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

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