I watched this movie last Tuesday. It’s a documentary about the Enron downfall. It’s very informative for someone who didn’t know a lot of the details of what Enron was and did. From my perspective the movie did not take any sort of slanted bias in any direction. They did seem to make the governer of California (previous to Arnold), Gray Davis, look like a victim of the corruption of Enron, you can decide if that’s biased or not. Now for my commentary.
It’s not very often in life we see big examples of the negative consequences of not following basic values. Our world seems to teach our children, “don’t lie, cheat, or steal… but if you can do it secretly and get away with it, then go for it.” I spend my days trying to teach high school kids that living by virtues like honesty and respect is in the best interest of ourselves and our world. Yet, everyday there are a thousand situations like the Enron scandal where people get away with it. They go on to live lavish and enjoyable lives while others our cheated out of their mere survival needs.
In the movie you see a guy who’s worked his job laying powerlines for twenty some years. Enron took over his company and the guys on top fraudently took a lot of money. Now this gentleman’s $300,000 pension is just $1200. That’s his retirement, that’s his life. I think far more often then we realize, those situations are happening. It’s rare that it comes into the light and we can point and say, “this is not good.”
I don’t have any real strong point to make about this whole thing. When I saw the front page news about Worldcom and Enron, or political corruption like Abramoff and Tennessee’s legislative corruption, the first thing I thought was, “Is this surprising?”