A STUDYGUIDE by Robert Lewis
www.metromagazine.com.au
www.theeducationshop.com.au McLibel (Franny Armstrong, 2005) is an 85-minute documentary film about the attempt by McDonald’s to stop the distribution of a pamphlet that they claimed defamed them.
wo of the distributors of the settlement negotiations. Even spies. BEFORE WATCHING THE pamphlet, London Greenpeace FILM Tmembers Helen Steel and Dave Seven years later, in February 2005, Morris, defended themselves in what the marathon legal battle finally McLibel is about the court case turned out to be Britain’s longest-ever concluded at the European Court of that was brought by McDonald’s in civil trial. Human Rights. And the result took Britain to stop the distribution of the everyone by surprise – especially the pamphlet ‘What’s wrong with McDon- McLibel is the story of two ordinary British Government. ald’s?’. The pamphlet made many people who humiliated McDonald’s in accusations against McDonald’s. the biggest corporate PR disaster in McLibel is not just about hamburgers. history. McDonald’s loved using the It is about the importance of freedom To understand what the case was UK libel laws to suppress criticism. of speech now that multinational about you need to study the pamphlet. Major media organizations like the corporations are more powerful than BBC and The Guardian crumbled and countries. It is a long pamphlet, so to make the apologized. task easier it has been divided into Filmed over ten years by no-budget sub-sections in Table 1 on (page 3). But then they sued gardener Helen Director Franny Armstrong, McLibel The whole class should look at the Steel and postman Dave Morris. In the is the David and Goliath story of two introduction, and then seven small longest trial in English legal history, the people who refused to say sorry. And groups could take one section of the ‘McLibel Two’ represented themselves in doing so, changed the world. pamphlet each and report back on it against McDonald’s £10 million legal to the whole class. team. Every aspect of the corpora- – McLibel Press Kit tion’s business was cross-examined: By the end of this process you should from junk food and McJobs, to animal CURRICULUM APPLICABILITY have an excellent summary of the pam- cruelty, environmental damage and phlet, and be ready to ‘visit’ the trial. advertising to children. Outside the McLibel is appropriate for use with courtroom, Dave brought up his young middle-upper secondary students in: Summarize your findings about the son alone and Helen supported herself pamphlet in Table 1 (on page 3), and working nights in a bar. • Society and Environment add your own comments about what • English you discover and what the other McDonald’s tried every trick in the • Civics and Citizenship groups tell you. book against them. Legal manoeuvres. • Politics SCREEN EDUCATION A visit from Ronald McDonald. Top • Legal Studies Then answer the questions that follow. executives flying to London for secret • Health
2 Aspect What the pamphlet says Your reaction
Introduction
Environment
Nutrition
Advertising
Animal welfare
Working conditions in stores
What you can do SCREEN EDUCATION
TABLe 1 3 This leaflet is asking you to think for a moment about what lies behind McDonald’s’ clean, bright image. It’s got a lot to hide.
‘At McDonald’s we’ve got time for you’ goes the jingle. Hungry For Dollars Why then do they design the service so that you’re in and out as soon as possible? Why is it so difficult to McDonald’s is one of several giant corporations with invest- relax in a McDonald’s? Why do you feel hungry again so ments in vast tracts of land in poor countries, sold to them soon after eating a Big Mac? by the dollar-hungry rulers (often military) and privileged elites, evicting the small farmers that live there growing We’re all subject to the pressures of stupid advertising, food for their own people. consumerist hype and the fast pace of big city life – but it doesn’t take any special intelligence to start asking The power of the US dollar means that in order to buy questions about McDonald’s and to realize that some- technology and manufactured goods, poor countries are thing is seriously wrong. trapped into producing more and more food for export to the States. Out of forty of the world’s poorest countries, The more you find out about McDonald’s processed thirty-six export food to the USA – the wealthiest. food, the less attractive it becomes, as this leaflet will show. The truth about hamburgers is enough to put you Economic Imperialism off them for life. Some ‘Third World’ countries, where most children are What’s the connection between undernourished, are actually exporting their staple crops McDonald’s and starvation in the ‘Third as animal feed – i.e. to fatten cattle for turning into burgers World’? in the ‘First World’. Millions of acres of the best farmland
in poor countries are being used for our benefit – for tea, SCREEN EDUCATION THERE’s no point in feeling guilty about eating while watch- coffee, tobacco, etc. – while people there are starving. ing starving African children on TV. If you do send money McDonald’s is directly involved in this economic imperial- to Band Aid, or shop at Oxfam, etc., that’s morally good ism, which keeps most black people poor and hungry while but politically useless. It shifts the blame from governments many whites grow fat. and does nothing to challenge the power of multinational corporations. 4 To the right is a typical image of ‘Third World’ poverty – the kind often used by charities to get ‘compassion money’. This diverts attention from one cause: exploitation by multi- nationals like McDonald’s.
GROSS MISUSE OF RESOURCES
GRAIN is fed to cattle in South American countries to pro- duce the meat in McDonald’s hamburgers. Cattle consume ten times the amount of grain and soy that humans do: one calorie of beef demands ten calories of grain. Of the 145 million tons of grain fed to livestock, only 21 million tons of meat and by-products are used. The waste is 124 million tons per year at a value of 20 billion US dollars. It has been calculated that this sum would feed, clothe and house the COLONIAL INVASION world’s entire population for one year. Not only are McDonald’s and many other corporations con- FIFTY ACRES EVERY MINUTE tributing to a major ecological catastrophe, they are forcing the tribal peoples in the rainforests off their ancestral ter- EVERY year an area of rainforest the size of Britain is cut ritories where they have lived peacefully, without damaging down or defoliated, and burnt. Globally, one billion people their environment, for thousands of years. This is a typical depend on water flowing from these forests, which soak up example of the arrogance and viciousness of multinational rain and release it gradually. The disaster in Ethiopia and companies in their endless search for more and more profit. Sudan is at least partly due to uncontrolled deforestation. In Amazonia – where there are now about 100,000 beef It’s no exaggeration to say that when you bite into a Big ranches – torrential rains sweep down through the treeless Mac, you’re helping the McDonald’s empire to wreck this valleys, eroding the land and washing away the soil. The planet. bare earth, baked by the tropical sun, becomes useless for agriculture. It has been estimated that this destruction What’s so unhealthy about McDonald’s causes at least one species of animal, plant or insect to food? become extinct every few hours. McDONALD’s try to show in their ‘Nutrition Guide’ (which Why is it wrong for McDonald’s to is full of impressive-looking but really quite irrelevant facts destroy rainforests? & figures) that mass-produced hamburgers, chips, colas, milkshakes, etc., are a useful and nutritious part of any diet. AROUND the Equator there is a lush green belt of incredibly beautiful tropical forest, untouched by human development What they don’t make clear is that a diet high in fat, sugar, for one hundred million years, supporting about half of all animal products and salt (sodium), and low in fibre, vitamins Earth’s life-forms, including some 30,000 plant species, and minerals – which describes an average McDonald’s and producing a major part of the planet’s crucial supply of meal – is linked with cancers of the breast and bowel, and oxygen. heart disease. This is accepted medical fact, not a cranky theory. Every year in Britain, heart disease alone causes PET FOOD & LITTER about 180,000 deaths.
McDonald’s and Burger King are two of the many US cor- FAST = JUNK porations using lethal poisons to destroy vast areas of Cen- tral American rainforest to create grazing pastures for cattle Even if they like eating them, most people recognize that
to be sent back to the States as burgers and pet food, and processed burgers and synthetic chips, served up in paper SCREEN EDUCATION to provide fast-food packaging materials. (Don’t be fooled and plastic containers, is junk-food. McDonald’s prefer the by McDonald’s saying they use recycled paper: only a tiny name ‘fast-food’. This is not just because it is manufac- per cent of it is. The truth is it takes 800 square miles of for- tured and served up as quickly as possible – it has to be est just to keep them supplied with paper for one year. Tons eaten quickly too. It’s a sign of the junk-quality of Big Macs of this ends up littering the cities of ‘developed’ countries.) that people actually hold competitions to see who can eat one in the shortest time. 5 PAYING FOR THE HABIT Few children are slow to spot the gaudy red and yel- low standardized frontages in shopping centres and high Chewing is essential for good health, as it promotes the streets throughout the country. McDonald’s know exactly flow of digestive juices which break down the food and what kind of pressure this puts on people looking after send nutrients into the blood. McDonald’s food is so lack- children. It’s hard not to give in to this ‘convenient’ way ing in bulk it is hardly possible to chew it. Even their own of keeping children ‘happy’, even if you haven’t got much figures show that a ‘quarter-pounder’ is forty-eight per money and you try to avoid junk-food. cent water. This sort of fake food encourages over-eating, and the high sugar and sodium content can make people TOY FOOD develop a kind of addiction – a ‘craving’. That means more profit for McDonald’s, but constipation, clogged arteries As if to compensate for the inadequacy of their products, and heart attacks for many customers. McDonald’s promote the consumption of meals as a ‘fun event’. This turns the act of eating into a performance, with GETTING THE CHEMISTRY RIGHT the ‘glamour’ of being in a McDonald’s (‘Just like it is in the ads!’) reducing the food itself to the status of a prop. McDONALD’s stripey staff uniforms, flashy lighting, bright Not a lot of children are interested in nutrition, and even if plastic decor, ‘Happy Hats’ and muzak, are all part of the they were, all the gimmicks and routines with paper hats gimmicky dressing-up of low-quality food which has been and straws and balloons hide the fact that the food they’re designed down to the last detail to look and feel and taste seduced into eating is at best mediocre, at worst poisonous exactly the same in any outlet anywhere in the world. To – and their parents know it’s not even cheap. achieve this artificial conformity, McDonald’s require that their ‘fresh lettuce leaf’, for example, is treated with twelve RONALD’S DIRTY SECRET different chemicals just to keep it the right colour at the right crispness for the right length of time. It might as well ONCE told the grim story about how hamburgers are made, be a bit of plastic. children are far less ready to join in Ronald McDonald’s per- verse antics. With the right prompting, a child’s imagination How do McDonald’s deliberately exploit can easily turn a clown into a bogeyman (a lot of children children? are very suspicious of clowns anyway). Children love a secret, and Ronald’s is especially disgusting. NEARLY all McDonald’s advertising is aimed at children. Al- though the Ronald McDonald ‘personality’ is not as popular In what way are McDonald’s responsible as their market researchers expected (probably because for torture and murder? it is totally unoriginal), thousands of young children now think of burgers and chips every time they see a clown with THE menu at McDonald’s is based on meat. They sell mil- orange hair. lions of burgers every day in thirty-five countries throughout the world. This means the constant slaughter, day by day, THE NORMALITY TRAP of animals born and bred solely to be turned into McDon- ald’s products. No parent needs to be told how difficult it is to distract a child from insisting on a certain type of food or treat. Ad- Some of them – especially chickens and pigs – spend
vertisements portraying McDonald’s as a happy, circus-like their lives in the entirely artificial conditions of huge factory SCREEN EDUCATION place where burgers and chips are provided for everybody farms, with no access to air or sunshine and no freedom of at any hour of the day (and late at night), traps children into movement. Their deaths are bloody and barbaric. thinking they aren’t ‘normal’ if they don’t go there too. Ap- petite, necessity and – above all – money, never enter the MURDERING A BIG MAC ‘innocent’ world of Ronald McDonald. In the slaughterhouse, animals often struggle to escape. 6 Cattle become frantic as they watch the animal before them McDonald’s have a policy of preventing unionization by in the killing-line being prodded, beaten, electrocuted, and getting rid of pro-union workers. So far this has succeeded knifed. everywhere in the world except Sweden, and in Dublin after a long struggle. A recent British government report criticized inefficient stunning methods that frequently result in animals hav- TRAINED TO SWEAT ing their throats cut while still fully conscious. McDonald’s are responsible for the deaths of countless animals by It’s obvious that all large chain-stores and junk-food giants this supposedly humane method. We have the choice to depend for their fat profits on the labour of young people. eat meat or not. The 450 million animals killed for food in McDonald’s is no exception: three-quarters of its workers Britain every year have no choice at all. It is often said that are under twenty-one. The production-line system deskills after visiting an abattoir, people become nauseous at the the work itself: anybody can grill a hamburger, and cleaning thought of eating flesh. How many of us would be prepared toilets or smiling at customers needs no training. So there to work in a slaughterhouse and kill the animals we eat? is no need to employ chefs or qualified staff – just anybody prepared to work for low wages. WHAT’S YOUR POISON? As there is no legally-enforced minimum wage in Britain, MEAT is responsible for seventy per cent of all food-poi- McDonald’s can pay what they like, helping to depress soning incidents, with chicken and minced meat (as used wage levels in the catering trade still further. They say they in burgers) being the worst offenders. When animals are are providing jobs for school-leavers and take them on slaughtered, meat can be contaminated with gut con- regardless of sex or race. The truth is McDonald’s are only tents, faeces and urine, leading to bacterial infection. In an interested in recruiting cheap labour – which always means attempt to counteract infection in their animals, farmers that disadvantaged groups, women and black people routinely inject them with doses of antibiotics. These, in especially, are even more exploited by industry than they addition to growth-promoting hormone drugs and pesticide are already. residues in their feed, build up in the animals’ tissues and can further damage the health of people on a meat-based EVERYTHING MUST GO diet. WHAT’s wrong with McDonald’s is also wrong with all the What’s it like working for McDonald’s? junk-food chains like Wimpy, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Wendy, etc. All of them hide their ruthless exploitation of THERE must be a serious problem: even though eighty per resources, animals and people behind a facade of colourful cent of McDonald’s workers are part-time, the annual staff gimmicks and ‘family fun’. The food itself is much the same turnover is sixty per cent (in the USA it’s 300 per cent). It’s everywhere – only the packaging is different. The rise of not unusual for their restaurant-workers to quit after just these firms means less choice, not more. They are one of four or five weeks. The reasons are not had to find. the worst examples of industries motivated only by profit, and geared to continual expansion. NO UNIONS ALLOWED This materialist mentality is affecting all areas of our lives, Workers in catering do badly in terms of pay and condi- with giant conglomerates dominating the marketplace, tions. They are at work in the evenings and at weekends, allowing little or no room for people to create genuine doing long shifts in hot, smelly, noisy environments. Wages choices. But alternatives do exist, and many are gathering are low and chances of promotion minimal. support every day from people rejecting big business in favour of small-scale self-organization and co-operation. To improve this through Trade Union negotiation is very dif- ficult: there is no union specifically for these workers, and The point is not to change McDonald’s into some sort of the ones they could join show little interest in the problems vegetarian organization, but to change the whole system
of part-timers (mostly women). A recent survey of work- itself. Anything less would still be a rip-off. SCREEN EDUCATION ers in burger-restaurants found that eighty per cent said they needed union help over pay and conditions. Another WHAT CAN BE DONE difficulty is that the ‘kitchen trade’ has a high proportion of workers from ethnic minority groups who, with little chance STOP using McDonald’s, Wimpy, etc., and tell your friends of getting work elsewhere, are wary of being sacked – as exactly why. These companies’ huge profits – and therefore many have been – for attempting union organization. power to exploit – come from people just walking in off the 7 street. It does make a difference what individuals do. Why THERE’S A DIFFERENCE YOU’LL wait for everyone else to wake up? ENJOY: NO MORE MEAT!
YOUR INFLUENCE COUNTS KICKING the burger habit is easy. And it’s the best way to start giving up meat altogether. Vegetarianism is no longer Research has shown that a large proportion of people who just a middle-class fad: last year the number of vegetarians use fast-food places do so because they are there – not in Britain increased by one-third. Most supermarkets now because they particularly like the food or feel hungry. This stock vegetarian produce, and vegans – who eat no animal fact alone suggests that hamburgers are part of a giant con products at all – are also being catered for. In short, the that people would avoid if they knew what to do. Unfortu- ‘cranky’ vegetarian label is being chucked out, along with nately we tend to undervalue our personal responsibility all the other old myths about ‘rabbit food’. and influence. This is wrong. All change in society starts from individuals taking the time to think about the way they Why not try some vegan or vegetarian recipes, just as an live and acting on their belief. Movements are ‘just ordinary experiment to start with? When asked in a survey, most people’ linking together, one by one … vegetarians who used to eat meat said they had far more varied meals after they dropped meat from their diet. An- MAKE CONTACT, SHARE IDEAS other survey showed that people on a meatless diet were healthier than meat-eaters, less prone to ‘catch’ coughs YOU might not always hear about them, but there are many and colds, and with greatly reduced risk of suffering from groups campaigning on the issues raised here – move- hernia, piles, obesity and heart disease. ments to support the struggles in the ‘Third World’, to fight for the rights of indigenous peoples, to protect rainforests, LIBERATION BEGINS IN YOUR to oppose the killing of animals etc. STOMACH
Wherever there is oppression there is resistance: people are THERE are loads of cheap, tasty and nutritious alternatives organizing themselves, taking courage from the activities of to a diet based on the decomposing flesh of dead ani- ordinary, concerned people from all round the world, learn- mals: fresh fruit of all kinds, a huge variety of local & exotic ing new ways and finding new energy to create a better life. vegetables, cereals, pulses, beans, rice, nuts, wholegrain The apathy of others is no reason to hang around waiting foods, soya drinks etc. All over the country whole food co- for someone to tell you what to ‘do’. You need no special operatives are springing up. Now is a really good time for talents to join in your local pressure group, or start one up change. – existing groups will give information and advice if neces- sary. A vegan Britain would be self-sufficient on only 25% of the agricultural land presently available. Why not get together For leaflets on all aspects of vegetarianism and nutrition, with your friends and grow your own vegetables? There are animal rights and welfare, etc., contact ANIMAL AID, 7 Cas- over 700,000 allotments in Britain – and countless gardens. tle Street, Tonbridge, Kent. Plenty of other contacts can be made by writing to Greenpeace at the address below. The pleasure of preparing healthy food and sharing good meals has a political importance too: it is a vital part of the process of ordinary people taking control of their lives to create a better society, instead of leaving their futures in the cynical, greedy hands of corporations like McDonald’s.
WHO MADE THIS LEAFLET? THE LONDON GREENPEACE GROUP has existed for many years as an independ- ent group of activists with no involvement in any particular political party. The people – not ‘members’ – who come
to the weekly open meetings share a concern for the oppression in our lives and the destruction of our environ- SCREEN EDUCATION ment. Many opposition movements are growing in strength – ecological, anti-war, animal liberation, and anarchist- libertarian movements – and continually learning from each other. We encourage people to think and act independ- ently, without leaders, to try to understand the causes of oppression and to aim for its abolition through social revolution. This begins in our own lives, now. Postal address: Greenpeace (London), 5 Caledonian Road, London N1. http://www.mcspotlight.org/case/factsheet.html 8 8 Choose the one that you think is that every right carries with it a the best approach to take. responsibility. Do you think both parties exercised their rights and What you will do now is to watch responsibilities appropriately in this McLibel to find out what McDonald’s case? Explain your reasons. actually did, and what happened as a After you have completed your sum- result. Legal system mary of the pamphlet answer these questions. EXPLORING IDEAS AND 4 Some key aspects of the legal ISSUES IN THE FILM system mentioned in this case are: 1 What is the purpose of the pam- • The idea of libel phlet? McLibel raises many interesting issues • Free speech 2 What action does it want people to about civics and citizenship, health, • Civil proceedings involving a take? the legal system, people’s rights and plaintiff (one who complains) 3 What is the tone of the pamphlet? responsibilities, and the role of indi- and a defendant 4 Does it influence your attitudes viduals in a commercial and corpora- • The European Court of Human towards McDonald’s? tized world. Rights 5 The pamphlet makes many claims against McDonald’s. Do you think it Civics and citizenship – Make sure you understand what each has proven those claims? free speech of these elements is. 6 How do you think McDonald’s would react to this pamphlet? 1 The ‘McLibel Two’ claim that the 5 McDonald’s used the legal sys- 7 Imagine that you are a McDonald’s issue was one of free speech. tem to assert their right to a good executive. Suggest possible actions Explain what they were asserting name. The legal system is sup- that you might take. List as many as their right. posed to exist in a way that settles possible actions as you can – you 2 McDonald’s claimed that their free disputes fairly. From what you do not have to think they are good speech had in fact interfered with a have seen in this documentary list things to do, just possible things. right that McDonald’s had. Explain the ways in which the legal system what this right was and how, ac- did, and did not, provide a fair Summarize the advantages and cording to McDonald’s, it had been dispute settlement system. Use disadvantages of each possible action violated by the protesters. Table 3 (on page 10). For example SCREEN EDUCATION using Table 2 (on page 10). 3 The case illustrates the principle you might say that the costs made
9 Possible action Advantages Disadvantages
Table 2
Feature Helped create Did not help create a fair dispute settlement system a fair dispute settlement system SCREEN EDUCATION
Table 3
10 it impossible for the defendants to present their case properly; or that they did not have the professional skill to match McDonald’s special- ist lawyers. On the other hand, you might say that the system allowed the defendants to put their own case; and that they had the chance to examine McDonald’s witnesses. See what features you can identify in this way. 6 Overall, do you think the system was a fair one? Explain your rea- sons.
The two protesters
7 The film focuses on the two pro- testers, Helen Steel and Dave Mor- ris. What qualities did each show in the film? 8 There were originally five people who were threatened with court action if they did not apologize. Three of them did. Why were Helen and Dave able to continue the fight The documentary in the face of so many problems? 9 Dave seems to have harmed his 13 The documentary was made for present limited information, and in relationship with his son during very little money. Do you think a way that is partisan? the trial. Should he have given in the documentary is an effective to McDonald’s for the sake of his one? In answering this question, The outcome son? Or was he right to sacrifice comment on such features as the his personal life and perhaps his structure of the film, the focus on 16 Steel and Morris made a number relationship with his son to fight for the individuals, the re-enactments, of accusations against McDon- his principles? Explain your views. the use of historical footage, the ald’s. Summarize what they 10 Are the two people heroes? interviews, and the lack of special proved, and what they failed to effects that are often used in docu- prove, using Table 4 (on page 12). The outcome mentaries. 17 The original pamphlet that led to 14 Is the film weakened by the the court case is over twenty years 11 In the end, the judge ordered absence of co-operation from Mc- old. The anti-McDonald’s forces Helen and Dave to pay money to Donald’s? Or is the filmmaker able have since changed their pam- McDonald’s. Yet Helen and Dave to overcome this problem? phlet. Look at this revised version. behave as though they have won. 15 Do you think the film provides a Go back to the original pamphlet Why do they do this? fair and accurate account of the and your table. Use Table 5 (on SCREEN EDUCATION 12 Who do you think was the winner? case that allows you to make an page 15) to compare what the two informed judgement? Or does it pamphlets say.
11 They proved: They failed to prove:
Table 4 SCREEN EDUCATION
12 McDonald’s spend over $1.8 billion every year worldwide on advertising and promotions, try- ing to cultivate an image of being a ‘caring’ and ‘green’ company that is also a fun place to eat. Children are lured in (dragging their parents behind them) with the promise of toys and other gimmicks.
ut behind the smiling face of Ronald McDonald chemical residues or unnatural practices – have become a lies the reality – McDonald’s only interest is money, danger to people too (such as BSE). Bmaking profits from whoever and whatever they can, just like all multinational companies. McDonald’s EXPLOITING WORKERS Annual Reports talk of ‘Global Domination’ – they aim to open more and more stores across the globe – but their Workers in the fast food industry are paid low wages. continual worldwide expansion means more uniformity, less McDonald’s do not pay overtime rates even when choice and the undermining of local communities. employees work very long hours. Pressure to keep profits high and wage costs low results in understaffing, so PROMOTING UNHEALTHY FOOD staff have to work harder and faster. As a consequence, accidents (particularly burns) are common. The majority of McDonald’s promote their food as ‘nutritious’, but the employees are people who have few job options and so are reality is that it is junk food – high in fat, sugar and salt, forced to accept this exploitation, and they’re compelled to and low in fibre and vitamins. A diet of this type is linked ‘smile’ too! Not surprisingly, staff turnover at McDonald’s with a greater risk of heart disease, cancer, diabetes and is high, making it virtually impossible to unionize and fight other diseases. Their food also contains many chemical for a better deal, which suits McDonald’s who have always additives, some of which may cause ill health as well as been opposed to unions. hyperactivity in children.
ROBBING THE POOR SCREEN EDUCATION Don’t forget too that meat is the cause of the majority of food poisoning incidents. In 1991, McDonald’s were Vast areas of land in poor countries are used for cash crops responsible for an outbreak of food poisoning in the UK, in or for cattle ranching, or to grow grain to feed animals to which people suffered serious kidney failure. With modern be eaten in the West. This is at the expense of local food intensive farming methods, other diseases – linked to needs. McDonald’s continually promote meat products, 13 encouraging people to eat meat more often, which wastes the mid-1980’s, London Greenpeace drew together many more and more food resources. Seven million tons of grain of those strands of criticism and called for an annual World fed to livestock produces only one million tons of meat and Day of Action against McDonald’s. This takes place every by-products. On a plant-based diet and with land shared year on 16th October, with pickets and demonstrations fairly, almost every region could be self-sufficient in food. all over the world. McDonald’s, who spend a fortune every year on advertising, are trying to silence world-wide DAMAGING THE ENVIRONMENT criticism by threatening legal action against those who speak out. Many have been forced to back down because Forests throughout the world – vital for all life – are being they lacked the money to fight a case. But Helen Steel destroyed at an appalling rate by multinational companies. and Dave Morris, two supporters of London Greenpeace, McDonald’s have at last been forced to admit to using beef defended themselves in a major UK High Court libel trial. reared on ex-rainforest land, preventing its regeneration. No legal aid was available so they represented themselves. Also, the use of farmland by multinationals and their McDonald’s engaged in a huge cover up, refusing suppliers forces local people to move on to other areas and to disclose masses of relevant documents. Also, the cut down further trees. defendants were denied their right to a jury. Despite all the cards being stacked against them, Helen and Dave turned McDonald’s are the world’s largest user of beef. Methane the tables and exposed the truth by putting McDonald’s emitted by cattle reared for the beef industry is a major business practices on trial. Protests against the $30 billion contributor to the ‘global warming’ crisis. Modern intensive a year fast-food giant continue to grow. It’s vital to stand up agriculture is based on the heavy use of chemicals which to intimidation and to defend free speech. are damaging to the environment. WHAT YOU CAN DO Every year McDonald’s use thousands of tons of unnecessary packaging, most of which ends up littering our Together we can fight back against the institutions and the streets or polluting the land buried in landfill sites. people in power who dominate our lives and our planet, and we can create a better society without exploitation. MURDERING ANIMALS Workers can and do organize together to fight for their rights and dignity. People are increasingly aware of the The menus of the burger chains are based on the torture need to think seriously about the food we and our children and murder of millions of animals. Most are intensively eat. People in poor countries are organizing themselves to farmed, with no access to fresh air and sunshine, and no stand up to multinationals and banks which dominate the freedom of movement. Their deaths are barbaric – ‘humane world’s economy. Environmental and animal rights protests slaughter’ is a myth. We have the choice to eat meat or not, and campaigns are growing everywhere. Why not join in but the billions of animals massacred for food each year the struggle for a better world. Talk to friends and family, have no choice at all. neighbours and workmates about these issues. Please copy and circulate this leaflet as widely as you can. CENSORSHIP and McLIBEL http://www.mcspotlight.org/case/pretrial/factsheet_new. Criticism of McDonald’s has come from a huge number of html people and organizations over a wide range of issues. In SCREEN EDUCATION
14 Aspect What the old pamphlet says What the new pamphlet says
Environment
Nutrition
Advertising
Animal welfare
Working conditions in stores
What you can do SCREEN EDUCATION
Table 5
15 persuasive pamphlet? Why? 25 One of the aims of the documen- 21 An important part of our democ- tary may be to encourage viewers racy is people’s right to campaign not to eat at McDonald’s. Does it responsibly on issues of concern influence you in this way? Explain to them. List ways in which people why or why not. carry out such campaigns today. In doing so, look at how people such OTHER RESOURCES as critics of McDonald’s use the internet and YouTube as alterna- There is a good summary of the tives to more traditional means of McLibel case in the Wikipedia influencing people’s ideas. In doing entry for ‘McLibel case’ at
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