Reviews

Since I did not begin at the same starting position as the makers of this film, I had no chance to go along with what they're trying to say.

Cricisms of wealthy people are as old as people themselves. Saying that the wealth was obtained dishonestly or that the wealthy person is hurting people makes it easier to justify taking the wealth away.

The movie attempts to demonstrate how these companies are hurting people. Its first example is how Nike pays 'slave wages' to those who makes its shoes and clothes. That these wages are far lower than wages in America is inarguable. However, by way of context, I would've liked to have seen what the wages in that country were before Nike arrived. What was the standard of living? I saw no evidence that Nike created the poverty and that people were worse off because of Nike's presence. Is it possible that things have improved since Nike arrived? It would be possible to criticize Nike for its lack of charity, but that burden of charity is not on Nike alone. It is the burden of anyone who believes in the concept of giving to help the people where Nike is. Singling Nike out as harmful because of poor living conditions which they did not create nor have made worse is not fair.

I found this method to be consistent throughout the documentary. Milk manufacturers are criticized for using antibiotics and producing milk when more milk was not needed. What is the standard for too much milk? Perhaps charities could be organized to send the excess milk to the places where the Nike plants were located. Also, no context was given which showed how a consistent supply of milk and other foodstuffs affect the population of the United States. Are people in the U.S. living longer? Are they having a higher quality of life? I believe they are.

This section on milk showed sick cows. Are all cows in commercial dairies sick? Are cows, in general, sicker in a commercial dairy than they might be on a family farm? Then, assuming that the cows are treated poorly and that the cow's life makes it immoral to support a corporate dairy farm, how many people's lives should be damaged for the sake of those cows?

Again, I didn't come in with a preconceived idea that profit-seeking organizations are malicious. So, I found myself playing catch-up throughout the film since the filmmakers appear to assume the viewer started from that position.

This documentary travels deep inside leftist political circles and, perhaps, deep inside any group of true believes who have held the same beliefs for their entire life. The major issues are settled, and there is distrust and an assumption of hostility in the actions of anyone or anything which counters those settled beliefs.

For example, the story of when Dr. Zinn traveled to North Vietnam at the invitation of the NVA to bring 3 POWs home is a story of a peace-loving man traveling to a foreign land in order to bring home three countrymen. There is a blindness to the idea that, for the Soviets and NVA, the propaganda value of undermining US policy by 'negotiating' with a sympathetic leftist superseded any other consideration; this idea is not even given the consideration of a mention, nor are the potential consequences of Dr. Zinn's private diplomacy. Of course, Zinn marvels at the loveliness of the North Vietnamese culture, including having a grand time during a subterranean sing-a-long, and he, of course, makes the requisite denunciation of American bombing. He scoffs at the idea that Americans might have been abused by the NVA, having a good chuckle at the expense of an official who believed that American POWS were being abused; the documentary makes no mention of what's been learned since Zinn had his chuckle. Then, upon Dr. Zinn's return home, he is baffled by the US military and government's desire to examine, debrief, and return the 3 POWs, as opposed to Zinn being allowed to do so, and it is made plain that this is yet another example where a lying hostile US government thwarted the actions of a peace-loving man.

That is not to say Dr. Zinn didn't face other trials. He spoke out against the board of trustees of his university, and there's intense speculation that the tenure he received that day might have been put in jeopardy because of the dark forces at work on the board of trustees. He had to teach at a school with a university president who disagreed with him on politics. He has been arrested after a peace rally where he spoke turned into a riot. He also believes the FBI might have had agents among the crowd at some of his peace rallies. Yet, he has come through and triumphed despite these hardships.

And his triumph includes his belief that there is no need to obey the law. Law, Dr. Zinn tells us, is made by 'flawed, limited, petty' men who then treat it as a 'holy writ', rendering law and courts based on said law as arbitrary as the shifting sands. That there are peaceful methods, such as elections and courts, for changing laws is insufficient. Direct, passionate, and selected rioting will get the government's attention and change things for the better.

Noam Chomsky and Daniel Ellsberg also offer commentary.