run into the ground so far by a corrupt government that they had to sell out to Glencore. Glencore didn't set the country on a downward spiral, its own government did. The vice president himself was practically begging for foreign investment. When you beg for foreign investment from people who are all about business, what do you expect will happen? They are business men which means they will always do what is best for business. Glencore didn't just come out of nowhere and take over the country, they were basically handed the keys to the country by its own government. So rather than blame a company for making the decision that was best for their own business, I prefer to blame those responsible for putting Zambia in the position in the first place, its own government. Dynasty007
ReplyDeleteI completely understand where you're coming from. The government has obviously turned their backs on their own people. It then makes you wonder if maybe there's some type of payment going to the government of Zambia that just isn't getting back to the people. Obviously the government hasn't stepped up to handle problems that have occurred with Glencore being there. So is the government getting something and pocketing the money instead of putting it where its supposed to go? Or are they really not getting anything from this company and still letting them stay there? whichever is the case, clearly the government is ignorant enough to let this all continue and do nothing about it. I'm surprised that the people haven't spoken up or taken actions to try to resolve it themselves since their own government isn't looking out for their best interests. Lou007
DeleteThis was definitely a controversial and eye opening documentary. It shows that corporate greed knows no bounds, and has absolutely no guilt or empathy. GlenCore spent the whole time exploiting Zambia and making sure to avoid paying Zambia the money that they rightfully were owed. It is definitely a pure example of neo-colonialism, showing that once an multinational corporation owns something in another country, they exploit them as much as they can. Even when the public finds out about this exploitation, the laws say if GlenCore don't show up, they can't be prosecuted, and so they basically continue to walk away free. Zambia is in absolute poverty, and these corporate CEO's are buying a million dollars in suits, fancy cars, and long vacations when they should be helping the country that's making them so much money. Rescue007
ReplyDeleteAt first it seems as though they are going to attempt to help those in more need than themselves. Then they take it all for themselves instead. The statistics they show when profits tripled and the country the resources came from still gets nothing. For those places to get nothing is plain ignorant. Yet if the tables were turned they would want the same thing. Clearly the corporations aren’t thinking as though their people are suffering as those people in those countries. Glencore clearly plays a big part in this particular corporation. Even stating the presidents and those in the fancy suits are clearly getting the shares and aren’t even blinking a thought of possibly giving some of those shares to someone who needs them more than themselves. The government obviously hasn’t stepped in to handle the issue either and is just as much to blame if not more to blame for the ongoing problems there. The contamination of these places seems almost like a daily event. Many of the population effected by it and they seem to merely put a band aid on it to “fix the problem”.
ReplyDeleteAlmost everything is public, so it’s surprising that the corporations are able to keep their findings a secret. Obviously because the findings would negatively impact the company they are going to try their hardest to keep those numbers a secret. The people need to make a stand to their government to make things right for their people. They have multiple options on how to solve the problem. They just are sitting there waiting for a miracle. This is then where the people need to make the stand to get things better for themselves and their families. The entire idea of this is very upsetting and wasn’t easy to imagine a place like this even exists now days. Lou007
The government knows how bad it is,and do not care. They are only seeing dollar signs..sickening. It s like one loses their soul when they become filthy rich. That company alone could do much muh more than they do, or have done to help these people. But, it is a way to control this population,government likes control.:( The way of the world needs a diar severe change for the better. Neocolonism at its finest. awful how people suffer for others to reap benefits. The amount of resources we go take from them,,they should be living in palaces like out govrnmnt put saddam in for oil and such. Its alll a money rackett. I pray for those who suffer. I wish there was more done. Trinity9007
ReplyDeleteWhenever a conspiracy theorist talks about some "shadow government" that secretly runs the world, I usually just respond that it's all public already. It's just hidden in hundreds of pages of boring documents in a huge number of languages. For me, honestly, the most depressing thing about it is that Glencore is clearly not the only company at this.
ReplyDeleteThis kind of corruption truly isn't limited to Switzerland and Zambia. I can't help thinking of Marx here. Marx has his flaws, but even a broken clock (even if you disagree with him) is right sometimes. This was what Marx predicted would be the logical end result of capitalism. The ultra-rich control the government, who then exploit the poor as much as possible. It's a cycle that's gone on all over the world throughout human history, from the forced passage of the Magna Carta on through the Atlantic slave trade, through American segregation and European and Middle Eastern revolutions. Africa has been hit particularly hard by European exploitation throughout its history, and it saddens me greatly to see it continue to this day.
But what is actually at stake here is a belief system. It involves the system of not necessarily seeing everyone as equal, but seeing some people as lesser. There's a quick section in the film where the documentarian asks the Zambian VP about his skin color; the VP says times have changed. This very well may be true, and I have seen it myself outside the US, we're pretty much the only ones who care about race (most people care about ethnic or political differences). Global legalization is quite obviously racist, however. Those Swedish people in their idyllic town, calmly voting down giving 2% of their tax break away, are almost satirically contrasted by the fact that most of them have outlived at least four of Zambia's presidents, by my count, and most probably many generations of Zambian people. One would think the idea of a 92% unemployment rate would disturb this almost-totally employed Swedish town, but no, nothing of the sort. The Swedish people are entitled to their standard of living, so they say.
As easy as it is to point fingers, it should be noted that many American people are complicit in this "but I didn't know!"-type guilt. Take a look at where the computer you're using was built. We push for a higher minimum wage here, but we couldn't care less about factory workers in other countries getting more money (they are, in point of fact; China may not be as all-encompassing in the very near future). The clothes we wear, things we use daily, we don't really think about where they come from. Someone, somewhere, had to make that cell phone in your pocket. I'm not arguing that these factories are inherently a bad thing. Many people are thankful for any work, as opposed to no work. But no one here is out protesting to raise China's minimum wage. As great as Obama has been for this country, the reaction appears mixed everywhere else. We're so myopic that we don't even really think over this kind of stuff.
To bring it back around, that's exactly why we're complicit in this: we've started electing paid actors to be our politicians. Have you ever watched a Senate hearing? If you're like about 99% of people (including me), probably not. It's because it's so structured that it's, well, boring. Even the guy I stole the "hiding it in the boring" idea from, John Oliver, couched it in comedy to keep it interesting. And he was talking about cable companies and how they were trying to game the American public on net neutrality. So the cycle continues...
On a happier note, time marches on. Dr. King said the arc of time bends toward justice. The trick is to keep paying attention for that time (by the way, this video may have sealed someone not voting for Hillary if she comes up in 2016-- that is some shady, shady stuff, and there's no way she had no knowledge of it).
-LittleJimmyBond007