The Corporate Congress

When I read the phrase “excessive greed or extreme exploitation”, I immediately thought of the TV show Continuum (it’s on Netflix, if you’re interested). The show follows a law enforcement officer named Kiera Cameron who attempts to stop the terrorist group “Liber8”. The setting is present day Vancouver (the Canadians make great sci-fi shows), but Kiera and the terrorists are from the year 2077. Brought back in time by a strange device, Liber8 is attempting to change the future, a future controlled by the “Corporate Congress”. Liber8’s goal is to prevent the rise of the corporate regime and the loss of freedom through Orwellian ideals. The economic and political systems are controlled by the corporations and their interests through propaganda, surveillance, misinformation, denial of truth, and the manipulation of the past. Even the City Protective Services, or CPS, for which Kiera works is owned by these corporations.

I don’t believe it was the money that motivated the corporations and their CEOs to take over, but the want for more power. The power that the “Corporate Congress” displays through its control of its citizens is what’s truly monstrous. There are several examples of extreme exploitation and abuse of power in the show. One such abuse of power was the illegalization of small farms to crush the competitors of new genetically modified plants grown at corporation owned farms. There is a scene in the show where a group of these small time farmers went into hiding in the mountains to continue their self-sustaining and peaceful lives. When they were discovered by the corporations, they were fire bombed and branded terrorists, justifying their pacification. The same monstrous corporations were also responsible for the creation of a deadly bio-weapon, for which they sell the only antidote. The power these corporations hold allows them to get their way on their interests. The best way for them to safeguard this power is to control the people and their way of life. Money isn’t the cause of this monstrous behavior, but a means toward being corrupted to this point.

The writers of this show also make us question if the terrorist group, Liber8, that aims to free the people is even the real enemy, or is it the corporations that have taken that freedom from us. Liber8 kills thousands of people in 2077 to bring attention to their cause, but does that compare to the millions that have no life due to the corporations stripping their freedoms? The question of who is the true monster remains for the audience to decide.

Spoiler:

Building even more on the monstrous nature of the corporations and their CEOs, it comes out later in the show that the CEO from one of the most powerful tech companies, the one that owns the CPS in fact, planned out the entire plot for Liber8’s escape to the past. This shows that the truly powerful are tempted by power and have ambitions to go even further and become god-like, molding the course of history to their will.