Corporations controlled by a large and primarily anonymous group of shareholders are not guided by the same morality or ethics most of us follow, and if they happen to have a CEO at the helm who is a 'people first, profits second' kind of individual, there is no doubt that person will not be in a position of power for long.

Corporations are neither good nor evil, they are simply large business entities. But we have to all understand, and it should be very clear by now, that Corporations cannot afford to care or be concerned with individuals beyond what they, the Corporations, can get out of them.

"Only when journalists go home do the consequences gradually surface. An important part of the oil has been blasted, with pressurized hot water, under the surface sands. Birds, fish, mammals will eat contaminated food for years to come. Certain species, like herring, will never recover, creating a permanent economic crisis for the fishermen of the Sound. And as bankruptcies begin, a wave of social problems like alcohol, divorce and even suicide engulfs small towns all over the Sound.

A class-action suit involving 32,000 people seems to end in a huge victory. A jury orders Exxon to pay five billion dollars. But battalions of lawyers commanded by Exxon engage in a drawn-out judicial war that slows the legal system down to a crawl. When the case finally ends up before the U.S. Supreme Court, it brings the award down to one tenth of the original amount. The decision, a victory for ExxonMobil, constitutes a bitter defeat for the people of Cordova.

Toward the end of their judicial saga, Riki Ott and the fishers of Cordova ask if corporate values have trumped human rights and community values in the United States today. And they look for ways to rebuild their lives."