Week 9 Responses

1.
Dear Kalle Lasn,
After reading your book Culture Jam, my eyes have been opened to a whole new world of activism and things of the sort. As a child that had grown up for many years without the influence of television, my youth wasn't shaped by brands like others' were. I had my own relative sense of cool, and until I had taken a media literacy & environment class in college, I didn't understand how corporations and brand names could control a person's life so acutely. Here at college, I have realized that everyone subconsciously follows trends and that it actually is very difficult to be different and fight the system. For instance, during a walk down a busy block or college campus, you would be hard pressed to find a t-shirt or jacket that didn't have the brand clearly printed somewhere on it, and there are almost no shoes you would see without the classic swoosh or UGG logo's screaming out at you. As an environmental studies major at the University of Vermont, I share many views with my classmates about the problems about consumer culture nowadays. I had heard of the things activists do to protest politics and corporations they believe are harming the environment, but I wasn't as keen as they were to join rallies and those sort of things. Culture Jam explained a whole new way of protesting to me, and I particularly enjoyed the chapter titled The New Activism. Unadvertising and educating yourself on how to battle the effects of advertisements are important to today's culture jammer, and I now have the tools to do just that. Every time an advertisement comes in front of me now, I find myself analyzing it and realizing how powerful they can be to the uneducated mind. Being a college student has definitely put a dent in my checking account balance, but even before school I had never been the type of individual that went and shopped/consumed just for the hell of it. At a young age I realized the devastating effects modern consumerism had the the environment, which was what got me interested in environmental studies in the first place.Your book has helped elevate my knowledge of how to unlearn these types of lifestyles and to make it known to others that they can change too. I have even shared your views with people close to me, and without even reading your book, they are making changes in their lives because the reality of it all scared them so much. Thank you for sharing your insights in this wonderful book.

2.
The end of the corporation was one of hope for the future, which was impressive seeing that the previous 2 hours of the movie was just bad news stacked sky high. One thing that was most surprising to me was the fact that corporations have basically the same legal rights as a person as made clear by the 14th amendment of the United States Constitution. When a corporation does something illegal, how do you punish something that has the rights of a human being but is just a name on paper? Something that aroused agitation was the suppression of an investigation of Bovine Growth Hormones by FOX news company. With the power of expensive legal advisers, FOX basically got away with many illegal things such as forcing employees to avoid the truth but at the same time not lie to the public. This shows how much power corporations have when it comes to politics and legality. A significant new item of learning is that the CEOs of most major corporations have no idea of the atrocities they're committing in the countries in which they manufacture their goods.The interview between Michael Moore and Paul Knight was an eye opener. One question I have after viewing the film is; what can the public do to help speed up the deconstruction of corporate America? What can people besides movie makers like Michael Moore do to get the attention of these corporations and get them to change their ways?