Version 0.4
Copyright © 2007 by Zack Smith,
All rights reserved.
The following addendum is not my summary of any part of
the Kleppner's textbook, but rather is my own essay.
Corporate Terrorism
In recent times, we have seen the rise of what
can only be called
"corporate terrorism" in the realm of
the everyday consumer's experience.
Corporate terrorism are acts taken specifically
to terrorize the public and to make examples of
key individuals. Corporate terrorism may
coincide with state terrorism if the corporation
can influence the state to act in such a way.
In the past, corporate terrorist attacks had mainly occurred
mainly against workers.
Many examples exist, such as:
-
In the form of paramilitary
attacks on union leaders in Columbia by the Coca-Cola
Company.
-
The 1914
Ludlow Massacre
in Colorado.
But today, coinciding with the rise of the corporate
police state,
we are seeing a new form of corporate terrorism emerge
that targets consumers.
It consists of deliberate planning and actions
to make the consumer feel terrorized -- not merely
trapped, exploited, or burdened.
No, the terrorism has the purpose of maintaining
corporate power and profits
by changing consumer behaviors that risk to reduce
profits.
Because modern corporate terrorism is a kind
of communication, it is appropriate
to categorize it
as a form of advertising,
hence the inclusion of this essay in my
summary of Kleppner's Advertising Procedure.
Indeed, advertisements
have appeared to convey the terrorists'
messages in the media. A tame example is
this ad.
Two extraordinary terrorist organizations that have
arisen to strike fear into the consumer.
RIAA,
takes
children,
college students and old women
to court on suspicion of illegal music downloading,
and
MPAA
which does the same to suspected movie downloaders.
Each organization conveys descriptions of their
exploits to the media (as to civil liberties groups)
in an effort to
make examples of their victims.
RIAA and MPAA work on the assumption that people
need and want to their products and that
consumers can be bullied into
submission to the effect that people will then pay any
amount for music or movies. They seem to believe
that making examples of isolated individuals
will cause the masses to cower and cave in
to their demands.
But time and again
the public has proudly opposed such terrorism.
As with for instance Islamic terrorists,
the modern corporate terrorists also
spout deranged ideologically-motivated
beliefs and threats.
The corporations' ideology is called
neoliberalism.
(Read
Let there be markets.)
RIAA has even stated that it wants to
shut down the Internet.
(Inquirer story.)
RIAA has also said the cost of a
CD should be around $34.
(WHAS story.)
Unfortunately the rising American police state
is supportive of the corporate terrorists.
(PrisonPlanet story.)
All the while however, the ugly truth about
the music industry is being revealed to show that
the true "pirates" are the media companies
themselves. Remember: To pirate is to steal a thing
and seek to grain profit from that stolen
thing, which is essentially what music companies
do to the majority of musicians.
Essay
by Courtney Love.
Essay
by Steve Albini.
Corporate terrorism by RIAA and MPAA
is a kind of intimidation-advertising
whose purpose is to allow the exploitive pirates
called large corporations
to avoid the paradigm
shift to a new model of ownership of
intellectual property, in which RIAA's and MPAA's
backers will have much less power.
Their approach cannot succeed but it is clear
that they will try to make examples of
many individuals before they have lost.
Spying on the consumer is one major tool
of the corporate terrorists.
Unfortunately, Microsoft is complicit
in this effort. Their new operating system
Vista is believed to represent a major attack
on consumer privacy.
This fact is however never communicated
by those who seek to profit from
corporate terrorism.
Thus you can see that in modern
corporate terrorism, a message is being shaped.
It is harsh and manipulative. It identifies
only the good and the bad, no shades of gray.
It omits mention of the mechanisms of spying.
It is advertising.
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