Day 284 - 22 Oct 96 - Page 09
1 find it to show that your recollection is right and mine is
2 wrong.
3
4 MR. MORRIS: So the first thing is the context in the fact
5 sheet of this section. I am just tying to get an actual
6 copy of the fact sheet. Of course, nobody reading this
7 fact sheet would be surprised that it is critical of
8 McDonald's because on the front page it says, 'Everything
9 they don't want you to know'. I think that is an important
10 point. I am not sure that we have made it before, that it
11 is quite honestly on first glance going to be a critical
12 leaflet, fact sheet.
13
14 Anybody that does not want to read criticism of McDonald's
15 would not want to read the fact sheet if it was handed to
16 them. So it is all open and aboveboard from the very word
17 go. It is not claiming to be anything that it is not. It
18 is not seducing people by pretending to be one thing and
19 actually being something else.
20
21 Secondly, obviously, the general context of the leaflet,
22 and I said this yesterday, but just in one sentence the
23 general context is clearly one of criticising a whole
24 economic system and approach based upon profits through
25 exploitation of the environment and customers and workers
26 and animals, which is a standard view held by hundreds of
27 millions of people the world over. That is what capitalism
28 is all about. So, no surprises there.
29
30 McDonald's has a particularly high profile and is an
31 influential corporation within the food industry, is a
32 focus of the fact sheet, but the fact sheet makes plain
33 throughout, virtually in every paragraph, so that no-one
34 can mistake that what is wrong with McDonald's is also
35 wrong with other multi-national corporations. Sometimes
36 the words 'US corporations' is used, sometimes 'giant
37 corporations' is used, sometimes 'other junk food chains
38 like Wimpey, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Wendy's', et cetera.
39
40 That is the 'everything must go' box. I think the
41 'everything must go' box in the fact sheet makes
42 completely clear the context of the fact sheet. It talks
43 about materialist mentality, giant conglomerates dominating
44 the market place, and talking about alternatives.
45
46 So that leads me to my second contextual point, which is
47 that the alternatives, that positive desire for a better
48 world and better planet, you know, protection of the
49 environment and a better life for people, pervades the
50 whole fact sheet.
51
52 And in fact the back page, which was not considered
53 defamatory by McDonald's, is a very important part of the
54 fact sheet, where it talks about alternatives and what
55 people can do. It does not say anywhere about -- I mean,
56 it says what you can do, it suggests people think for
57 themselves, begin to consider what they do in their lives,
58 create alternatives, grow their own food, take part in
59 campaigns, become educated. It does not say 'pick on
60 McDonald's'. It hardly mentions McDonald's at all, except
