[Show #27, The Corporate Vampires soundtrack, is a one hour and six minute podcast that is the complete soundtrack from the Corporate Vampires video movie DVD by Rich Zubaty.
“They bit me and I became one of them.” Uncle Sam on his deathbed describing the dark side of U.S. history. A campy/artsy/creepy grave-robbing expedition in the cemetery where the dead souls of corporate capitalism are buried. The history of corporate colonialism from the Dutch East India Company to the American Revolution to the Civil War to World War Two, Vietnam and Iraq.
It's Rich Zubaty's belief that corporations ARE vampires. Not that they are LIKE vampires, but they really ARE vampires.
The entire Corporate Vampires DVD is available from amazon.com. Currently Rich is negotiating with WGBH Boston to produce a full-on theatrical version of this docudrama. Wish him luck.]
…………..
[start audio]
This is Rich Zubaty and today we’re going to listen to the entire soundtrack of my film: Corporate Vampires. Some folks in Palo Alto who saw the film said it would make a good podcast, so I’ll give it a shot.
Two things you need to know about LISTENing to this film.
ONE: It’s gonna be a little frustrating, not having the visuals because, they help enlarge and explain the narration. However, they’re not absolutely essential to understanding the story. Actually, I prefer to watch this movie with my eyes closed. What I mean by that is… that the most important parts of this movie are what the narrator is saying. NOT the visuals. The visuals help sometimes, and at other times they get in the way, of simply LISTENing to what the guy is saying. That’s why I wanna try this as a podcast.
The other thing you need to know is that the narrator, of the film, is Uncle Sam. Uncle Sam in his American Flag hat, with BLOOD dripping from the corners of his mouth. Uncle Sam, the vampire, explaining how the corporate vampires “bit me, and I became one of them.” Also, the funny business at the end, after he makes the final appeal to you, is Vampire Sam driving a stake through his OWN heart. So he can start all over again. We wanted to get a little girl to drive the stake, but we haven’t found one yet.
And…If you want to help out by buying a copy of the complete DVD, you can order it from amazon.com. Or go to happyfool.org and click on the links. Or make a donation. Lot’s of people do. And it really really helps. Let’s face it. No corporation is gonna sponsor THIS film.
So… It’s about an hour and ten minutes long. Corporate Vampires, the film, by Rich Zubaty.
[start soundtrack]
[the "Danny" frequently referred to below is Dan Burgevin, old Art School mate, and artist extraordinaire]
[bracketed items below are stage/film directions]
……………..
Fade in on sidelit LIPS.
LIPS open their mouth to reveal fangs.
[Vampire lips laugh a long evil laugh.]
Cut over images of:
[oil derricks pumping oil - directly related to vampire sucking blood from a throat. Maybe a Danny cartoon of the earth as a "neck" with oil-derrick fangs sucking blood.
Audio?; screeching and creaking sounds?
More slides/clips conflating corps with suffering: Bhopal, Union carbide, suffering Indians; US oil companies in Iraq; war, starvation, terror, suffering Arabs/Afghanis, environmental devastation; other images/cartoons of draining or sucking - war taxes bleeding the economy. Danny's vampire CEOs, animated zooms]
[Vampire Uncle Sam begins talking in HEAVILY accented Vampire voice.]
[lips only] He laughs…then
“I wasn’t always like this. No, no, not always. Once I was a vampire slayer. But, like Hitler said…the good thing about being a nazi is: the only way to beat us is to become just like us. Become the estado corporativo, the corporate state, as Mussolini called his Fascism.
[dissolve back to vampire in Uncle Sam hat,]
In the moment of WORLD WAR TWO victory in Europe, my soul turned dark. The military machine we had built up for a good cause, took a life of its own. Just because the war was over was no good reason for the military machine to be over. Or that’s how IT thought.
It fed on fear and profit. So it produced a ghost, a phantom.”
[Cut in: Sinister phantom labeled USSR.]
[dissolve/cut back IN to lips;]
“Our Department of War changed its name to the Department of Defense. Nice trick – shape-changing. We feared the phantom so hugely that the war economy just kept rolling, producing more and more weapons to hold off the phantom. And even better, we provoked this phantom into producing more and more weapons, fearing that it would be invaded by us. It too had its fear-mongers and war profiteers.
And to contain its expansion, everywhere on earth, we sent our troops. Korea, Vietnam, the Philippines, Germany, Central America, South America. 132 of the 190 countries on earth have U.S. troops occupying them today.”
[war sounds - choppers, bombs, etc - the first of many "sonic layers" to be introduced throughout the film]
“War profiteers profited and the American people got poorer and poorer.
The key to the so-called global economy was that the American worker produced much much more wealth than he was paid for. His excess productivity was called profit and that profit was used for both corporate expansion and taxed to HELP other countries. Like paying for war. Or bribing them to keep the peace.”
[Danny's vampire CEOs, animated zooms]
[Record this LATER: another typical sonic layer: Ward Cleaver, audio only, door slams yelling "Hi honey (June?) I'm home." The sonic layers introduce the idea that we are a schizophrenic society. The vampire is always lurking just beneath the Norman Rockwell Christmas picture, but in this film the vampire gets top billing, he's out front where we can see him and hear him]
“Ronald Reagan created Osama bin Laden to fight the Russians in Afghanistan. Ronald Reagan created Saddam Hussein to fight Iran. Gave Saddam chemical weapons.”
[audio layer: hissing of chemical weapons]
“We used OUR satellites to spot Iranian troops so Saddam could gas them.
And then the Soviet Union crumbled and our corporations found they could hire cheaper labor overseas…so the very people who had SACRIFICED to fund anticommunism were put out of jobs.
And it was good. HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
[Danny's vampire CEOs, animated zooms]
Every human culture tells the story of the vampire. A mysterious force that sucks the life energy out of people. In Japan it is a “mist” you pass through on the road at night. For Africans it is a demon who spreads disease. For westerners it is a batman dictator from Transylvania who sucks human blood.
But this story, this universal story, is symbolic. It is not literal. Not about mists and demons and seductive counts. These are metaphors. Metaphors that describe things that cannot be described directly. How does a culture without microscopes describe disease-bearing microbes? How do culture-bound Japanese describe a free-thinking anarchy that would tear their communities apart? How do you name the evil ruler who lives at the end of your block? Do you dare criticize him? Your boss or your king? Will he fire you…or burn you at the stake?
Enter the vampire story. The story that allows us to talk about these things without getting killed.
The vampire story has served throughout human history to describe EEEE-VIL.
But I was not always eeee-vil.
I was not always a vampire, feeding off my own people.
How did it happen? How did I turn into a human bloodsucker?
In the beginning, God created life, and life created men, and men created corporations.
The first corporations were called tribes.”
[Slide/clips of indian tribes and drum music].
“Tribes were herds of men and women who banded together for mutual safety and prosperity. A hundred eyes scanned the landscape for food, shelter and lurking predators. A hundred hands collected firewood, smoked meat, and warded off wolves.
But the original corporations were different than today. Members were not replaceable units. Membership was lifetime, and older members were given lighter tasks and more authority in decision-making. Older members were not simply fired before they could earn their pension. Membership in a tribe was a social contract that one was born into – and died out of.
Individuals who refused to adhere to the morays of the tribe were excluded. Some believe this was tantamount to a death sentence. Being forced to fend for oneself in the wilds. Others believe this was how mystics, visionaries, artists and shamans were accommodated. They lived outside the tribe, but tribe members still had access to them. Tribe members could still come to them for counsel, for a different perspective. For medicines and arts and prophecies.
But we have lost this tradition. No one knows where the wiseman lives today. He does not live on TV. He does not write for the newspapers. He cannot be found. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
Individuals excluded from the corporate economy have little or no way to survive in a society where everything is owned and operated by corporations. It is these individuals who, living creatively, outside the box of corporate culture, produce the greatest font of new ideas. But there used to be land they could inhabit and animals they could hunt. Now, with everything “owned”, there is simply no place for these people. These creative cast offs of corporate culture.
And when did this come about? This ownership idea? The idea that certain individuals control large tracts of land for their own good, not for the common good? Lords who could own much more land than they and their sons could possible plow in one year?
With the beginning of agriculture. That’s where. With agriculture began the Age of Kings.”
[clips/slides of Kings]
“Nomadic people had lived with uncertainty, but they could always move away FROM problems, or TOWARD opportunities. Farmers lived in fear. Fear of bad weather. Fear that their land, or their lives, could be taken away. With agriculture began the Age of Fear.
When the hunter-gatherers settled down as farmers they created the first vampires. These vampires were religious communities, corporate communities, that literally bled certain unlucky citizens to death to “fertilize” the fields each spring. Blood sacrifices for demanding gods.
[show slides or cartoons of various human sacrifices: Aztec, Ishtar, find Golden Bough stuff.]
A Priest class emerged to decide who would be sacrificed and who would be allowed to live. Today we call these priests CEOs.
The priests claimed to control the gods of wealth – and in doing so – to control fear. They claimed they could bring rain when there was no rain. And because the people lived in fear they believed in the priests…Today CEOs claim they can bring prosperity where there is no prosperity, and because the people live in fear, they believe them.”
[Bill Gates worship slides]
“By settling down and refusing to budge, to move with the seasons, the nomads who became farmers became vulnerable to OTHER nomads. People who had also hunted and gathered in the same fertile valleys for centuries.
The only way to protect fertile grain fields and green pastures was with SOLDIERS…Farm communities required soldiers – not only when danger threatened – but at all times…so they could be prepared, ahead of time, against attack.
And the soldiers sucked the resources of the community – ate the bread and drank the beer – consuming – but producing nothing…training for war, but not plowing fields.
And the head soldier was the king. The king controlled the soldiers and thus controlled the land. Today we call this king the President, or the Prime Minister.
So the Priests of Prosperity were the first corporate officers. And the King was the first head of state. The priests, who produced nothing themselves, decided who would be fed and who would not. And the King decided what lands would be conquered and how much would be paid in taxes.
Karl Marx said that labor is capital. By that he meant that if a man works one hour and produces $20 of value, but is paid only $10, then someone else is acquiring capital from that man’s work. That capital is blood. Blood sucked by priests and government. Blood sucked by Institutional Vampires.
[image of sucking money and/or blood]
And so, until the middle of the second millennium AD, kings and priests jockeyed with each other for power. They formed alliances, and broke alliances. One group kept the other in check – more or less. If the priests got too greedy the king attacked them. If the King got too greedy the priests advised their flocks to reBEL…withdraw soldiers and taxes from the King.
It worked in a way….but the vampires were frustrated. The vampires wanted MORE.
Vampires DID come from Europe, but not from Transylvania. They came from Seville and Lisbon and Amsterdam and London. They came on ships.”
[shots of clipper ships]
“They were called trading companies. The first MODERN corporations. They were chartered by Popes and Kings to suck the wealth out of distant lands and carry that wealth back to Europe. These were the colonial empires. They gained wealth not by producing it, but by sucking it from distant corners of the globe.
When you’ve sucked all you can out of your own people why stop there? The world awaits you? No? ha ha ha
And then, in northern Europe, a primitive tribal religious philosophy was reborn: the idea that if God loved you he would show it by giving you great wealth in this lifetime. This was a throwback to tribal religions, praying to deer gods and corn gods. Ha ha ha
But the people working their hearts out for priests and kings LIKED this idea. Clearly God DID love them, and WANTED them to keep more of the capital they were producing for priests and kings.
But how could they bring this about?…To start with, they required several NEW IDEAS to free them from old patterns of organization.
First, make up your own religion by choosing which parts of the Bible you wish to follow and which you don’t. Lean heavily on the primitive, tribal, God-rewarding-his-chosen-people passages of the Old Testament, and de-emphasize the give-your-wealth-away passages of the New Testament. In other words, Screw the Pope.
Second, recreate the Greek idea of City States. Raise your own armies and defend your own communities. In other words, Screw the King.
It was a good idea at the time…but no one back then could know how it made the vampires smile.
Thus was born the Dutch East India Corporation. It competed directly in the territories formerly chartered to Spain and Portugal by Popes and Kings – from Indonesia to New Amsterdam – and dragged the colonial wealth directly back to the burghers of Amsterdam and Rotterdam. It was a revolution. It cut out the middlemen – the original vampires – the popes and kings.
And then, when the Dutch corporations overreached, and collapsed…the British trading corporations stepped in to take their place. New Amsterdam was re-named New York and away we went again! This thing of making money to prove God loved you, had really caught on!
There were so many people making up their own religions by this time that they had to flee to America to avoid persecution. They wanted to make it easy for God to shower His wealth upon them.
Ha ha ha ha haaaa [sinister vampire laugh]
But when the refugees got to America they discovered a different story. British corporations controlled everything. Everything. They controlled what was bought and what was sold and what was produced. If you were hungry and stole an apple you were tried in corporate court, not British court.
[slides of the Revolutionary Era]
You had no rights as a British citizen if you lived in a corporate colony. The corporation controlled everything. The mandate granted by the king had given corporations the authority to “rule and govern”… to “rule and govern” in the New World.
People got pissed off.
Then came the inevitable reaction against corporate colonialism, led by the American Revolution. People fought for and won independence from these foreign trading tyrannies.
The infant United States severely restricted corporations. They were given limited charters that expired automatically after ten years. There was no way Americans wanted corporations “ruling and governing” their lives – AGAIN.
And that’s when I was born…I wasn’t always like this. No, no, not always.
For a short time I was a child. A dream child in a way…with many many fathers.
[animated slide of baby Uncle Sam]
But then THEY bit me, and I became one of them.
And by the Civil War everything had changed back again. The vampires took over again, feeding off the soldier’s blood.
[bloody Civil War slides]
Northern munitions makers actually SOLD guns to Southerners to keep the war going. Vampires love war. All that BLOOOOOD!
[slurping lips]
When the war was over President Abraham Lincoln said: “As a result of the War, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow…until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.”
Then he was SHOT!…by a Lone Assassin. Ha ha ha
Lincoln was right. Corruption in high places followed.
Corporations tricked the judicial system into legally defining them as PERSONS – with ALL Bill of Rights protections – ownership of property, freedom of speech, everything human persons claimed as fundamental rights – and the corporate take-over of the U.S. government picked up speed. These corporate persons did not eat, sleep, die, pay a fair share of taxes or get drafted in time of war – but they were legally defined as “persons”. Ha ha ha ha ha ha
No, I wasn’t always a vampire. I was made into one – by corporations. They bit me, and I became one of them.
When I was quite young I wanted America to grow prosperous. I craved foreign trade opportunities. I wanted to be a colonial power.
But, let’s face it…I had been the first country in modern history to break away from British colonialism. How could I suddenly become what they had been – a colonial power?
So I went to a friend of the vampires. A very old friend. The oldest friend.”
[slides of the devil in various forms]
“He told me he could grant my wish, it was easy, but he wanted something in return. He would give me what I wanted, if I gave myself to the vampires…That was the deal.
So I offered…my neck…to the corporate vampires.”
[blood oozes from the vampire's lips]
“I became a corporation, and I received THE SECRET. It was so simple, really. I, Uncle Sam, would stand for Free Trade and Democracy. I did not want to CONTROL any other country or economy. No, no….not me. I only wanted to TRADE with them. Trade must be free everywhere and every person deserved to live under democracy.
What a brilliant idea! It disarmed the world. The European corporate vampires had come to “rule and govern”. I just wanted to give people liberty and trade with them…Everyone everywhere fell for it.”
[slides of American trading ships in Cuba, China and Philippines]
“The greatest oppression is not tanks and guns, it is the oppression that does not admit of any other options. Who could possibly oppose democracy and free trade? It was a one-track world…And it was MY world.
General Motors and General Electric just wanted free trade. That’s all. So before World War Two they took German government money to build up Hitler’s submarines and military vehicles. And during the war they took our tax money to build armaments against Hitler. And after the war they took U.S. government money to repair the devastation they had helped create. They profited coming…and during…and going. People bled and they sucked profit. All in the name of freedom.
[Danny's vampire CEOs, animated zooms: GE?]
In fact, the only freedom we brought was the freedom from behaving responsibly. Dictators like Somoza in Nicaragua loved it. They had no intention of giving up power. They just gave up responsibility…and invited our corporations onto their soil.
Our corporations loved it too. They claimed to be doing good, while they sucked people dry.
New corporations got in line at the money trough. They wanted to join up. They wanted to be in the game too. I bit their necks and they spread their wings and flew across the globe.”
[Monsanto, Cargill, ADM clips; Danny's vampire CEOs, animated zooms; Monsanto?]
“We could make war and call it preserving peace. We could free people by enslaving them. The vampire grew fat in his tower. Corporate feudalism, under the flag of democracy. An Orwellian fantasy come true. ha ha ha ha ha
And since corporate money controlled the elections – which is ILLEGAL in most countries – there was no danger of real democracy raising its populist head. It was the greatest scam since selling indulgences for the Catholic Church.
[Danny's VHS outtakes from Republican convention]
Better yet, our vampires were not hereditary. Not Dukes or Kings. Anyone could become one. Anyone could rise out of the oppressed class to become a member of the oppressor class. Look at Ronald Reagan. He did it. If someone as simple-minded as him could do it, ANYONE could! No?
The sublime ignorance of Ronald Reagan was that he never stopped to think that if everyone sold out to the vampires and became oppressors, there would be nobody left to oppress!
Corporate vampires reproduced like mosquitoes.
[McDonald's Wal-Mart; Danny's vampire CEOs, animated zooms]
They destroyed every mom and pop business in America; and when they had finished that, they began spreading across the globe destroying family businesses everywhere on earth. Then they started shipping YOUR hard-won jobs overseas. There was no stopping this global economy. This blood-lust for profit. This vampiric formula.
Until some Arabs got pissed off and blew up the World Trade Center. Ground zero of corporate capitalism. Home in the sky of vampire economics.”
[World trade crash photos]
“We were shocked. We couldn’t understand how such madmen could do such a thing. We didn’t even bother to ask WHY they might have done it…Led by the vampires who smelled blood and profit, we started a holy war against them.
Rag heads, fundamentalists, terrorists – I led the charge. The world must be made safe for corporate vampires.
And in that moment I overreached, just like the Dutch had overreached, just like the British had overreached. I showed my fangs.”
[Slowly bares his bloody fangs]
“I showed my face. And the world trembled. They saw the black cape and the wings and the blood dripping from my lips. The game was up.
Finally people worldwide saw corporations for what they are.
Vampires.
Vampires see no reflection in the mirror. Neither do corporations. They are “persons”, but you cannot see them. They reflect no light.”
[slide of vampire in front of mirror]
“They brand society with their symbols-”
[slides of golden arches and Nike checkmark]
“But you never see THEM. You see properties they own…or hear about what they are worth in the Stock report. You see their cheerful advertising puppets on TV, you hear their soothing voices on the radio.”
[slides of goofy blondes on TV and soundtrack of sonorous radio advertising voices]
“But you never see THEM. These invisible persons.
[pause]
Vampires suck the life energy out of people and they don’t care. So do corporations.”
[slides of clear cutting timber, polluting rivers, cruise ships dumping wastes, miners dying of black lung disease]
“They suck the life out of their workers…out of your land and air and water, out of your government – and they don’t care. They can’t care. Because they’re already dead.
Vampires hate sunlight. So do corporations.”
[outtakes from vampire movies, darkness and shadows; black clouds over factories, dark sweat shops, smiling Enron executives with fangs showing; Danny's vampire CEOs, animated zooms; graphics or cartoons that reveal the sordid underpinnings of corporate promotions (like what? exploding tires?)]
“They build legal, media, and military fortresses around themselves to prevent anyone from finding out what they’re really up to. Corporations are like bats, always feeding in the dark.
[clip of flying bat]
Vampires cringe at religious artifacts. So do corporations.”
[Dracula cringing away from cross. Petulant TV ad housewife intercut with starving children and Mother Teresa.]
“They openly reject religious values of compassion and cooperation. They advocate consumerism and RABID competition – as they secretly suck up huge government hand-outs. They care nothing for the welfare of people who can’t find jobs, as they cheerfully deport your jobs overseas.”
[workers with signs protesting oursourcing]
“Vampires cast no shadow. Neither do corporations.”
[Dracula with no shadow. Dracula matte erased and filled in with corporate logos? Sears Tower casting no shadow?]
“They are nothing more than a figment of your imagination. They do not really exist, yet they can kill you or turn you into one of them.”
[pretty woman (girl) with neck bite, smiling with fangs, from Tom Cruise New Orleans vampire movie? ]
“Vampires bite you and you become one of them. So it is with corporations. Employees learn to shut down their hearts and sell their souls to become good company men and women.”
[uniformed corporate employees; Danny's vampire CEOs, animated zooms]
“Vampires are charming shape-shifters. So are corporations. Thanks to billions spent on public relations they come at you all smiley-faced, and green-friendly on TV, then spread their dark wings and flee from the misery they cause.”
[Exxon: baby seals/oil spill; Enron execs meeting Cheney/energy gouging California; GE selling washing machines/manufacturing and launching cruise missiles.]
“Vampires hypnotize you in the guise of love and concern, then bite your necks. So do corporations. Someone buys one of their happy products, dies from using it, and the corporate vampire disappears into the fog because it cannot be held criminally responsible.”
[Firestone Tire ads and car crashes; Tylenol ads/deaths per year]
“Vampires are invisible “corporate persons”, with all the legal rights of personhood, who cannot be held accountable for criminal wrong-doing.
[person-shaped mattes crammed with corporate logos]
“Vampires live forever. So do corporations.”
[ancient vampire drawings, sailing ships dissolve into supertankers]
“They do not die a natural death. As long as they can keep feeding off your lifeblood, they live. But if you stop feeding them…they die.”
“You CAN drive a stake through their corporate hearts. Don’t buy their products. Don’t watch their commercials. Protest their activities. Talk to your friends – attack their smiley corporate image.
The one thing about vampires is: once you KNOW they’re vampires… their power over you dissipates. You can protect yourself from them. You can shun them. They can only exploit you in a dark climate of unknowing.”
[long pause; go to black?; possible ending for short version]
“Who were the great vampire slayers in history?
Moses was one, leading his people on a forced march out of Egypt.
[slides of Moses]
Thomas Jefferson THOUGHT he was one. Kicking the British corporate vampires out of America. But he remained a slaveholder…Nonetheless, what he accomplished worked for about a hundred years. There actually WAS a period in America when people really DID have SOME freedom, to create their own lives outside a corporate economy. But that all changed with the Civil War.
Abraham Lincoln thought he was a vampire slayer too, crushing the economic vampire of slavery, but recoiling in disbelief as corporate vampires filled the vacuum.”
[slides of Lincoln]
“Lenin thought he was one, but he just replaced one vampire with another.”
[slides of Lenin and revolutionary bravery]
“Trade union activists are vampire slayers. They force corporate vampires to pay a living wage. To stop sucking wealth from laborers necks and profiting from people’s misery. But over time, sadly, they too may be co-opted by the “needs” of their corporate paymasters.
Gandhi was one. He kicked the British corporate vampires out of India.”
[slides/clips of Gandhi]
“So you see the pattern?…The only consistently successful vampire slayers have been religious leaders.
Vanquishing vampires is a religious act. A spiritual action. Political leaders make a difference for a while, but their visions are always, eventually, co-opted by corporate vampires. Like the Soviets selling salvation in the name of Communist Collectives, or me selling salvation in the name of Democracy and Free Trade. This fools everyone for awhile, but then the people wake up. ReBEL. Force change…There is great fanfare and CELEBRATION. Politicians farting out proclamations – taking credit for what the people have achieved.
Then, almost overnight…the vampires change shape…emerging in new and friendlier forms…slowly taking over again.”
[images of vampiric shape-shifting. Changing into bats. The body of rats from Coppola's film. Corporate promotions of happy burgers/happy meals. Et al]
“And not all religious leaders are vampire slayers. Fundamentalist Christians, the ones who believe God wants to make them rich because they are such good believers, are never vampire slayers. They always serve the vampire. The vampire of greed.”
[smiling TV evangelists]
Your real problem is: you suffer from a lack of concepts. A lack of ideas. YOU can solve this problem. One person at a time. One corporation at a time. If all of you act on your own, like white blood cells surrounding and neutralizing foreign organisms that enter your body politic. But you need IDEAS to work with.
Bad information produces bad thinking produces bad actions. One cannot have democracy when the citizens do not have accurate information and fearless ideas to work with.
So here are some new ideas to roll around inside your heads.
1) The United States of America is not a Democracy. When people with lots of money control politics – anywhere in the world – we call that a dictatorship.”
[slides/clips of politicians, foreign and U.S.]
“The United States of America is a corporate dictatorship. Corporatism. A Corpocracy. Corporate money controls elections. Candidates who are not friendly to corporations almost NEVER get elected…no matter how good their ideas are …because they cannot buy media exposure…I took their money. They bit me…and I became one of them.
2) The USA does not have Freedom of the Press. Freedom of the Media…Corporate vampires control who gets to the microphone. Who gets their article printed.
[slides of Fox News and female anchormen, maybe from the film Outfoxed]
When corporate vampires figured out how to control democracy by controlling the media, democracy died…They bit me and I became one of them.
3) The USA does not have “free markets”. Corporations control distribution of goods and services and thereby control who can get their products on the store shelves. New products, new ideas, do not get into the stores, unless they are marketed by a corporation. The U.S. ECONOMY is better described as Corporate Communism. Top-down, centralized economic planning for corporate profit. Corporate Communism.
“Economies of scale” MEANS elimination of choice from the market.
4) Corporate vampires do not wish to have government overseeing their operations. They wish to operate unfettered by government regulation. However…they spend vast sums of money lobbying for government hand-outs – corporate welfare. They vie for billions of dollars in government contracts: to build bridges or build weapons or supply “foreign aid” in the wake of war.
[clips of war from Corp Vamps #1]
What you Americans call foreign aid is just payouts to your corporations. Corporate persons profit from the wars they refuse to fight and profit from the taxes they refuse to pay. Corporate Vampires are a sucking sound in your economy.
[sucking sound]
5) The corporate economy is not efficient. How efficient is a private health care system where 40 million Americans have no health coverage? Who’s the efficiency for? Corporations? Or people?…Private healthcare is the most inefficient system imaginable. Or what about a food distribution system that is so overblown it cannot accept the produce of small farmers but must gear itself to the output of corporate farms – farms that are heavily dependent on chemicals and oil.
[slides of oil and war and factory farms again]
Or what about a petroleum industry that keeps prices low at the pump by requiring the U.S. government to inject tens of billions of dollars in “foreign aid” to oil producing countries, to bribe them to supply oil for lower prices. These billions of dollars in so-called foreign aid are actually a HIDDEN petroleum tax…Or how about a dot.com economy that blew billions of dollars of investor capital on hair growth formulas and Viagra substitutes – then went bust and LOST all that money.
Corporations are about as efficient as trimming your toes with hedge clippers…[pause]…as eating soup with a fork…[pause]…
[me: trimming my toes with hedge clippers and eating soup with a fork]
as throwing your garbage out the window to avoid paying for garbage collection…as killing off every tenth person to avoid rising health care expenditures. Corporations are only efficient unto themselves, not unto human survival.
6) The American Way does not work. Americans are 4% of the earth’s population consuming 24% of the earth’s resources and making 24% of the earth’s pollution. What we are selling the rest of the world is a LIE. None of them can afford our prosperity unless the earth suddenly grows six times bigger. Expecting everyone to “be like us” is a cruel fantasy.
[cartoon of earth growing six times larger]
Civilization is organization. The more civilized a society is, the more organized it is. That’s a good thing, up to a point.
[slides from history about organizing aqueducts and planting terraces and laying phone lines]
In-so-far as civilization offers family security, protection against invaders, protection against starvation, civilization is good.
But…civilization BREEDS vampires.
Civilizations develop upon systems. First systems of government are founded. Then systems, for influencing the systems of government, appear. Then systems of producers of goods and services emerge…and these producers build their businesses in direct relation to how much they can influence the people, who influence the systems of government.”
[scenes from the Democracy Theme Park, Republican convention, cheering delegates etc.]
“What tax breaks they can get. What products or services they are allowed to offer.
Finally, laborers go to work for the producers…the best jobs being those working for the producers, who have the most ability to influence government.
Systems interlocking with systems.
And all this works good up to a point. All this provides some security. UNTIL certain producers MONOPOLIZE access to the people who influence government. Then only THEIR systems get served.
Creativity is stifled. Spontaneity is stifled. The vampires have taken over.
This ALWAYS happens ALL the time with EVERY civilization. That’s why there are revolutions. So that new people with new products and new ideas get access to the people who influence the course of government.
[slide of Benjamin Franklin]
Sometimes the entire government has to be replaced. However, the ideal scenario occurs when laws are passed to REGULATE the current producers. That gives new people and new ideas, access to the people who influence government. But the sad fact is, regulations usually only favor corporations.
An over-civilized society becomes paranoid. It is conservative. It does not want to see its delicate interbalancing systems upset. It profits from these systems and sees no reason to change things.
But the people at the bottom. The laborers and the creative artists and thinkers – not the corporate artists and thinkers – live lives of increasing poverty and stress – until they can pull off a revolution.
[slides of Thomas Jefferson]
As Thomas Jefferson said, a little revolution every once in awhile is a good thing…Because if we don’t have those little revolutions, pressures build up…and then we need a BIG revolution, where people REALLY get hurt.
But of course, the vampires, the interlocking systems, do not want a revolution. They talk big talk about freedom and democracy, but their daily agenda is to eliminate both. It’s cosmic hypocrisy. The biggest lie of all time.
I have over 725 military bases in 132 countries around the world – and there are only 190 countries in the world. This vast network of American bases constitutes a new form of empire – an empire of military enclaves rather than of colonies, as in older forms of imperialism.
My military deploys well over half a million soldiers, spies, technicians, teachers, dependents, and civilian contractors in other nations.
[slides of warships, carriers and planes]
To dominate the oceans and seas of the world, I maintain thirteen carrier task-forces, which constitute floating bases. I operate numerous espionage bases to monitor what the people of the world, including my own citizens, are saying, faxing, or emailing to one another.
My installations abroad bring profits to civilian industries, which design and manufacture weapons for the armed forces – systems servicing systems – like the Halliburton Corporation of Houston, which contracts to build and maintain my military outposts. And the money flows – like blood from an open artery.
[pause, cough, gurgle]
The two most famous warnings about militarism came from two prominent generals who became presidents. The first was George Washington in his Farewell Address of September 1796. He said, “Overgrown military establishments, under any form of government…are to be regarded as particularly hostile to…liberty.”
[slide of George Washington]
“He was telling you that the smaller your military, the greater your freedom. And NOT the opposite, as the vampires have you believing.
President, and former General, Dwight D. Eisenhower said,
[slide of Eisenhower]
“Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry….But now 3.5 million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment…We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence by the military-industrial complex…Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in a final sense, a theft from those who are hungry and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.
President Eisenhower, a Republican.
But you didn’t listen to these generals and presidents…Did you?…And now 93% of your Foreign Aid goes to weapons…and 7% goes to food and medicine. Europe donates much more food and medicine to poor nations than you do.
And ultimately, it’s all because the vampires bit me, and I became one of them.
Well…that is coming to an end. Everything I have been telling the world since World War Two has been exposed as a lie…I must go away now. Very soon.
[note: from here on down visuals are almost entirely absent and need to be added]
That’s why I’m telling you this…Someday, like the Phoenix, I will be reborn from the ashes of the global economy. But that cheerful global fantasy is over. The idea that corporations, with no allegiance and no accountability to any people anywhere…will do a good job running the world …is a horrendous joke. And now the people know it.
You need smaller systems, not bigger systems. Smaller governments, smaller corporations. Big systems become inhumane and corrupt. Infected with corporate vampires. And with vampires in high places, the only thing that ever changes is the rhetoric.
During Vietnam America had a rare opportunity to change. To have Jefferson’s “little revolution”. But the vampires just grew their hair long and gushed about granola and guitar solos and women’s rights. They shape-shifted and snuck under the fence. And you let them.
You blew it.
No, the only thing people understand is suffering. The only thing that will change America is suffering…Like I am suffering now…Old and suffering.
The world is drawing away from me. Isolating me. Soon the vampires will have nothing to feed on. Without the U.S.S.R. there is no good reason to have a superpower America. America the Good. America the Savior.
A simpleton like Ronald Reagan, never figured out that winning the Cold War would make you more vulnerable, not less vulnerable. Your corporations would have LESS of a reason to exist, LESS of an excuse to bleed the public – without the Big Bad Bear.
With the Soviet collapse, the vampires needed a new excuse to maintain their perpetual wartime economy. So, 15 years after Reagan, George W. Bush tried to restart the Cold War with his War on Terror.
[Vampire laughs long ugly laugh]
You cannot fight terrorism with bombs – only with food and medicine…Bombs don’t work.
George Bush was the salesman of fear. The Coward in Chief.
[sound clip of Bush instilling fear]
Fear breeds sacrifice, sacrifice breeds vampires, vampires breed bombs. Smart bombs, expensive bombs.
Like Rome, all these wars will bankrupt the American people. You will work harder and harder for less and less, as the vampires profit.
And then it will all change…It will ALL change.
[pause]
How will it change?”
[sonic layer of MGM-type flourish]
If I was writing your future, here’s what I would put in the script.
[Vampire makes long hacking cough]
Corporations would be conscripted, drafted, during war.
[Danny?:cartoon of corporations being dragged off to war]
As American persons they should contribute products and money directly to any conflict you engage in – just like human persons do. They should be prevented from profiteering from war. If corporations were drafted to help DURING war, you would NEVER HAVE war, except as a last resort.
[pause]
Also…government would be forced to give help to small businesses for DISTRIBUTION.
[clips: delivering produce on small carts and pick up trucks]
Corporations control the market by controlling distribution. They decide what food you buy and what clothes you wear and what books you read. Corporations control your hearts and minds by controlling distribution. Small businesses need help getting their products onto store shelves. Help with distribution.
[pause]
Also…you would pass federal legislation that corporations NO LONGER be legally regarded as persons.
[written proclamation disallowing corporate personhood]
The very existence of corporate persons would be challenged in U.S. courts as a RELIGIOUS VIOLATION. Your government CANNOT create people!
[Vampire laughs degenerating into a hacking cough]
That’s an unconstitutional incursion of government into religion. A violation of the separation between church and state. God creates people. Evolution creates people.
[creation clips: God and evolutionary tree ape to man]
Government does not create people. Government is OWNED by people.
Ahem. (clears throat)
Also…you would impose criminal sanctions against corporations and disallow the Consent Decree which permits criminal cases against corporations to be settled behind closed doors.
[cartoon of corporations being handcuffed and taken to court]
As it stands now, corporations can kill people, and pay some money…without ever admitting guilt…and without you, the public, ever knowing the amount of the settlement. This is vampiric behavior – operating in the dark. These cases should be brought into the light.
Also…you would pass legislation that corporations must be responsible for what they do…or have their charters revoked. You cannot permit them to continue to act without consequences. That’s a license to bleed you. You need a CORPORATE DEATH PENALTY.
Also…you would pass federal legislation that from now on, corporations are not to be held legally responsible ONLY to their stockholders, but also to their stakeholders.
[clips of stakeholders]
Stakeholders means their employees, their customers, the communities they work in, and the communities they do business in. Their stakeholders, not just their stockholders.
Also…you would pass federal legislation that in America, as in Europe, stakeholders must be included on corporate boards of directors.
[corporate boards with blue collar workers pasted in]
Workers representatives MUST, by law, be included on the board of directors. Consumer and community representatives MUST, by law, be included on the board of directors. That’ll put an end to outsourcing…and it will put an end to exploding tires and deceptive labeling.
Also…you would tax stock market transactions.
[frowning Daddy Warbucks paying tax to Uncle Sam]
How come you pay tax on gas and clothes…but when someone buys 300,000 shares of stock they pay no tax? You could fund national health care for everyone with a one half of one per cent tax on stock market transactions.
Also…You would found a new political party. Democrats are the party of big business and labor. Republicans are the party of big business and small business. Duh. Both parties are the party of big business. Does that make any sense?
[cartoon of labor and small business versus Republicrats]
You would found a new party…a third party…an alliance between small business and unions against corporations.
Also…advertising would not be allowed as a business expense beyond one million dollars.
[giddy stupid ad]
Corporations spend 138 billion dollars a year on advertising – more than all schoolteachers’ salaries combined. They are using money that should be paid for schools and roads to brainwash you on TV.
And…you could ALL contribute by spreading the word to your friends and families that corporations are vampires.
[clips of people talking to each other, confiding]
Corporations are vampires. They will not stop – until you stop them – from living secretly among you, and sucking the life out of your communities. Next time you look at the golden arches, next time you see an ad on TV that’s not selling a product – but merely telling you how great and wonderful some corporation is – think of that symbol or that ad as a vampire – and your very own mind will do the rest.
[pause]
Is there any hope?
All kinds. You’ve done this TWICE before. The American Revolution, and Populist Revolt of the late 1800s both beat back the creeping cancer of corporate vampires. Various democratic European governments have limited the power of corporate vampires.
[pause, cough]
But why have I told you all this?
[pause]
Dear believers…Eternal life is not all it’s cracked up to be…Especially when it’s bought by sucking the life out of the living.
[pause]
I’m weary…Sad and weary.
[animated graphic of baby Uncle Sam]
I wouldn’t mind having another shot at real life…And I wouldn’t mind having your help with that.
I’m willing to see what’s on the other side…What’s next…
[pause]
Are you?
[camera pulls back]
[Same drives a stake through his heart. He collapses off the chair. Gurgling and drooling.]
[note: second take of shot has good groans at end. Use these audio groans under black and titles]
[Fade to black.]
