NARRATOR

®^TMark has helped fund the sabotage or subversion of dozens of corporate products. As a privately held corporation, ®^TMark allows investors to participate in blacklisted or illegal cultural production with minimum risk.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

"...I see in the near future a crisis emerging that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. As result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands, and the Republic is destroyed." (1864)

HISTORIAN

Twenty-one years after Lincoln was assassinated, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations were persons under the law.

CORPORATE MONITOR

Multinational corporations have moved to a level that was never imagined by even the most brazen of the robber barons.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

"I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war. God grant that my suspicions may prove groundless." (1864, continuation)

ANDREI CODRESCU

There's a big difference between the new corporations and the old robber barons. The new workers in the new corporations believe they are the corporation.

HISTORIAN

Corporations can't be "responsible"--they're just machines of economic enterprise.

(Title sequence)

NBC NEWS

"And what has happened to Barbie? She's the talk of GI Joe!"

NARRATOR

®^TMark effected its first high-profile act of worker-based sabotage in 1993, when it channeled $8000 to a group that switched the voiceboxes of 300 GI Joe and Barbie Dolls. The veterans' group that provided the money used ®^TMark to displace its liability for the action.

In another success story, a New York shopkeeper anonymously paid $5000 through ®^TMark for a programmer to add homoerotic content to Simcopter, a computer-based video game. Nearly 80,000 altered copies made their way to the homes of consumers.

The Worldwide Web has allowed ®^TMark to achieve greater accessibility, faster turnover rates, more precisely tuned outreach techniques, and a higher profile for the organization and its services.

Today, visitors to RTMark.com can freely browse, suggest and fund projects, offer their services, and avail themselves of ancillary resources like searches, archives, and bulletin boards.

The core of the ®^TMark system is a database of unfulfilled sabotage projects. Each of these projects has four simple keys: the worker, the idea, capital investment, and ®^TMark's corporate veil.

The first key to any ®^TMark project is the idea. A project idea can be submitted through RTMark.com by any party, including the proposed worker or funder. ®^TMark is a market-driven system, and any idea that meets the bottom line criterion of attack without physical injury is listed prominently on RTMark.com.

The worker is the most important key to any ®^TMark project. Widespread corporate use of internet resources assures that ®^TMark's workers represent a diverse cross-section of the population.

The third ®^TMark key is anonymous capital. Although most workers do not perform ®^TMark actions for the sake of gain, financial rewards can provide a small measure of comfort, or inspiration.

Finally ®^TMark provides the "corporate veil" that displaces liability from funder and worker. ®^TMark also helps maximize the project's performance and profile with public relations efforts that highlight intrinsic key issues.

When all factors correctly combine, the net result can be wonderful.

®^TMark's first high-profile action since integrating the internet into its cross-media strategy was a compact disc of illegal resampling from the music of recording artist Beck. Because of RTMark.com's heavy daily traffic, worker, idea and funds were united in record time; Deconstructing Beck is now in its fourth printing.

At RTMark.com, sabotage projects are divided into popular "mutual funds" that offer high cultural dividends with risk levels tailored to the needs of diverse market sectors. The ®^TMark mutual fund system is modelled after its financial counterpart, and its aims are very similar.

HISTORIAN

When low- and middle-income people buy stocks and mutual funds, they're very effectively drawn into identifying corporate needs as their own, even against their real interests, like safety in the workplace and health care.

EDUCATOR

In a recent senate race I voted for a "free markets" candidate, thinking it would be good for my 401(k). But now the guy is taking away financial aid--which makes me think I'll have to use my retirement money for my daughter's education.

NARRATOR

The ®^TMark mutual funds, like their financial counterparts, enable laypeople with minimum time and knowledge to invest strategically by leveraging the wisdom and skill of specialized experts. ®^TMark's mutual fund managers have shown substantial staying power by personally delivering the highest dividends even in the cultural bear markets of the '80s and early '90s.

®™ark's Media Fund is managed by Andrei Codrescu, prolific author and NPR commentator. One successful Media Fund project was "World Phone In Sick Day."

ANDREI CODRESCU

Quite a few people phoned in sick, and immediately afterwards 10,000 policemen in England called sick. I think if enough people did that, the machinery might falter.

NARRATOR

®^TMark offers subject based and risk assessed fundsfor every investment need. New funds are regularly created to cater to our growing investor pool and the constantly changing marketplace.

The Corporate Law fund contains projects that challenge the legal rights and powers that corporations have arrogated over the years. The Corporate Law fund can be considered the distillation of ®^TMark's core aims and values.

HISTORIAN

In 1886 the Supreme Court ruled that corporations were persons under the 14th Amendment--which had been written to protect the rights of freed slaves. But their vast wealth makes corporations more powerful than any other persons.

EDUCATOR

If I want to talk to my congressman, I can e-mail him instantly, but he'll probably never read it; whereas GM or Microsoft, if they want to talk to my congressman, their lobbyist is having lunch with him the next day.

HISTORIAN

Once they were declared to be people, corporations could take control of a vast range of activities that the Founding Fathers had expressly reserved for citizens.

CORPORATE MONITOR

Corporations have the rights of people, but not the liabilities. What if "three strikes" laws applied to corporations? What about 10,000 strikes? Union Carbide was found responsible for the deaths of 10,000 people, but they're still in business.

ANDREI CODRESCU

Corporations should be considered guilty from the start and they should have to prove their innocence.

HIST

Corporations have been subverting the US Constitution since 1886. They have systematically rewritten the law in their favor. We have to step in and say enough is enough--put the power of law and government back in the hands of people... real people.

NARRATOR

Addressing cutting-edge issues of corporate power presents a formidable challenge to ®^TMark, one that will not be met overnight. With an eye to the future, ®^TMark helps focus the sometimes scattershot dissatisfaction of corporate workers on the appropriate target.

WGBH channel 7 voiceover:

This man was caught on camera, urinating in the office coffeepot!

NARRATOR

®^TMark turns knee-jerk responses to corporate power into effective actions with lasting results.

ANDREI CODRESCU

It is vulnerable because it is composed of individuals. individuals with a secret resentment that goes against the organism of which they are a part.

TESTIMONIALS from investors and workers

SCOTT MACDONALD Professor

Now that my wife and I are retired, our deepest concern is the environment. And we all know what happens with the environment when corporate interests have their way. I believe that the only way to save any of the environment for people is to interrupt corporate interests, and that's why I'm investing in ®^TMark.

TREVOR REYNOLDS Manager

®^TMark provides me with an outlet for those feelings I can't express on the job. My investment in ®^TMark is truly a win-win situation.

VEVA EDELSON Owner, Firefly Restaurant

As a successful restaurateur, I have been approached by investment managers many times. But I tell them I'm not interested in the stock market. I make my investments in culture. ®^TMark.

NARRATOR

Investors and workers together insure that ®^TMark continues to be the industry leader in bringing sabotage and blacklisted cultural production into the public marketplace.

ANDREI CODRESCU