Companies Should Support Local Communities :: Argumentative Persuasive Argument Essays

Companies Should Support Local Communities In a series of films, Michael Moore presents the fact that some people are greedy with their money. In his first film, Roger and Me, Moore tries to get Roger Smith, President of G.M., to visit Flint, Michigan, so he can see how closing a factory, where 30,000 people used to work, affects a community. (Smith closed eleven factories in America, opened new factories in Mexico and paid the workers $.70 an hour, so he could personally profit.) Moore wants Roger Smith, to be aware of how his actions hurt a society and instead of using the money to enrich himself he should assist those in his own community. In Moore’s second film Pets or Meat: The Return to Flint, not much had changed in Flint. Many people remained unemployed. As for Smith, he did make profits from Mexico but didn't use his money to better the community as suggested in the cartoon. Instead Smith continued to negatively affect the families that were once comfortable with their jobs and education. Their lives were continuing to slide down the occupational hierarchy, some even ending with poverty (Newman). Alter Jonathan stated in his essay, "The divide between rich and poor in the United States is now greater than at any time since the Great Depression. The richest 2.7 million Americans now have as much income as the poorest 100 million. These trends are being driven by technology." I agree that technology does affect this trend, but it is also due to people like Roger Smith who choose to ignore the importance of bettering American communities, and instead choose to indulge themselves with excess profit by taking a dvantage of those in foreign countries. By the time Moore’s third film, The Big One, came out many more companies were falling into Roger Smith's footsteps. Finally, however, Moore was able to get his message across to the CEO of Nike, Phil Night. Night took the advice of the father (Moore) and donated a mere $10,000 of his profits, to a school in Flint. Getting the message across to Night, however, was not easy. Moore was very persistent and had to repeatedly appeal to Night, much like Jo Goodwin Parker does in the essay What is Poverty? Parker gives a first hand description of poverty and in practically every sentence describes how poverty is dirt, it is asking for help knowing it won't get you far, and it is always being tired and hungry.